Full text of "The collected works of Edward Sapir"

o'iio 



The 

Collected Works 

of 

Edward Sapir 

III 



w 

DE 

G 



The (\illccted Works o( Edward Sapir 
Editorial Board 

Philip Sapir 
Editor-in-Chief 

William Bright 

Regna Darnell 

Victor Golla 

Eric P. Hamp 

Richard Handler 

Judith T. Irvine 

Pierre Swiggers 



The 

Collected Works 

of 

Edward Sapir 

III 

Culture 

Volume Editors 
Sections I and III 

Regna Darnell 
Judith T. Irvine 

Section II 

Judith T. Irvine 

Section IV and V 

Richard Handler 



1999 

Mouton de Gruyter 

Berlin • New York 



M 



rmcrlv Vlouton, Ihc Hague) 

Jc Cir'uvicr timbH & Co. KG. Berlin. 



, Pnn,cd on acd-lrcc paper . h.ch falls w.thm the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence 
dnd durjbihtN 



lihrarv of Congress Cataloging-m-Puhlication-Data 



Sapir. Edward. 1884-1939 

Culture / \olume editors. Regna Darnell ... [et al.]. 

p cm. - (The collected works of Edward Sapir ; 3) 

Includes bibliographical references and index. 

ISBN 3-11-012639-7 (alk. paper) 

I Culture. 2. Cognition and cuhure. 3. Ethnopsychology. 
I Darnell. Regna. II. Title. III. Series: Sapir, Edward, 
18*4- 1939. Works. 1990 ; 3. 
GN357.S27 1999 

30ft dc:i 98-33370 

CIP 



Drulsche Bihliothek - Cataloging in Puhlication Data 



Sapir, FUlward: 

(The collected works] 

The collected works of Edward Sapir / ed. board Philip Sapir 

ed -m-chief . - Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter 

ISBN 3-II-0I0I04-1 (Berlin) 

ISBN 0-89925-138-2 (New York) 

3. Culture / vol. ed. Regna Darnell ; Judith T. Irvine - 1999 
ISBN 3-1 1 -01 2639-7 



© Copyright 1999 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D- 1 0785 Berlin. 
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book 
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ- 
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Edward Sapir, about 1928, Chicago, Illinois 

(Courtesy of Sapir family) 



Edward Sapir (1884-1939) has been referred to as "one of the 
most brilliant scholars in linguistics and anthropology in our coun- 
try" (Franz Boas) and as "one of the greatest figures in American 
humanistic scholarship" (Franklin Edgerton). His classic book. Lan- 
guage (1921), is still in use, and many of his papers in general linguis- 
tics, such as "Sound Patterns in Language" and "The Psychological 
Reality of Phonemes," stand also as classics. The development of the 
American descriptive school of structural linguistics, including the 
adoption of phonemic principles in the study of non-literary lan- 
guages, was primarily due to him. 

The large body of work he carried out on Native American lan- 
guages has been called "ground-breaking" and "monumental" and 
includes descriptive, historical, and comparative studies. They are of 
continuing importance and relevance to today's scholars. 

Not to be ignored are his studies in Indo-European, Semitic, and 
African languages, which have been characterized as "masterpieces 
of brilliant association" (Zellig Harris). Further, he is recognized as 
a forefather of ethnolinguistic and sociolinguistic studies. 

In anthropology Sapir contributed the classic statement on the the- 
ory and methodology of the American school of Franz Boas in his 
monograph, "Time Perspective in Aboriginal American Culture" 
(1916). His major contribution, however, was as a pioneer and pro- 
ponent for studies on the interrelation of culture and personality, of 
society and the individual, providing the theoretical basis for what is 
known today as symbolic anthropology. 

He was, in addition, a poet, and contributed papers on aesthetics, 
literature, music, and social criticism. 



Note to the Reader 



ThrouglKHii Ihc Collected Works of Edward Sapir, those publications 
whose typographic complexity would have made new typesetting and 
proofreading ditVicult have been photographically reproduced. All other 
material has been newly typeset. When possible, the editors have 
worked from Sapir's personal copies of his published work, incorporat- 
ing his corrections and additions into the reset text. Such emendations 
are acknowledged in the endnotes. Where the editors themselves have 
corrected an obvious typographical error, this is noted by brackets 
around the corrected form. 

The page numbers of the original publication are retained in the 
photographically reproduced material; in reset material, the original 
publication's pagination appears as bracketed numbers within the text 
at the point where the original page break occurred. To avoid confusion 
and to conform to the existing literature, the page numbers cited in 
introductions and editorial notes are those of the original publications. 

Footnotes which appeared in the original publications appear here as 
footnotes. Editorial notes appear as endnotes. Endnote numbers are 
placed in the margins of photographically reproduced material; in reset 
material they are inserted in the text as superscript numbers in brackets. 
The Tirst, unnumbered endnote for each work contains the citation of 
the original publication and, where appropriate, an acknowledgment of 
permission to reprint the work here. 

All citations of Sapir's works in the editorial matter throughout these 
volumes conform to the master bibliography that appears in Volume 
XVI; since not all works will be cited in any given volume, the letters 
following the dates are discontinuous within a single volume's refer- 
ences. In volumes where unpublished materials by Sapir have been 
cited, a list of the items cited and the archives holding them is appended 
to the References. 



Contents 

Frontispiece: Edward Sapir, about 1928 6 

Preface 15 

Section One: Culture, Society, and the Individual 
REGNA DARNELL AND JUDITH T. IRVINE, EDITORS 

Introduction 19 

Do We Need a "Superorganic"? (1917) 27 

Culture, Genuine and Spurious (1924) 43 

Notes on Psychological Orientation in a Given Society (1926): 

Hanover Conference Presentation and excerpts of discussion 73 

Anthropology and Sociology (1927) 99 

Speech as a Personality Trait (1927) 119 

The Meaning of Religion (1928) 133 

Proceedings, First Colloquium on Personality, American Psychi- 
atric Association (1928) 147 

The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society (1928) .... 155 
Proceedings, Second Colloquium on Personality, American Ps\- 

chiatric Association (1930) 173 

The Cultural Approach to the Study of Personality ( 1930): 

Hanover Conference presentation and excerpts of discussion 1 99 
Original Memorandum to the Social Science Research C ouiicil 243 
A Project for the Study of Acculturation among the American 
Indians, with Special Reference to the Investigation o( Prob- 
lems of Personality 246 

The Proposed Work of the Committee on Pcrsonalii> and 

Culture 249 

Custom (1931) 255 

Fashion (1931) 265 

Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry (1932) 277 



10 /// Oil lure 

Group (1932) 293 

The l-mcrgcncc o\~ the Concept o( Personality in a Study of 

Cultures"! 1934) 303 

Personality (1934) 313 

S>mbolism (1934) 319 

Extracts from the Proceedings of the Conference on Personality 

and Culture (1935) . . . . ^ 327 

Suniniar\ o\' proceedings and excerpts of discussion, 1935 . . . 328 

Extracts from the minutes, 1936 and 1938 meetings of the 
C\^mmitlee on Personality in Relation to Culture 332 

The Application of Anthropology to Human Relations (1936) . . 335 

The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior 
in Society (1937) 343 

\Mi> Cultural Anthropology Needs the Psychiatrist (1938) .... 353 

Letter to Philip S. Selznick, 25 October 1938 (1980) 363 

Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business of Getting a 
Living (1939) 367 

References. Section One 381 

Shction Two: The Psychology of Culture 
JUDITH I IRVINE, EDITOR 

Acknowledgements 387 

Introduction 3g9 

Outlme for I'/w Psychology of Culture {\92^) 413 

The Psychology of Culture (1927-37) 421 

References, Section Two 579 

Section Thru;: Assessments of Psychology and Psychiatry 
REGNA DARNELL AND JUDITH T IRVINE, EDITORS 

Introduction /-^^ 

A Freudian Half-Holiday: Review of Sigmund Freud, Delusion 

ami Dream (1917) ^qc 



Contents 11 

Psychoanalysis as PathUndcr: Review of Oskar Pfister. The Psy- 
choanalytic Method (\9\1) 699 

A Touchstone to Freud: Review of William \\. R. Rivers. Instinct 

and the Unconscious (1921) 704 

Practical Psychology: Review of Frederick Pierce, Our Lucon- 
scious Mind and How to Use It {\922) 708 

An Orthodox Psychology: Review of Robert S. Woodworth. 
Psychology (1922) 711 

Two Kinds of Human Beings: Review of Carl G. Jung, Psycho- 
logical Types {\92?>) 714 

Review of George A. Dorsey, Why We Behave Like Human Be- 
ings {\926) 719 

Review of Knight Dunlap, Old and New Viewpoints In Psychology 
(1926) '.....'. 720 

Speech and Verbal Thought in Childhood: Review of Jean Piaget. 
The Language and Thought of the Child {\921) 722 

Psychoanalysis as Prophet: Review of Sigmund Freud, The Future 
of an Illusion (1928 725 

References, Section Three 727 



Section Four: Reflections on Contemporary Civilization 
RICHARD HANDLER, EDITOR 

Introduction to Sections Four and Five: Edward Sapir's Aesthetic 
and Cultural Criticism 731 

Culture in the Melting Pot (1916) 749 

Review of Paul Abelson, English-Yiddish Encyclopedic Dictionary 
(1916) 753 

God as Visible Personality: Review of Samuel Butler, (iiul the 

Known and God the Unknowtt (1918) 756 

The Ends of Man: Review of J. M. Tyler, The \cw Stone Age in 
Northern Europe; Stewart Paton, Human Behavior: and E. G. 
Conklin. Hw Direction of Ilunuin Evolution (1921) 760 



12 /// Culture 

Review of Gilbert Murray, Tnulitkm and Progress (1922) 766 

The Epos o'( Man: Rc\ lew of Johannes V. Jensen, The Long Jour- 
ney {\')2}) '76'7 

Racial Superiority (1^)24) 770 

Arc the Nordics a Superior Race? (1925) 784 

Let Race Alone (1^)25) 787 

L ndesirables Klanned or Banned (1925) 794 

The Race Problem: Review of F. G. Crookshank, The Mongol in 
Our Midsi: H. W. Siemens, Raee Hygiene and Heredity; Jean 
I-inot, Race Prejudice; and J. H. Oldham, Christianity and the 
Race Problem {\925) 799 

Is Monotheism Jewish? Review of Paul Radin, Monotheism 
among Primiti\e Peoples (1925) 804 

Review o^ Ludwig Lewisohn, Israel (1926) 810 

A Reasonable Eugenist: Review of F. H. Hankins, The Racial 
Basis of Civilization (1927) 816 

Observations on the Sex Problem in America (1928; also pub- 
lished as The Discipline of Sex, 1929, 1930) 818 

Review of Waldo Frank, The Rediscovery of America (1929) . . . 833 

What is the Family Still Good For? (1929; also pubhshed 1930) 835 

Franz Boas: Review of Franz Boas, Anthropology and Modern 
Life (\929) 845 

The Skepticism of Bertrand Russell: Review of Bertrand Russell, 

Sceptical Essays (1929) 847 

Two Philosophers on What Matters: Review of F. C. S. Schiller, 
Tantalus, or the Future of Man, and Bertrand Russell, How to 
Be Free and Happy (n.d., circa 1929) 850 

Review of M. E. DeWitt, Our Oral Word as Social and Economic 

Factor (1929) 353 

Our Business Civilization: Review of James Truslow Adams, Our 
Business Civilization (1930) 855 

Review of Thurman W. Arnold, The FoMore of Capitalism (1938) 858 

Appendix: John Dewey, "American Education and Culture" 
^'916) 863 



Contents 1 3 

Section Five: Aesthetics 
RICHARD HANDLER, EDITOR 

Percy Grainger and Primitive Music (1916) 867 

Literary Realism (1917) 876 

Realism in Prose Fiction (1917) 880 

The Twilight of Rhyme (1917) 886 

"Jean-Christophe": An Epic of Humanity: Review of Romain 

Rolland, Jean-Christophe (1917) 891 

A Frigid Introduction to Strauss: Review of Henry T. Finck, 

Richard Strauss, the Man and His Works (1917) 898 

Representative Music (1918) 902 

Sancho Panza on His Island: Review of G. K. Chesterton, Uto- 
pias of Usurers and Other Essays (1918) 909 

A Note on French Canadian Folk-Songs (1919) 913 

The Poet Seer of Bengal: Review of Rabindranath Tagore, Lover's 

Gift, Crossing, Mashi and Other Stories (1919) 915 

Review of Cary F. Jacob, The Foundations and Nature of Verse 

(1919) 920 

The Heuristic Value of Rhyme (1920) 922 

The Poetry Prize Contest (1920) 926 

The Musical Foundations of Verse (1921) 930 

Maupassant and Anatole France (1921) 945 

Gerard Hopkins: Review of Robert Bridges, ed.. Poems of Gerard 

Manley Hopkins (1921) 950 

Writing as History and as Style: Review of W. A. Mason, History 

of the Art of Writing (1921) 955 

Poems of Experience: Review of Edward Arlington Robinson, 

Collected Poems (1922) 958 

Maxwell Bodenheim: Review of Maxwell Bodenheim, Introducing 

Irony (1922) 962 

Introducing Irony: Review of Maxwell Bodenheim, I/itroducing 

Irony {1922) 964 

The Manner of Mr. Masefield: Review of John Masefield. King 

Cole {\922) 967 

Review of John Masefield, Esther and Berenice (1922) 970 



14 /// Culture 

Mr. Masters' Later Work: Review of Edgar Lee Masters, The 

Open Sea ( 1 922; also published as Spoon River Muddles, 1 922) 97 1 
Review of Edgar Lee Masters, Children of the Market Place 

(1922) 974 

A Peep at the Hindu Spirit: Review of Ellen C. Babbitt, More 

Junika Tales (1922) 976 

Heavens: Review of Louis Untermeyer, Heavens (1922) 978 

Review of Edward Thomas, Collected Poems (1922) 980 

Review of Arthur Davison Ficke, Mr. Faust (1922) 981 

Review of George Saintsbury, A Letter Book (1922) 982 

Review of Selma Lagerlof, The Outcast (1922) 983 

Review of Edwin Bjorkman, The Soul of a Child (\923) 984 

Mr. Houseman's Last Poems: Review of A. E. Houseman, Last 

Poems (\92}) 987 

Twelve Novelists in Search of a Reason: Review of The Novel of 
Tomorrow and the Scope of Fiction, by Twelve American Novel- 
ists (1924) 991 

.An American Poet: Review of H. D., Collected Poems (1925) . . 998 
Emily Dickinson, a Primitive: Review of Emily Dickinson, The 
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, and M. D. Bianchi, The 

Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1925) 1001 

The Tragic Chuckle: Review of Edward Arlington Robinson, Di- 
onysus in Doubt (1925) 1007 

Preface and Introduction to Marius Barbeau and Edward Sapir, 

Folk Songs of French Canada (1925) 1009 

Review of Harold Vinal, Nor Youth nor Age (n.d., circa 1925) . . 1018 

Review of Mabel Simpson, Poems (n.d., circa 1925) 1020 

Leonie Adams: Review of Leonie Adams, Those Not Elect (1926) 1023 
Review of James Weldon Johnson, ed.. The Book of American 
Negro Spirituals (1928) 1026 

When Words are Not Enough: Review of Clarence Day, Thoughts 

without Words (1928) IO30 

Review of Knut Hamsun, The Women at the Pump (1928) .... 1032 

References, Sections Four and Five 1033 



* * * 
Index 



1037 



Preface 

Volume III of The Collected Works of Edward Scipir is divided into 
five Sections. Section I, "Culture, Society, and the Individual," edited 
by Regna Darnell and Judith T. Irvine, contains Sapir's essays on theo- 
retical and conceptual topics in cultural anthropology, psychology, and 
other social sciences. Most of these essays were published between 1917, 
the date of the beginning of the debate with Alfred Kroeber on the 
"superorganic," and Sapir's death in 1939. We are particularly pleased, 
however, to be able to include two major papers not previously pub- 
lished: Sapir's presentations at the 1926 and 1930 Hanover Conferences 
sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. Digests of the con- 
ference discussions, as well as other supporting materials Sapir offered 
at these meetings, are included together with his conference pre- 
sentations. 

Section Two, "The Psychology of Culture," prepared by Judith T. Ir- 
vine, is an edited version of a book Sapir contracted to write but did 
not live to put on paper. The manuscript, a shorter edition of which 
was published by Mouton de Gruyter in 1993, was reconstructed along 
lines indicated, in part, by Sapir's prospectus sent to Alfred Harcourt 
in 1928 (q.v.), and correspondence relating to the book. The principal 
materials for the reconstruction, however, were student notes on the 
lectures Sapir intended to be the basis for his written text. 

Section Three, "Assessments of Psychology and Psychiatry," edited 
by Regna Darnell and Judith T. Irvine, contains reviews of books in 
psychology and psychiatry. Sapir published these reviews in the period 
from 1917 to 1928. 

Sections Four and Five, "Reflections on Contemporary Civilization" 
and "Aesthetics," have been edited by Richard Handler. Section Four 
contains Sapir's previously-published essays and book reviews on social 
and political topics of the day. Written primarily for a general audience, 
they show Sapir taking a role we might now call that o'( the "public 
intellectual," bringing the insights of anthropology to bear upon con- 
temporary public issues. Also included is one item, a review of philo- 
sophical works, not previously published. Section Five contains essays 
and reviews on music and contemporary literature. Among Sapir's 



/// Culture 



works of literary criticism included in this section are a few not pre- 
viously published. 

The reader with a special interest in anthropology should refer to 
Volume 1 for Sapir's general studies touching on anthropological hn- 
guislics, and to Volume IV for his early papers in ethnology (including 
the well-known "Time Perspective in Aboriginal American Culture: A 
Study in Method" [1916]), his essay-length ethnographic studies, his 
reviews of ethnological works by his contemporaries, and his admin- 
istrative reports as Chief Ethnologist of the Anthropological Division of 
the Geological Survey of Canada (1910-1925). Sapir's anthropological 
monographs and collections of Native American texts appear in vol- 
umes VH through XV of 77?^ Collected Works. They include the 
following (the roman numeral in brackets indicates the volume 
number): Wishram Texts and Wishram Ethnography (with Leslie Spier) 
(\1I]; Takclma Texts [VIII]; Yami Texts and Notes on the Culture of the 
Yana (with Leslie Spier) [IX]; Texts of the Kaibab Pahites and Uintah 
Lies (Part 11 of The Southern Paiute Language) [X]; Nootka Texts: Tales 
and Ethnological Narratives with Grammatical Notes and Lexical Materi- 
als (with Morris Swadesh), with a group of previously unpublished fam- 
ily origin legends [XI]; Native Accounts of Nootka Ethnography (with 
Swadesh) with an additional group of unpubHshed Nootka texts [XII]; 
and Navaho Texts (with Harry Hoijer) [XV]. The previously unpub- 
lished "Ethnographic Field Notes on the Kaibab Paiute and Northern 
Ute," edited by Catherine S. Fowler and Robert C. Euler, have ap- 
peared in Volume X (1992). Additional previously unpubHshed materi- 
als with ethnographic content will appear as follows: a selection of Yahi 
texts [IX]; Kutchin and Sarcee texts [XIII]; and Hupa and Yurok texts 
[XIV]. 

The reader with a special interest in music should refer to Volume IV, 
which includes Sapir's papers and reviews in ethnomusicology, as well 
as a newly-prepared presentation of his Southern Paiute song texts and 
musical scores (together with a note on the wax cylinder recordings and 
musical transcriptions). 

The editors wish to thank the Sapir family for permission to quote 
from unpublished materials by Edward Sapir in their possession. The 
Social Science Research Council gave permission to publish portions of 
the transcripts of the Hanover Conferences of 1926 and 1930 We are 
also grateful to the archivists at the Bancroft Library of the University 
of California at Berkeley for access to the papers of Alfred L. Kroeber 
and Robert H. Lowie, and to the archivists at the National Museum of 



Preface 17 



Man, Ottawa (now the Canadian Museum of Civilization) for permis- 
sion to consult papers relating to Sapir. Portions of the final manuscript 
for this volume were prepared for publication by Jane McGary. 

Additional acknowledgements will be found at the beginning of Sec- 
tion Two of this volume. 



Section One 
Culture, society, and the individual 

Regna Darnell and Judith T. Irvine, editors 



Introduction 

Sapir is so well remembered for his work in linguistics that his role 
in cultural anthropology, represented by a much smaller number o\' 
publications, has been overshadowed. It is clear, however, that he hoped 
to make a major contribution to anthropological theory and to the 
social sciences in general, and that many of his contemporaries looked 
to him to do so. When Ruth Benedict invited him to address a sympo- 
sium on anthropological theory in 1938, the invitation reflected Sapir's 
reputation as cultural anthropologist, and the increasing interest theo- 
retical issues in anthropology and other social sciences had come to 
have for him in the preceding dozen years. Unfortunately, by 1938. 
Sapir was too ill to take up the invitation. Many of his ideas remained 
unpublished at the time of his death in 1939. Although the bibliography 
of his published writings reflects the importance these subjects held for 
him in the late 1920's and throughout the 1930's, this output does not 
represent the sum of what he had planned to produce. 

For many readers today, Sapir's status as a cultural anthropologist 
probably rests on an even smaller corpus: the papers appearing in David 
Mandelbaum's (1949) Selected Writings of Edward Sapir. We are pleased 
to be able to assemble a more complete set of materials here, including 
some important items never previously published. 

The present volume contains all of Sapir's publications, as well as all 
of his recorded lectures, not previously published, on the concept o( 
"culture," and on its relationship to the individual as a member of soci- 
ety. These works derive from the second half of his career, when he was 
less engaged in fieldwork than in earlier years and more engaged in 
teaching. It was a period in which social scientists and other American 
academics increasingly interested themselves in psychology and psychia- 
try. These trends paralleled events in Sapir's personal life as well (see 
Darnell 1990, Chapter 7). It was a time, too, when the Boas school o( 
anthropology, of which Sapir was without question a core member. 
began to shift its focus from a strong emphasis on culture history and 
regional comparisons toward the patterning of culture as an integrated 
system and the impact of culture on the indi\ idual personalit\. I£\en 
the label of the subdiscipline changed, from "ethnology" to "cultural 



-)-> 



/// Culture 



anthropology." This volume, therefore, assembles Sapir's contributions 
to the emergence of this cultural anthropology. 

Sapir's ethnological studies - which differed from those of his Boa- 
sian contemporaries largely in their greater emphasis on indigenous- 
language labels for cultural concepts - date primarily from the first 
half of his career. These studies, as well as many of his ethnographic 
essays, may be found in Volume IV {Ethnology) of the Collected Works 
oi Edwani Sapir} That volume also includes his 1916 monograph on 
the methodology of culture-historical studies, "Time Perspective in Ab- 
original American Culture," Sapir's most important statement within 
the framework of early Boasian anthropology. 

As "Time Perspective" shows, Sapir - the paramount linguist among 
the Boasians - first became a theoretician of culture within the context 
of historical inference, in which linguisfic evidence loomed large. Al- 
though this essay includes much discussion of ethnological evidence 
considered in its own right, Sapir argued that linguisfic facts, partly by 
virtue of their integrafive formal framework, maintain their historical 
character through diffusional processes as no other cultural facts do. 
Yet, his vision of historical methodology in this essay broadens out- 
ward, from the specifically linguistic work he had recently been engaged 
in (that is, especially, the effort to group the languages of native North 
America into a small number of linguistic stocks), toward a comprehen- 
sive view of culture, within which language is included. His final com- 
ments, emphasizing the psychological setting of cultural elements equ- 
ally with the geographical, anficipate his later concerns. 

Although Sapir continued to pubHsh ethnographic reports after 1916, 
his interests soon expanded well beyond the description and histori- 
cally-motivated comparison of North American languages and cultures. 
The present volume opens with his 1917 paper, "Do We Need the 'Su- 
perorganic'?", Sapir's first statement on some of the theoretical issues 
that would occupy much of his later work. This essay, responding to 
Alfred Kroeber's paper of the same year on "The Superorganic," repre- 
sents one pole of an ongoing debate within the Boasian school about 
the concept of culture and its relation to the individual. Sapir accepted 
Kroeber's argument insofar as it rejected biological explanations for 
cultural forms. He challenged Kroeber's cultural determinism, however, 
because it ignored the role of the creative individual in culture and 
ignored epistemological problems arising in cultural analysis. These 
themes recur again and again in Sapir's work and permeate the writings 
assembled in this volume. 



One: Culture, Society, and the Individual 23 

Beginning with the "Superorganic" paper, the section of this volume 
entitled "Culture, Society, and the Individual" includes all of Sapir's 
essay-length works in cultural anthropology and social psychology from 
the 1920's and 1930's. Two major papers, originally given as conference 
presentations, are published here for the first time: "Notes on Psycho- 
logical Orientation in a Given Society" (1926), and "The Cultural Ap- 
proach to the Study of Personality" (1930). Also previously unpublished 
are Sapir's comments in discussion sessions at these conferences; his 
written presentations at the 1930 meeting; his comments at the Confer- 
ence on Personality and Culture (1935); and his remarks to a meeting 
of the Committee on Personality in Relation to Culture (1938). It is 
worth noting the inclusion of a 1936 essay, "The Application of Anthro- 
pology to Human Relations," which, though published, has been little 
known, due to its omission from the bibliography of the 1949 Mandel- 
baum collection {Selected Writings of Edward Sapir). Finally, although 
it has not been possible to edit Sapir's unpubHshed letters for this vol- 
ume,-^ we do include an important one that was pubhshed in 1980: 
Sapir's 1938 letter to Philip Selznick. 

The next section, The Psychology of Culture, represents a book for 
which Sapir negotiated a publication contract with Alfred Harcourt in 
1928. Throughout the 1930's, Sapir gave a course of lectures that was 
to be the basis of the book, but he did not live to complete it. Unlike 
some of his other unpublished work, which existed in full or partial 
manuscript at his death, no materials in Sapir's own hand were found 
for this book apart from the prospectus sent to Harcourt in 1928 and 
some ensuing correspondence. Nevertheless - following through on an 
idea initiated by Sapir's widow, Jean McClenaghan Sapir, and Leslie 
Spier only three months after Sapir's death - a book-length text has 
been reconstructed by Judith T. Irvine from notes taken by students 
attending various versions of this course of lectures, given by Sapir 
during his years at the University of Chicago and Yale University. Pub- 
lished separately (by Mouton de Gruyter, 1993) in a shorter version and 
without the analytical apparatus, this work appears here for the first 
time in its full form, including annotation of sources and explanations 
permitting the reader to see how the reconstruction was done. 

Finally, a section on Assessments of Psychology and Psychiatry assem- 
bles Sapir's published reviews of works in these fields, reviews which 
appeared between 1917 and 1928. These reviews afforded him an oppor- 
tunity to acquaint himself with a body of literature outside the usual 
anthropological domain but eventually influential within it, and to be- 



24 /// Culture 

gin working out some of his ideas on psychological topics. These items 
are grouped separately in this volume because they give a sense of how 
Sapir read a literature which he first approached as an anthropologist 
but which he would later adapt to interdisciplinary purposes as well as 
to a rethinking of anthropology's own theoretical basis. By the late 
I92()'s and ihc 1930's the effects of his excursions into psychology and 
psychiatry became evident in his published writing, especially in his 
etTorts to reformulate and refine the concept of culture which stood at 
the core of anthropology as a discipline. 

The first o\' these excursions dates from 1917, the same year as the 
response to Kroeber, which had emphasized the need for a theory of 
culture that would be accountable to individual psychology and individ- 
uals' actions. In 1917, however, the study of psychology was far re- 
moved from Sapir's job descripfion: he was in Ottawa, a civil servant 
responsible for the Canadian government's research on the aboriginal 
peoples of the Dominion. In 1925, he moved to the University of Chi- 
cago, where he established effective collaborations with Chicago sociol- 
ogists and with political scientist Harold D. Lasswell. Although Chi- 
cago psychologists also figured among his acquaintances, more impor- 
tant to Sapir's intellectual development in this period was his associa- 
tion with psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan. At Chicago, Sapir's work- 
ing out of his own theoretical position on culture acquired momentum 
in these interdisciplinary contexts, which found further support in the 
emergence of an interdisciplinary social science funded by the Rockefel- 
ler Foundation. 

Sapir's role as an anthropological theorist was already conspicuous 
in the foundation-sponsored conferences of the late 1920's, and in the 
newly-founded Social Science Research Council. Indeed, as the only 
anthropologist who played a central role in these interdiscipHnary acfiv- 
ities, he had the responsibility of represenfing the discipline to outsiders. 
As anthropology's representafive, Sapir refused to allow himself to be 
dismissed as a mere purveyor of the exotic. His writings for this audi- 
ence persistently chose examples from the everyday behavior of ordi- 
nary North Americans. Even when drawing on ethnographic examples, 
he tried to diminish the aura of exotica, instead showing that the indivi- 
dual in any society behaves in consistent ways, calibrated by the cultural 
context within which the behavior occurs and within which it is inter- 
preted. And if many of his examples concern linguistic behavior, it is 
because he saw language as a prime exemplar of cultural patterning, 
and therefore central to anthropological concerns. 



One: Culture. Socictv. luul flu- lihlivntuul 25 

The Rockefeller FoundalicMi. wilh ils sponsorship dI a special seminar 
on "The impact of Culture on Personality," was largely instrumental m 
bringing Sapir to Yale University in 1^)31 . There he also took on various 
atiministralixe aiul leaching roles in the departments of anthrupologv 
and linguistics; and although he contiiuictl ic^ attend conferences, the 
interdisciplinary initiative was plagued by declines in funding during 
the Depression. Where his theoretical views on culture were concerned. 
Sapir's efforts later in the I930's began to focus more on the discipline 
of anthropology itself, and less on an interdisciplinary social science. 
Still, he drew a wide audience both within anthropology and outside it. 
Even at Yale, despite troubles connected with the university's academic 
politics, Sapir"s course offerings in anthropology were well attended. 
They also served as an important forum for his intellectual de\elop- 
ment. While he "continued presenting linguistic seminars for his post- 
doctoral students, his large seminars were devoted to his inncn ations m 
anthropological theory" (C. F. Voegelin 1984 [1952]: 36). 

At the time of Sapir's death in 1939, the generation o\' cultural 
anthropologists influenced by his teaching were still ejuite junior aca- 
demics, perhaps too young to coalesce into a "school." What did emerge 
after World War II was the culture and personality school associated 
with Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Abram Kardiner. Although 
anthropologists today sometimes recall Sapir in connection with that 
group because of some overlap of interests, his position was actuall\ 
quite distinct. As their approach became dominant, his became margin- 
alized. 

Mead (1959) saw her school's work as marking a new ps\ etiological 
direction which fundamentally reoriented the Boasian paradigm, while 
Sapir had seen himself as contributing to the theory o^ culture from 
within that paradigm. Some of what made the culture and personalit) 
group's efforts "new," however, entailed epistemological difficulties for 
which they were later criticized. Sapir had not tumbled into these pit- 
falls, and indeed had warned against such errors as confusing cultural 
norms and patterns with the psychodvnamics of actual indixiduals (see 
The Psyeholoi^y of Culture, chapter 9). Moreover, he alwa>s opposed 
the label "culture and personality" because it implied that the two terms 
could be defined contrastively and iiulependentl\. 1 le preferred to speak 
of the "psychology of culture," in which anthropolog\ and ps\chology 
represented different analytical stances with respect to the same phe- 
nomena. In the process of theoretical refinement, as well as in response 
to interdisciplinary colleagues, Sapir increasingl\ added the term "soci- 



26 /// Culture 

ety" as a concept distinct tVom "culture." Whereas society might for 
some purposes be analytically contrasted with the individual, culture - 
as a realm o'i symbolic form, invested with meanings - could not be 
contrasted with personality. 

This conception of culture, at which Sapir had arrived by the mid 
193()'s, shows how far he had moved away from the definition of culture 
as an assemblage o'( tangible "traits," a definition that had earlier been 
conventional in anthropology. That definition had become less and less 
appropriate to Sapir as he increasingly emphasized the role of the indi- 
vidual in responding to symbolic forms. The shift is documented most 
clearly in the "Psychology of Culture" lectures (this volume) and the 
encyclopedia article on symbolism. Unlike the psychologists for whom 
symbolism and the unconscious were keys to the depth of the human 
psyche, Sapir was interested in imbuing the anthropological concept of 
culture with a dynamic and processual character reflecting the actions 
of the individuals living in a social world. 

Sapir remains significant in anthropology not because he founded a 
school or a particular subfield, but because he explored ideas that con- 
tinue to occupy the discipline today: the relations of individuals to 
groups; problems in moving from observation to generalization in an- 
thropological analysis; the role of the creative individual in cultural 
tradition; the impact of sociahzation on individual creativity (and vice 
versa); variation and conflict in culture and society; the relationships 
between cultural symbolism and the physical world; the emergence of 
cultural meanings in social interaction; the necessity of relating cultural 
systems to life histories and individual satisfaction; the essential same- 
ness of so-called "primitive" and "modern" human persons ... and 
more. His is an ongoing legacy. 



Notes 

Most of Sapir's shorter ethnographic essays, as well as his Southern Paiute song texts 
(previously unpublished), have been included in Volume IV (Ethnology). A few works in 
which ethnographic description is included together with linguistic analysis are grouped in 
those volumes containing Sapir's linguistic studies of the same peoples. The posthumous 
ethnography of the Yana, completed by Lesie Spier, is to be included in Volume IX, 
while a precis of the Nootka field notes, Sapir's most intensive ethnographic effort, is to 
accompany the Nootka linguistic and text materials in Volumes XI and XII. 
Indeed, there is no single source for Sapir's correspondence. He did not leave behind a 
personal archive, although much was preserved by colleagues to whom he wrote (e. g., 
Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Berard Haile) and by institutions at which 
he was employed (Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa; University of Chicago; Yale 
University). 



Do We Need a "Superorganic'*? (1917) 
Editorial Introduction 

Sapir's first foray into the relationship ot culture and ihc individual 
was written in response to Alfred L. Kroeber's "The Supcrorganic." 
which appeared in the American Authwpolofiist in 1917. ""Do We Need 
a Superorganic?" - Sapir's immediate rhetorical counter appeared 
in the next issue, and sparked debate within the Boasian group o\er 
how their conception of culture should provide for the studs of histori- 
cal process, individual action, and cognitive patterning. The exchange 
identified Kroeber and Sapir with the polar positions and. for contem- 
poraries, catapulted Sapir into a critical status as a theoretician i>f cul- 
ture. We present the debate here in considerable detail, as context for 
Sapir's response to Kroeber's long and complex essay. 

Despite its historical importance, Sapir's seminal paper was omitted 
from David Mandelbaum's 1949 collection. Selected II riiings of lu/wurJ 
Sapir because it was relatively accessible and because of its overtones of 
conflict within Boasian ranks. Mandelbaum wrote to his fellow editors 
Murray Emeneau, Harry Hoijer and Verne Ray (21 July 1947: Sapir 
family documents) that "the later personality papers make the same 
points and more incisively without the kind oi" personal reference that 
this reply necessarily has." In terms of Sapir"s oeu\re. howe\er. the 
paper represents the first codification of his thinking about the nature 
of culture. It made him the premier theoretician among those anthro- 
pologists who looked to individual personalit) as the locus o\' culture 
itself Among them one would include, at least. Paul Radm. Wilson 
Wallis and Alexander Goldenweiser (later Ruth Ik-nedict. Margaret 
Mead, and A. Irving Hallowell). 

To a great extent, however, the protagonists in the pubiiNhed debate 
were talking past one another. Kroeber was not niieresied m distin- 
guishing between the individual and culture. This reading was imposed 
by Sapir. Kroeber intended, rather, to legitimi/e the autiMiomous disci- 
plinary status of anthropology by virtue o\' its dependence on the con- 
cept of culture.' His classic paper staked out a unique claim for the 
social sciences in opposition to both ihc natural sciences and the hu- 



28 /// Cidlitrc 

inanities.- Its intended audience was outside anthropology. Kroeber 
spoke less as a theoretician than as an organizational leader of a small 
but expanding discipline. Sapir, on the other hand, was more interested 
in theory than in disciplinary autonomy. 

Kroeber's overview of anthropology's place among the sciences rested 
on the assumption that the exact methods of the natural sciences were 
inapplicable to the data of anthropology; the organic and the social 
were different kinds of phenomena, requiring different methods of 
analysis. "* Kroeber portrayed the superorganic distinction as inherent in 
the nature of reality, as "natural" as the long-established distinction 
between organic and inorganic. Anthropology had obscured the distinc- 
tion between social and organic, however, by inappropriately applying 
principles of natural selection to cultural facts. This reasoning by anal- 
ogy begged for reexamination through closer definition of the nature of 
the cultural, which Kroeber called the superorganic. 

Unlike organic evolution, the development of civilization"^ was cumu- 
lative. Culture did not operate through heredity; it altered the environ- 
ment rather than the organism. Human intelligence was a precondition 
of culture but not equivalent to it. Culture, including language, was 
learned, a process in which individual differences were of minimal signi- 
ficance. Human and animal speech were of different orders, with the 
former based on tradition (culture) and the latter on instinct. Kroeber 
catalogued numerous examples of the essential differences between hu- 
man and animal behaviour. To biology, man added society and history. 

Social psychology was not equipped to distinguish between individual 
personality and social infiuences on it, the two being intertwined in 
any particular case. Tradition operated outside the individual organism. 
Because of the attached emotional valence, racial or hereditary biologi- 
cal influences on the individual could not be determined discretely. 
Nonetheless, "a complete and consistent explanation can be given, for 
all so-called racial differences, on a basis of purely civilizafional and 
non-organic causes" (1917: 182-183). That is, explanafion of group 
differences resided in culture rather than in biology; therefore, anthro- 
pology was the discipline which held the key to human nature. 

After a highly negative review of the thinking of several social evolu- 
tionists (Gustave Le Bon, Herbert Spencer, Lester Ward, Francis Gal- 
ton, Pearson), Kroeber condemned eugenics as an inappropriate "bio- 
logical short-cut to moral ends" (1917: 188). Simply because both the 
psychic and the physical were organically based, it did not follow that 
heredity maintained civilization. Civilization, according to Kroeber, was 



One Culture. Society, and the Imlivuhuil 29 

a product of /?76^/7/<:// activity; society was non-indi\idual (and iluis non- 
organic) by definition. Knowledge, a product of cultiue. was iiu)re im- 
portant than individual variabiliiy. 

Indeed, Kroeber argued that genius and ability appeared with equal 
frequency under all cultural conditions.'^ Johann Sebastian Bach would 
have created some kind of music even if he had been born in a society 
with a vastly different musical tradition, hnentions, however, depended 
directly on their context within a culture, it was no accident that 
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace "discovered" e\olution al- 
most simultaneously and without being in direct contact. Likewise, the 
South Pole was reached twice in the same summer. In contrast, the 
genetic experiments of Gregor Mendel were meaningless to scientists of 
his day because he was ahead of his culture; three laboratories indepen- 
dently reached similar conclusions in 1900 when science had de\ eloped 
the concepts to interpret Mendel's results. Kroeber recognized "an end- 
less chain of parallel instances" (1917: 199-200). He summarized Ivri- 
cally (1917: 200-201): 

When we cease to look upon invention or discovery as some mysterious inherent 
faculty of individual minds which are randomly dropped in space and time by fate; 
when we center our attention on the plainer relation of one such advancing step lo 
the others; when, in short, interest shitts trom indi\iduall\ biographic elements, 
which can be only dramatically artistic, didactically moralizing, or ps)choli>gically 
interpretable, and attaches whole heartedly to the social, evidence on this point will 
be infinite in quantity, and the presence of a majestic order pervading civilization 
will be irresistibly evident. 

In spite of cultivation through education, individual congenital facul- 
ties such as memory, interest, and abstraction, were fairly specialized. 
Regardless of the number of abilities, each indixidiial remained ulti- 
mately unique. Flowerings such as occurred in fifth-centurN Athens 
could not change heredity and therefore must be attributed to cultural 
conditions. Kroeber attacked the assumptions o( conventional scxial 
reform (and the psychology of his day) that all personalities were o^ 
essentially equal capacity. There were considerable dilTerences in nulivi- 
dual ability to adapt to environment, defined as the "dimly pcrcei\ed'* 
infiuence of civilization. Civilization, in turn, determined how much 
infiuence the individual might have on it. Thus, the indi\idual and indi- 
viduality certainly existed, but both lay outside the proper domam oi 
the social sciences. It was on this point that Sapn uould take his col- 
league to task. 

Kroeber then turned to the role of histoi\ in social science explana- 
tion, arguing for the inadequacy o\^ mechanistic explanations based on 
a faulty organic analogy (1917: 207): 



30 /// Culture 

...there may be a third activity, neither science nor art in their strict senses, but 
history, the understanding of the social, which also has an aim that cannot be denied 
and whose juslitleation must be sought in its own results and not by the standard 
of any other activity. 

History, therefore, requires methods different from those of science 
or art. History represents the social without the individual (organism). 
Therefore, organic and historical or cultural evolution are "two wholly 
disparate evolution^s" (1917: 208; emphasis ours). Social evolution be- 
gins later than organic and provides a "missing Hnk," a new factor, "a 
leap to another plane" (1917: 209). Once civilization gets going, how- 
ever, its rate of progress (pace) is much greater than that of organic or 
inorganic evolution. Complexity of organization becomes more impor- 
tant than content. The historical is unable to explain such qualitative 
changes in the evolution of human cultures. Having recognized the 
"crucial gap" in the nature of phenomena, the historian cum anthropol- 
ogist cuf)! social scientist must proceed with concepts and methods quite 
distinct from those of the natural sciences. 

Kroeber's classic paper did not expand on his choice of the label 
"superorganic" for the new level of evolution he identified. Most of his 
attention was given to the limitations of biological or organic explana- 
tion. Within anthropology, however, the concept of "the superorganic" 
became a critical theoretical issue. Although many anthropologists took 
for granted that "culture" was the defining realm of their study, they 
came to disagree on what the term implied. Those trained by Boas 
generally accepted Kroeber's emphasis on the history of particular civi- 
lizations (historical particularism). But Sapir was the most articulate 
among those who believed that "culture" (or civilization) could be the 
core of a disciplinary theory without being reified as independent of the 
individuals who were its members. 

Privately, Sapir wrote to Robert Lowie (10 July 1917: UCB) that 
Kroeber's paper was based on "dogmatism and shaky metaphysics." 
He wanted to respond in the American Anthropologist but preferred not 
to be the only challenger. In addition to his personal friendship with 
Kroeber, Sapir was undoubtedly motivated to demonstrate that other 
Boasian anthropologists also saw the individual as crucial to cultural 
analysis. He told Lowie that Kroeber's "excessive undervaluafion" of 
the role of the individual in history was an "abstractionist fetishism," 
psychologizing in the worst possible sense. In print, of course, he was 
less personally critical. 

Sapir began his published critique in a conciliatory fashion, empha- 
sizing his agreement with Kroeber that exact science methods could not 



One: Culture. Society, luul the Indixiduul 31 

be applied to social phenomena, lie insisted thai onl\ ihc Muli\idiial 
"really thinks and acts and dreams and revoUs" (1917: 442); i. c.. culture 
is manifested exclusively through individual actions. Kroeber's ctTort to 
establish the autonomy of social science methods had o\eremphasi/cd 
dramatically the degree of social delermimsm of eiihinal jMicnomena. 
Sapir argued that Kroeber's model could not explain religion, philoso- 
phy, aesthetics or free will. 

For Sapir, Kroeber drew a false analogy when he claimed thai the 
cultural was as distinct a realm of reality - above and beyond the 
organic - as the organic itself was in relation {o the inorganic. The on\\ 
objective realities, in Sapir's view, were the organic and inorganic. The 
cultural, in contrast, was inevitably a construction o[' the anaKsi. It 
drew on processes that were simultaneously organic, inorganic and psy- 
chic. Indeed, to study the development of culture, or social inheritance, 
was to observe the growth of self-consciousness in human hisiors. not 
to observe an autonomous object. 

For both Sapir and Kroeber, the issue was the relationship between 
the social and the psychic (and where "culture" stood in relation to 
these). Neither man wished to absolutely reduce the one to the other. 
Sapir, for his part, saw no necessity for positing a new "superorganic" 
realm just in order to escape the methodology of the natural sciences. 
History indeed allowed the social scientist to focus on particulars, and 
if historical phenomena were unique, the uniqueness o( indi\iduals 
should pose no particular conceptual problems. These are the questions 
that preoccupied Sapir in all of his later papers in culture theory. While 
Kroeber never addressed all of them, his formulation o\' the superor- 
ganic first inspired Sapir to articulate his own position. 

A much briefer critique by Alexander Goldenweiser appeared along- 
side Sapir's in the American Anthropologist. Goldenweiser acknowl- 
edged that Kroeber had made the superorganic concept "peculiarl) his 
own" (1917: 448). He suggested that Kroebers cultural determinism 
would break down for any particular civilization because it uas based 
on a theory of probability. Accidental events would alwa>s inier\ene in 
particular cases. Like Sapir, Goldenweiser heiiexed that the actions of 
individuals could affect their cultures. The ci\ ili/aiional stream was 
"not only carried but also fed by indi\ iduals;' the "biographical indivi- 
dual" was best understood as a "historic complex sui generis." Ihal 
complex, unique to each individual, was composed o\' "biological, psy- 
chological and civilizational factors'" (U)!"": 44S). 



32 /// Culture 

In fact, Goldenweiser, who preferred the term "civiHzation" to "cul- 
ture," claimed that the major difference between the history of an Amer- 
ican Indian tribe and a modern nation-state was the absence of bio- 
graphy in the former case. In spite of the absence of written historical 
records, the anthropologist was challenged to put the individual into 
the cLillurc history - a process incompatible with the definition of cul- 
ture as sLiperorganic. 

Sapir. Goldenweiser and Paul Radin would develop this revision of 
culture theory in terms of the interaction between culture and the indivi- 
dual. Radin, in particular, developed the hfe history genre in ethnogra- 
phy to this end (cf. Nyce and Leeds-Hurwitz 1986). 

Kroeber responded privately to Sapir's critique (24 July 1917: UCB) 
by minimizing the distance between the two positions. He claimed that 
he had simply codified established Boasian practice: 

I've left absolutely everything to the individual that anyone can claim who will admit 
to the social at all... What misleads you is merely that you fall back on the social at 
such occasional times as you're through with the individual; whereas I insist on an 
unqualified place, an actuality, for the social at all times. 

Sapir replied (29 October 1917: UCB) that "our common tendency is 
away from conceptual science and towards history. Both of us seem to 
want to keep psychology in its place as much as possible." For Sapir, 
but not for Kroeber, psychology inevitably overlapped with the study 
of culture. There was a very real disagreement in Sapir's view; he did 
not expect to persuade Kroeber of the importance of emphasizing the 
individual. 

Kroeber became quite irate that Sapir was indifferent to his concern 
to promote Boasian anthropology (to Sapir, n.d. November 1917: 
UCB): 

I don't give a red cent whether cultural phenomena have a reality of their own, as 
long as we treat them as if they had. You do, most of us do largely... If we're doing 
anything right, it deserves a place in the world. Let's take it, instead of being put in 
a comer. That's not metaphysics: it's blowing your own horn. 

Sociologist William Fielding Ogburn, whom Sapir met in Berkeley in 
1915, responded to his critique of the superorganic (31 December 1917: 
NMM) that, for him, Kroeber 's formulation provided an ideal model 
for the social sciences. Sapir, recognizing that sociologists were disin- 
clined by their professional training to study the individual, sfill tried 
to explain his point of view. History, ignoring the individual, was "but 
a passing phase of our hunger for conventional scientific capsules into 
which to store our concepts." The various "experiments in massed ac- 



One: Culture, Socicly. and the Indiviihuil 33 

tion" would ultimately prove disappointing, leading to a reaction 
against the superorganic. But Sapir admitted that revisionist vindication 
of his position on the individual at the basis of social science was likely 
to lie in the indeterminate future. 

For the rest of his life, Sapir continued to define his theoretical posi- 
tion in terms of relationships between culture and the individual. Years 
later, while planning his book on 'The Psychology of Culture" (I*ari II 
of this volume), he wrote to Kroeber (24 May 1932: LiC H) thai he 
still saw "the dichotomy between culture as an impersonal concern and 
individual behavior" as a useful myth "for the preliminary clearing o{ 
the ground" but as ultimately dangerous in its implicalie)ns for under- 
standing either culture or personality. Only a few months before his 
death, he again wrote to Kroeber (25 August 1938: UCB): 

Of course, Fm interested in culture patterns, linguisiic included. All I claim is that 
their consistencies and spatial and temporal persistences can be. and ullimalcly 
should be, explained in terms of humble psychological formulations with particular 
emphasis on interpersonal relations.^ I have no consciousness whatsoever of being 
revolutionary or of losing an interest in what is generally phrased in an impersonal 
way. Quite the contrary. I feel rather like a physicist who believes that immensities 
of the atom are not unrelated to the immensities of interstellar space. In spite of all 
you say to the contrary, your philosophy is pervaded by fear of ihe individual and 
his reality. 

A dichotomy between culture and the individual still seemed unneces- 
sary to Sapir, even misleading, with Kroeber's formulation locking 
anthropology into intellectual sterility. If Sapir in 193S had no con- 
sciousness of being revolutionary, however, he was o\erlooking the 
originality and importance of his 1917 paper and of his particular work- 
ing-out, in later years, of these complex issues. 

* * * 



Do We Need a "Superorganic"".' 

Nothing irritates a student of culture more than to ha\e the methods 
of the exact sciences Haunted in his face as a saluiar> antidote to his 
own supposedly slipshod methods. He feels that he deals with an en- 
tirely different order of phenomena, that direct comparison between the 
two groups of disciplines is to be ruled out o\' court. It is some such 
irritation that seems to have served as the emotional impetus o^ Dr. 
Kroeber's very interesting discussion o\' "Hie Superorganic. Man\ 



34 /// Culture 

anthropologists will be disposed to sympathize with him and to rejoice 
that he has squarely taken up the cudgel for a rigidly historical and 
anti-biological interpretation of culture. His analysis of the essential 
difference between organic heredity and social tradition is surely sound 
in the main, though doubts suggest themselves on special points in this 
part of the discussion. The common fallacy of confounding the cultural 
advancement of a group with the potential or inherent intellectual 
power of its individual members is also clearly exposed. There is little 
in Dr. Kroeber's general standpoint and specific statements that I 
should be disposed to quarrel with. Yet I feel that on at least two points 
of considerable theoretical importance he has allowed himself to go 
further than he is warranted in going. I suspect that he may to some 
extent have been the victim of a too rigidly classificatory or abstraction- 
ist tendency. 

In the first place, I believe that Dr. Kroeber greatly overshoots the 
mark in his complete elimination of the peculiar influence of individuals 
on the course of history, even if by that term is understood culture 
history, the history of social activities with practically no reference to 
biographical data as such. All individuals tend to impress themselves 
on their social environment and, though generally to an infinitesimal 
degree, to make their individuality count in the direction taken by the 
never-ceasing flux that the form and content of social activity and inevi- 
tably are subject to. It is true that the content of an individual's mind 
is so overwhelmingly moulded by the social traditions to which he is 
heir that the purely individual contribution of even markedly original 
minds is apt to seem swamped in the whole of culture. Furthermore, 
[442] the dead level of compromise necessitated by the clashing of thou- 
sands of wills, few of them of compelling potency, tends to sink the 
social importance of any one of them into insignificance. All this is true 
in the main. And yet it is always the individual that really thinks and 
acts and dreams and revolts. Those of his thoughts, acts, dreams, and 
rebellions that somehow contribute in sensible degree to the modifica- 
tion or retention of the mass of typical reactions called culture we term 
social data; the rest, though they do not, psychologically considered, in 
the least differ from these, we term individual and pass by as of no 
historical or social moment. It is highly important to note that the dif- 
ferentiation of these two types of reaction is essentially arbitrary, rest- 
ing, as it does, entirely on a principle of selecfion. The selection depends 
on the adoption of a scale of values. Needless to say, the threshold of 
the social (or historical) versus the individual shifts according to the 



One: Culture. Society, ami the Imlividunl 35 

philosophy of the evaluator or interpreter. I find ii iiUcrK inconcciNahlc 
to draw a sharp and eternally valid dividing line between them. ClcarK. 
then, "individual" reactions constantly spill over into and lend color to 
''social" reactions. 

Under these circumstances how is it possible for the social to escape 
the impress of at least certain individualities? It seems to me that ii 
requires a social determinism amounting to a religion to deny to m- 
dividuals all directive power, all culture-moulding intluence. Is it con- 
ceivable, for instance, that the dramatic events that we summarize under 
the heading of the Napoleonic Period and which are inextricably bound 
up with the personality of Napoleon are a matter of indifference from 
the point of view of the political, economic, and social de\ clopmcnt of 
Europe during that period and since? Would the administration o\' the 
law in New Orleans be what it now is if there had not existed a ccriain 
individual of obscure origin who hailed from Corsica? It goes without 
saying that in this, as in similar cases, the determining intluence of 
specific personalities is, as a rule, grossly exaggerated by the average 
historian: but a tendency to deprecate too great an insistence on the 
individual as such is not the same thing as the attempt to eliminate him 
as a cultural factor altogether. Shrewdly enough. Dr. Kroeber chooses 
his examples from the realm of inventions and scientific theories. Here 
it is relatively easy to justify a sweeping social determinism in \ iew o'( 
a certain general inevitability in the course of the acquirement o[^ know I- 
edge. This inevitability, however, does not altogether reside, as Dr. 
Kroeber seems to imply, in a social "force" but, to a very large exieni. 
in the fixity, conceptually speaking, of the objective world. This fi\ii> 
[443] forms the sharpest of predetermined grooves for the unfolding o\' 
man's knowledge. Had he occupied himself more with the religious, 
philosophic, aesthetic, and crudely volitional activities and tendencies 
of man, I believe that Dr. Kroeber's case for the non-cultural signifi- 
cance of the individual would have been a far more ditficult one \o 
make. No matter how much we minimize exaggerated claims. I fail to 
see how we can deny a determining and, in some cases, even extraordi- 
narily determining cultural influence to a large number o{ outsiandmg 
personalities. With all due reverence for social science. 1 would not e\en 
hesitate to say that many a momentous cultural dc\ elopmeni or ten- 
dency, particularly in the religious and aesthetic spheres, is at last anal>- 
sis a partial function or remote consequence of the temperamental pecu- 
liarities of a significant personality. As the social units grow larger and 
larger, the probabilities of the occurrence of striking and influential 



36 /// Culture 

personalities grow vastly. Hence it is that the determining influence of 
individuals is more easily demonstrated in the higher than in the lower 
levels of culture. One has only to think seriously of what such personali- 
ties as Aristotle, Jesus, Mahomet, Shakespeare, Goethe, Beethoven 
mean in the history of culture to hesitate to commit oneself to a com- 
pletely non-individualistic interpretation of history. I do not believe for 
a moment that such personalities are merely the cat's-paws of general 
cultural drifts. No doubt much, perhaps even the greater part, of what 
history associates with their names is merely an individually colored 
version of what they found ready to hand in their social, philosophic, 
religious, or aesthetic milieu, but not entirely. If such an interpretation 
of the significance of the individual introduces a repugnant element of 
"accident" into the history of culture, so much the worse for the social 
scientists who fear "accident." 

The second point in Dr. Kroeber's essay that I find myself compelled 
to take exception to concerns his interpretation of the nature of social 
phenomena. If I understand him rightly, he predicates a certain social 
"■force" whose gradual unfolding is manifested in the sequence of so- 
cially significant phenomena we call history. The social is builded out 
of the organic, but is not entirely resolvable into it, hence it implies the 
presence of an unknown principle which transcends the organic, just as 
the organic, while similarly builded out of the inorganic, is not resolv- 
able into it but harbors a new and distinctive force that works itself out 
in organic phenomena. I consider the analogy a false one. Moreover, I 
do not believe that Dr. Kroeber has rightly seized upon the true nature 
of the opposition between history and non-historical science. [444] 

The analogy is a false one because, while the organic can be demon- 
strated to consist objectively of the inorganic plus an increment of ob- 
scure origin and nature, the social is merely a certain philosophically 
arbitrary but humanly immensely significant selection out of the total 
mass of phenomena ideally resolvable into inorganic, organic, and psy- 
chic processes. The social is but a name for those reactions or types of 
reaction that depend for their perpetuation on a cumulafive technique 
of transference, that known as social inheritance. This technique, how- 
ever, does not depend for its operation on any specifically new "force," 
but, as far as we can tell at present, merely implies a heightening of 
psychic factors. No doubt the growth of self-consciousness is largely 
involved in the gradual building up on this technique of social transfer- 
ence. While we may not be able to define safisfactorily the precise nature 
of self-consciousness or trace its genesis, it is certainly no more mysteri- 



One: Culture. Society, mul the Individucil 37 

ous a development in the history o\' mind than earlier stages in this 
most obscure ot all evolutions. In short, its appearance involves no new 
force, merely a refinement and complication o\' an earlier force or of 
earlier forces. Hence social activities, which 1 define as a selected group 
of reactions dependent at last analysis on the growth of self-conscious- 
ness, do not result from the coming into being of a new objective prin- 
ciple of being. The differential characteristic of social science lies thus 
entirely in a modulus of values, not in an accession of irresoUably dis- 
tinct subject matter. There seems to be a chasm between the organic 
and the inorganic which only the rigid mechanists pretend to be able 
to bridge. There seems to be an unbridgeable chasm, in immediacy of 
experience, between the organic and the psychic, despite the undeniable 
correlations between the two. Dr. Kroeber denies this en passant, but 
neither his nor my philosophy of the nature of mind is properly germane 
to the subject under discussion. Between the psychic and the social there 
is no chasm in the above sense at all. The break lies entirely in the 
principle o^ selection that respectively animates the two groups o^ sci- 
ences. Social science is not psychology, not because it studies the resul- 
tants of a superpsychic or superorganic force, but because its terms are 
differently demarcated. 

At this point I begin to fear misunderstanding. It might almost ap- 
pear that I considered, with certain psychological students o[' culture, 
the fundamental problem of social science to consist o\' the resolution 
of the social into the psychic, of the unraveling of the tangled web of 
psychology that may be thought to underlie social phenomena. This 
conception of social science I have as much abhorrence ot [as] Dr. 
Kroeber [does]. [445] There may be room for a "social psycholog\."' hut 
it is neither an historical nor a social science, it is merel> a kind ol 
psychology, of somewhat uncertain credentials, for the present; at ain 
rate, it is, like individual psychology, a conceptual science. It is quite 
true that the phenomena of social science, as claimed h\ Dr. Kroeber. 
are irresolvable into the terms of psychology or organic science, but this 
irresolvability is not, as Dr. Kroeber seems to imply, a conceptual one. 
It is an experiential one. This type of irresolvability is toto each distmcl 
from that which separates the psychic and the organic or the organic 
and the inorganic, where we are confronted b\ true conceptual incom- 
mensurables. 

What 1 mean by "experiential irresoKabilily" is something that meets 
us at every turn. I shall attempt to illustrate it by an example from a 
totally different science. Few sciences are so clearly defined as regards 



38 JJJ Culture 

scope as geology. It would ordinarily be classed as a natural science. 
Aside from palaeontology, which we may eliminate, it does entirely 
without the concepts of the social, psychic, or organic. It is, then, a 
well-defined science of purely inorganic subject matter. As such it is 
conceptually resolvable, if we carry our reductions far enough, into the 
more fundamental sciences of physics and chemistry. But no amount of 
conceptual synthesis of the phenomena we call chemical or physical 
would, in the absence of previous experience, enable us to construct a 
science of geology. This science depends for its raison d'etre on a series 
of unique experiences, directly sensed or inferred, clustering about an 
entity, the earth, which from the conceptual standpoint of physics is as 
absurdly accidental or irrelevant as a tribe of Indians or John Smith's 
breakfast. The basis of the science is, then, firmly grounded in the 
uniqueness of particular events. To be precise, geology looks in two 
directions. In so far as it occupies itself with abstract masses and forces, 
it is a conceptual science, for which specific instances as such are irrele- 
vant. In so far as it deals with particular features of the earth's surface, 
say a particular mountain chain, and aims to reconstruct the probable 
history of such features, it is not a conceptual science at all. In method- 
ology, strange as this may seem at first blush, it is actually nearer, in 
this aspect, to the historical sciences. It is, in fact, a species of history, 
only the history moves entirely in the inorganic sphere. In practice, of 
course, geology is a mixed type of science, now primarily conceptual, 
now primarily descriptive of a selected chunk of reality. Between the 
data of the latter aspect and the concepts of the former lies that yawning 
abyss that must forever, in the very nature of things, divorce the real 
world of directly experienced phenomena from the ideal world of con- 
ceptual science. [446] 

Returning to social science, it is clear that the leap from psychology 
to social science is just of this nature. Any social datum is resolvable, 
at least theoretically, into psychological concepts. But just as little as 
the most accurate and complete mastery of physics and chemistry en- 
ables us to synthesize a science of geology, does an equivalent mastery 
of the conceptual science of psychology - which, by the way, nobody 
possesses or is likely to possess for a long time to come - enable us to 
synthesize the actual nature and development of social institutions or 
other historical data. These must be directly experienced and, as already 
pointed out, selected from the endless mass of human phenomena ac- 
cording to a principle of values. Historical science thus differs from 
natural science, either wholly or as regards relative emphasis, in its ad- 



One: Culture, Society, and the Imlividual 39 

herence to the real world of phenomena, not, like ihc laiicr, u> ihc 
simplified and abstract world of ideal concepts. It strives to value ihe 
unique or individual, not the universal, "individual" may naturalK here 
mean any directly experienced entity or group o\' eniiiies ilic earth. 
France, the French language, the French Republic, the romantic mi>\e- 
ment in literature, Victor Hugo, the Iroquois Indians, some specil'ic 
Iroquois clan, all Iroquois clans, all American Indian clans, all clans ot 
primitive peoples. None of these terms, as such, has any relevancy in a 
purely conceptual world, whether organic or inorganic, physical or psy- 
chic. Properly speaking, "history" includes far more than what ue i>rdi- 
narily call historical or social science. The latter is merely the "hisiori- 
cal" (in our wider sense), not conceptual, treatment of certain selected 
aspects of the psychic world of man. 

Are not, then, such concepts as a clan, a language, a priesthood com- 
parable in lack of individual connotation to the ideal concepts of natu- 
ral science? Are not the laws applicable to these historical concepts as 
conceptually valid as those of natural science? Logically it is perhaps 
difficult, if not impossible, to make a distinction, as the same mental 
processes of observation, classification, inference, generalizatitm. and 
so on, are brought into play. Philosophically, however. I belie\e the two 
types of concepts are utterly distinct. The social concepts are con\enient 
summaries of a strictly limited range of phenomena, each element o\' 
which has real value. Relatively to the concept "clan" a particular clan 
of a specific Indian tribe has undeniable value as an historical entit\. 
Relatively to the concept "crystal" a particular ruby in the jeweler's 
shop has no relevancy except by way of illustration. It has no intrinsic 
scientific value. Were all crystals existent at this moment suddenly disin- 
tegrated, the science of crystallography would still be valid. pro\ ided 
the physical and chemical forces that make possible the growth (447) oi 
another crop of crystals remain in the world. Were all clans now evisienl 
annihilated, it is highly debatable, to say the least, whether the science 
of sociology, in so far as it occupied itself with clans, would ha\e prog- 
nostic value. The difference between the two groups o^ concepts K'- 
comes particularly clear if we consider negative instances. If out ot one 
hundred clans, ninety-nine obeyed a certain sociological "law. ue 
would justly flatter ourselves with having made a particularl> neat and 
sweeping generalization; our "law" would ha\e \alidiiy. e\en it we ne\er 
succeeded in "explaining" the one exception. But if out of one million 
selected experiments intended to test a physical law. 999.999 ci^rri>bo- 
rated the law and one persistently refused to do so. alter all disturbing 



40 /// Culture 

factors had been eliminated, we would be driven to seek a new formula- 
tion of our law. There is something deeper involved here than relative 
accuracy. The social "law" is an abbreviation or formula for a finite 
number of evaluated phenomena, and rarely more than an approxi- 
mately accurate formula at that; the natural "law" is a universally valid 
formulation of a regular sequence observable in an indefinitely large 
number of phenomena selected at random. With the multiplication of 
instances social "laws" become more and more blurred in outline, natu- 
ral "laws" become more rigid. However, the clarification of the sphere 
and concepts of social science in its more generalized aspects is a diffi- 
cult problem that we can not fully discuss here. 

I strongly suspect that Dr. Kroeber will not find me to differ essen- 
tially from him in my conception of history. What I should like to 
emphasize, however, is that it is perfectly possible to hold this view of 
history without invoking the aid of a "superorganic." Moreover, had 
the uniqueness of historical phenomena been as consistently clear to 
him as he himself would require, it would be difficult to understand 
why he should have insisted on eliminating the individual in the narrow 
sense of the word. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in American Anthropologist 19, 441-447 (1917). 
Reprinted by permission of the American Anthropological Association. 



Notes 

1. This remained a persistent concern throughout his hfetime. Kroeber and Kluckhohn 
(1952) present the range of definitions of the cuhure concept used by anthropologists 
throughout the history of the discipline as a metaphor for the theoretical territory staked 
out by anthropology. 

2. In 1956, at the end of his long career, Kroeber wrote two papers dealing with the historical 
roots of anthropology. He argued that both the natural sciences and humanities had 
more infiuence on the emergence of the discipline than did the more recent affiliation of 
anthropology with other social sciences. The tenuous link of anthropology to social sci- 
ence still required theoretical justification. 

3. The argument is parallel to that of Franz Boas in "The Study of Geography" (1887 
[1940]). 

4. Kroeber used the term "civilization" here as in the classic definition of culture by Edward 
B. Tylor (1871: 1) in which it is equated with "culture." "Culture or civilizafion, taken in 
its widest ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief. 



One: Culture. Society, and the InJiviJuul 41 

art, morals, law, custom, and any oilier capabilities and habits acquired by man as a 
member of society." The discourse oi Kroeber's paper is situated in an older vocabulary 
which is largely irrelevant to Sapir's critique. 

5. He was to pursue this argument throughout his career. Compare Connguraiions of Culiurr 
Growth (1944) and the more popularized Ciilturc and Civilizulum ( 1952). 

6. The term "interpersonal relations" was used by Sapir's Iriend and collaborator, inlcrac- 
tional psychiatrist Harry Slack Sullivan. Sapirs later rormulatu)ns of culture lhfor\ drew 
heaxilv on this collaboration, bci:inniim in 1926. 



Culture, Genuine and Spurious (1924) 
Editorial Introduction 

Despite the 1924 date usually cited for it today. '•Ciiliurc. Cjciuiinc 
and Spurious" was written years earlier, probably no later tlKm 191 S. 
Part I, entitled "Civilization and Culture," appeared in a litcrar\ maga- 
zine. The Dial, in 1919. In 1922, that text was published without nnHlifi- 
cation in The Dalhousie Review, with promises of a sequel discussing 
"the new problem of cultured individuality in the countries called 
'new'." The continuation - Part II of the essay in the present \oIume 
- accordingly appeared in the next Dalhousie Review issue under the 
title "Culture in New Countries." This part had two sections, dealing 
(respectively) with "the cultured individual and the cultural group" and 
"the geography of culture." The whole paper was lust published for a 
scholarly audience in the social sciences in 1924, in the American Journal 
of Sociology. This version, whose only new text was an initial paragraph 
as the beginning of section III, is the one reproduced here. 

Sapir's concern with the variable uses of the term culture was initialls 
directed at establishing for the general educated public, especially those 
who read literary magazines, that the anthropological concept o\' cul- 
ture was properly distinguished from culture as ci\ili/ation and from 
culture as the achievements of the cultured (or "cultivated" that is, 
specially educated) individual. His essay had relexance within the social 
sciences as well, however, as its publication \eiuies attest. Ihe relexancc 
for anthropology is perhaps most clearly evidenced in the Inst chapter 
of The Psychology of Culture (this volume). There, drawmg heavily on 
the 1924 paper for the opening of his course and hook. Sapir compared 
three uses of the term culture - as "cultivation." as A////;//(the Clemian 
concept), and as social inheritance - in order to develop the anthropo- 
logical conception o( culture in new ways. The llrst luo uses ol the 
term should not be jettisoned, he suggested; nistead. then emphases 
on individual variability and on \aluc should be niciMporated mio the 
anthropologist's usage. 

As part of this argument, the contrast between "genume" and "spuri- 
ous" was similarly double-faceted. On the ow^ hand, it Cimcerned eslab- 



44 /// Culture 

lishing, for the general audience, the importance of the anthropological 
concept. What was spurious was the popular belief that only high civili- 
zations, or only the activities of an elite within them, could properly be 
called culture. Genuine culture existed at any level of civilization and 
societal complexity. On the other hand, the opposition of genuine and 
spurious also concerned the ability of any particular cultural system to 
satisfy the intellectual, emotional, and aesthetic needs of individuals 
living under its sway. This second theme, directed at both the general 
and the social science audiences, also appears again in Sapir's later an- 
thropological writings (see, e. g., chapters 9 and 10 of The Psychology 
of Culture, and Sapir 1939c). 

Pursuing the second theme for the original audience, Sapir turned his 
cross-culturally conditioned attention to exploring the "spiritual malad- 
justments" of his own society (1924: 410). The modern American indivi- 
dual had been reduced to a cog in society, a mere machine, he argued, 
thereby stifling creative and emotional development. Sapir's argument 
here is part of a critique of contemporary North American society, a 
critique in which Boas and many of his students engaged and which 
continued through the interwar years and after (cf. Geertz 1988 on Ruth 
Benedict, for example). Most of Sapir's other contributions to public 
debates can be found in a separate section of this volume, entitled "Re- 
flections on Contemporary Civilization." Comments on specific aspects 
of his own society were not, however, an effort utterly distinct from 
Sapir's sense of his anthropological work. As we have noted elsewhere, 
he was persistently concerned to minimize the association of anthropol- 
ogy with exotica; to argue that there was no essential difference between 
the psychologies of "primitive" and "modern" persons; to apply anthro- 
pological insights to contemporary life; and to draw upon contempo- 
rary life for examples illustrating theoretical points. 

Although Boasian cultural relativism opposed external moral judg- 
ment or ranking of ethnographically known cultures, Sapir's attention 
to a link between aesthetic and emotional needs, and his focus on the 
individual's assessment of "genuine" value in his/her own culture, re- 
turns humanistic ideals to cross-cultural comparison. This adroit move 
allowed Sapir to criticize the "sterile externality" of American culture 
(1924: 412) by contrast with the less specialized social and economic 
forms of simpler societies. Idealizing the salmon fishermen of the Pacific 
Northwest as spiritually-satisfied exemplars, the essay suggested that 
modern North Americans could still seek cultural genuineness through 
the "spiritual heightening" of functions that still remained to the indivi- 



One: Culture. Society, and i/ic Imlividuul 45 

dual (1924: 412). To this end, art, science and reliLiiDn uould all reqiinc 
reassessment. These were themes to which Sapir would rciiirn as he- 
developed his position on culture, society and the individual, (in this 
volume, see, for example, 'The Meaning o[' Religion"" [192S]. and ihc 
discussions of "progress" and of society as unconscious ariist. m Ihe 
Psychology of Culture; see also the discussion of "form"" and aesthetics 
in Language [1921].) 

There is much of Sapir's own biography in "Culture, Gcnuuie and 
Spurious." It took part of its direction from Sapir's own aesthetic ef- 
forts at poetry, literary criticism and music (see Darnell 1986, 1988). 
efforts he seriously attempted to integrate with his social science, in this 
essay his emphasis on the creative individual recalls the theoretical is- 
sues he had begun to engage in his 1917 debate with Kroeber. The 
critique of American culture reflects his disenchantment with the Ameri- 
can dream, as well as his highly unpopular pacifism during World War 
I. His prospectus for the future involved creative activities in which he 
himself was already engaged between about 1917 and his move from 
Ottawa to Chicago in 1925. 

Professional colleagues were uncertain how to respond lo liiis hu- 
manities-oriented argument. Fellow anthropologist Robert Lowie 
(1965) considered this paper irrelevant to Sapir's professional work. 
Sociologist William Fielding Ogburn wrote to Sapir (31 August 1922: 
NMM) that he had gained a real sense of what was genuine and what 
was spurious, although he preferred more overtly sociological language, 
such as might be expressed in terms of "varying parts of culture, corre- 
lation, original nature, and adaptation." To the extent thai Sapir's 
method failed to separate art and science, Ogburn found it 'unscien- 
tific" and almost mystical: "You seem to be struggling lo articulate 
something that you feel emotionally rather than coldly and scientific- 
ally." Sapir's point that social science must address emotional and hu- 
manistic issues was largely lost on Ogburn, as was the idea thai such 
issues were appropriately addressed through the aesiheiic diinenMons 
of form. Sapir's notion of form in language resulted in grammatical 
statements; but in his consideration o\^ the genuineness o^ culture's 
"form" more conspicuously relates lo the aesthetic values from which 
individuals take satisfaction. 

In 1924, the literary audience was more responsive than the profes- 
sional audience. Both anthropology and sociology were then dominated 
by something much closer to Kroeber's superorganic concept of culture 
than to Sapir's concept of the creative indi\ idual defining and modify- 



46 /// Culture 

ing his/her own tradition. Indeed, for many decades this paper ap- 
peared, to many anthropologists, to be anomalous in Sapir's oeuvre - 
a primarily literary move, outside the domain of his scholarly writing. 
Today, however, many anthropologists have taken up concerns with 
cultural aesthetics, with individual creativity and agency, and with the 
analysis - and need to revitalize - contemporary American society. 
The links between this essay and Sapir's anthropology should be more 
evident to today's readership than formerly. 

* * * 



Culture, Genuine and Spurious 
Abstract 

Varying definitions of culture. The ethnologist's or cuhure-historian's use of the term. 
Individual culture as a traditional ideal. The general spirit or the "genius" of a national 
civilization: France and Russia as examples. Genuine culture, as here defined, possible 
on all levels of civilization; culture may be but a spurious thing in the most sophisticated 
or progressive of societies. Efficiency no measure of culture. Maladjustments between 
cultural values and new economic conditions. Immediate ends and remoter ends of 
human activity. Tendency toward a gradual shift of emphasis, the immediate ends com- 
ing to be felt as means toward the remoter ends, which originally resulted from the 
play of surplus energy. Necessity of the psychological shift owing to modern man's 
inability to arrive at individual mastery within the sphere of direct ends. The relation 
of the individual to the culture of the group. A rich cultural heritage needed to enable 
the individual to find himself The relativity of cultural values. The cultural utilization 
of the past. The self finding itself in its cultural environment, must be granted a primary 
reality. The significance of art for culture. The danger of spreading a culture over a large 
territory. The independence of economic-political and cultural bounds. The intensive 
development of culture within a restricted area no bar to internationalism. The unsatis- 
factory condition of contemporary America from the point of view of a genuine culture. 



I. The varying conceptions of culture 

There are certain terms that have a peculiar property. Ostensibly, 
they mark off specific concepts, concepts that lay claim to a rigorously 
objective validity. In practice, they label vague terrains of thought that 
shift or narrow or widen with the point of view of whoso makes use of 
them, embracing within their gamut of significances conceptions that 
not only do not harmonize but are in part contradictory. An analysis 



One: Cullwc. Society, uml the Imliviiiual 47 

of such terms soon discloses [402] ihc fact thai uiulcnicalh the clash of 
varying contents there is a unifying feehng-lone. Whai makes it possible 
for so discordant an array of conceptions to answer to the same call is, 
indeed, precisely this relatively constant halo that surrounds them. 
Thus, what is "crime" to one man is "'nobility'" to another, yet both arc- 
agreed that crime, whatever it is, is an undesirable category, that nobil- 
ity, whatever it is, is an estimable one. In the same way, such a term as 
art may be made to mean divers things, but whatever it means, the 
term itself demands respectful attention and calls forth, normally, a 
pleasantly polished state of mind, an expectation of lofty satisfactions. 
If the particular conception of art that is advanced or that is implied m 
a work of art is distasteful to us, we do not express our dissatisfaction 
by saying, "Then I don't like art." We say this only when we are in a 
vandalic frame of mind. Ordinarily we get around the ditllcully by say- 
ing, "But that's not art, it's only pretty-pretty conventionality," or "It's 
mere sentimentality," or "It's nothing but raw experience, material for 
art, but not art." We disagree on the value oi^ things and the relations 
of things, but often enough we agree on the particular value of a label. 
It is only when the question arises of just where to put the label, that 
trouble begins. These labels - perhaps we had better call them empts 
thrones — are enemies of mankind, yet we ha\e no recourse but to 
make peace with them. We do this by seating our fa\orite pretenders. 
The rival pretenders war to the death; the thrones to which thc> aspire 
remain serenely splendid in gold. 

I desire to advance the claims of a pretender to the throne called 
"culture." Whatever culture is, we know that it is. or is considered lo 
be, a good thing. I propose to give my idea o\' what kind of a good 
thing culture is. 

The word "culture" seems to be used in three main senses or groups 
of senses. First of all, culture is technically used b\ the ethnologist and 
culture-historian to embody any socially inherited element in the life of 
man, material and spiritual. Culture so defined is coterminous with man 
himself, for even the lowliest savages live in a social world characterized 
by a complex network of traditionally conserved habits, usages, and 
attitudes. The South African Bushman's method o\' hunting game, the 
belief of the [403] North American Indian in •medicine." the Periclcan 
Athenian's type of tragic drama, and the electric dynamo o\ modern 
industrialism are all, equally and indifferenllv. elements of culture, each 
being an outgrowth of the collective spiritual elTort o\ man. each being 
retained for a given time not as the direct and autiMiiatic resultant of 



48 /// Culture 

purely hereditary qualities but by means of the more or less consciously 
imitative processes summarized by the terms "tradition" and "social 
inheritance." From this standpoint all human beings or, at any rate, all 
human groups are cultured, though in vastly different manners and 
grades of complexity. For the ethnologist there are many types of cul- 
ture and an infinite variety of elements of culture, but no values, in the 
ordinary sense of the word, attach to these. His "higher" and "lower," 
if he uses the terms at all, refer not to a moral scale of values but to 
stages, real or supposed, in a historic progression or in an evolutionary 
scheme. I do not intend to use the term "culture" in this technical sense. 
"Civilization" would be a convenient substitute for it, were it not by 
common usage limited rather to the more complex and sophisticated 
forms of the stream of culture. To avoid confusion with other uses of 
the word "culture," uses which emphatically involve the application of 
a scale of values, I shall, where necessary, use "civilization" in heu of 
the ethnologist's "culture." 

The second application of the term is more widely current. It refers 
to a rather conventional ideal of individual refinement, built up on a 
certain modicum of assimilated knowledge and experience but made up 
chiefiy of a set of typical reactions that have the sanction of a class and 
of a tradition of long standing. Sophistication in the realm of intellec- 
tual goods is demanded of the applicant to the title of "cultured per- 
son," but only up to a certain point. Far more emphasis is placed upon 
manner, a certain preciousness of conduct which takes different colors 
according to the nature of the personality that has assimilated the "cul- 
tured" ideal. At its words, the preciousness degenerates into a scornful 
aloofness from the manners and tastes of the crowd; this is the well- 
known cultural snobbishness. At its most subtle, it develops into a mild 
and whimsical vein of cynicism, an amused skepticism that would not 
for the world find itself betrayed into an unwonted enthusiasm; [404] 
this type of cultured manner presents a more engaging countenance to 
the crowd, which only rarely gets hints of the discomfiting play of its 
irony, but it is an attitude of perhaps even more radical aloofness than 
snobbishness outright. Aloofness of some kind is generally a sine qua 
non of the second type of culture. Another of its indispensable requisites 
is intimate contact with the past. Present action and opinion are, first 
and foremost, seen in the illumination of a fixed past, a past of infinite 
richness and glory; only as an afterthought, if at all, are such action 
and opinion construed as instrumentalifies for the building of a future. 
The ghosts of the past, preferably of the remote past, haunt the cultured 



One: Culture. Society, ami the hulividuul 49 

man at every step. He is uncannily responsive to then slightest touch; 
he shrinks from the employment of his individuality as a creative 
agency. But perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the cultured 
ideal is its selection of the particular treasures of the past which it deems 
worthiest of worship. This selection, which might seem bi/.arre to a 
mere outsider, is generally justified by a number of reasons, sometimes 
endowed with a philosophic cast, but unsympathetic persons seem to 
incline to the view that these reasons are only rationalizations aJ hoc. 
that the selection of treasures has proceeded chiefiy according tt> the 
accidents of history. 

In brief, this cultured ideal is a vesture and an air. The vesture may 
drape gracefully about one's person and the air has often much charm, 
but the vesture is a ready-made garment tor all that and the air remains 
an air. In America the cultured idea, in its quintessential classical tbrm, 
is a more exotic plant than in the halls of Oxford and Cambridge, 
whence it was imported to these rugged shores, but fragments and de- 
rivatives of it meet us frequently enough. The cultured ideal embraces 
many forms, of which the classical Oxonian tbrm is merely one of the 
most typical. There are also Chinese and talmudic parallels. \\ hercver 
we find it, it discloses itself to our eyes in the guise of a spiritual heir- 
loom that must, at all cost, be preserved intact. 

The third use made of the term is the least easy to define and lo 
illustrate satisfactorily, perhaps because those who use it are so seldom 
able to give us a perfectly clear idea of just what they themsehes mean 
by culture. Culture in this third sense shares [405] with our first, techni- 
cal, conception an emphasis on the spiritual possessions o( the group 
rather than of the individual. With our second conception it shares a 
stressing of selected factors out of the vast whole o\' the ethnologist's 
stream of culture as intrinsically more valuable, more characteristic, 
more significant in a spiritual sense than the rest. To say that this culture 
embraces all the psychic, as contrasted with the purely material, ele- 
ments of civilization would not be accurate. pariK because the resuliinc 
conception would still harbor a vast number of relatively trivial ele- 
ments, partly because certain of the material factors might well occups 
a decisive place in the cultural ensemble. Jo limit the term, as is some- 
times done, to art, religion, and science has again the disad\antage of 
a too rigid exclusiveness. We may perhaps conic nearest the mark by 
saying that the cultural conception we are now tr>uig to grasp aims to 
embrace in a single term those general attitudes, views o\' hie. and sfx*- 
cific manifestations of civilization that give a particular people its dis- 



50 /// Culture 

tinctive place in the world. Emphasis is put not so much on what is 
done and believed by a people as on how what is done and believed 
functions in the whole life of that people, on what significance it has 
for them. The very same element of civilization may be a vital strand 
in the culture of one people, and a well-nigh negligible factor in the 
culture of another. The present conception of culture is apt to crop up 
particularly in connection with problems of nationality, with attempts 
to find embodied in the character and civilization of a given people 
some peculiar excellence, some distinguishing force, that is strikingly 
its own. Culture thus becomes nearly synonymous with the "spirit" or 
"genius" of a people, yet not altogether, for whereas these loosely used 
terms refer rather to a psychological, or pseudo-psychological, back- 
ground of national civilization, culture includes with this background a 
series of concrete manifestations which are believed to be peculiarly 
symptomatic of it. Culture, then, may be briefly defined as civilization 
in so far as it embodies the national genius. 

Evidently we are on pecuHarly dangerous ground here. The current 
assumption that the so-called "genius" of a people is ultimately reduci- 
ble to certain inherent hereditary traits of a biological and psychological 
nature does not, for the most part, bear [406] very serious examination. 
Frequently enough what is assumed to be an innate racial characteristic 
turns out on closer study to be the resultant of purely historical causes. 
A mode of thinking, a disfinctive type of reaction, gets itself established, 
in the course of a complex historical development, as typical, as normal; 
it serves then as a model for the working over of new elements of civili- 
zation. From numerous examples of such distincfive modes of thinking 
or types of reaction a basic genius is abstracted. There need be no spe- 
cial quarrel with this conception of a national genius so long as it is not 
worshipped as an irreducible psychological fetich. Ethnologists fight 
shy of broad generalizations and hazily defined concepts. They are 
therefore rather timid about operating with national spirits and ge- 
niuses. The chauvinism of national apologists, which sees in the spirits 
of their own peoples peculiar excellences utterly denied to less blessed 
denizens of the globe, largely justifies this timidity of the scientific stu- 
dents of civilizadon. Yet here, as so often, the precise knowledge of the 
scientist lags somewhat behind the more naive but more powerful in- 
sights of non-professional experience and impression. To deny the ge- 
nius of a people an ultimate psychological significance and to refer it 
to the specific historical development of that people is not, after all is 
said and done, to analyze it out of existence. It remains true that large 



One: Culture. Society, ami the Indivuluul 51 

groups of people everywhere lend to ihmk aiul lo aci in accordance 
with estabhshed and all but instinctive forms, which are in large mea- 
sure peculiar to it. The question as to whether these forms, that in their 
interrelations constitute the genius of a people, are primariK explainable 
in terms of native temperament, of historical development, or of both 
is of interest to the social psychologist, but need no{ cause us much 
concern. The relevance of this question is not always apparent. It is 
enough to know that in actual fact nationalities, using the \\o\\\ w iihoui 
political implication, have come to bear the impress in thought and 
action of a certain mold and that this mold is more clearly discernible 
in certain elements of civilization than in others. The specific culture of 
a nationality is that group of elements in its civilization which most 
emphatically exhibits the mold. In practice it is sometimes con\enicnt 
to identify the national culture with its genius. [407] 

An example or two and we shall have done with these preliminary 
definitions. The whole terrain through which we are now struggling is 
a hotbed of subjectivism, a splendid field for the airing o( national 
conceits. For all that, there are a large number of international agree- 
ments in opinion as to the salient cultural characteristics o\' \arious 
peoples. No one who has even superficially concerned himself with 
French culture can have failed to be impressed by the qualities of clarity, 
lucid systematization, balance, care in choice of means, and good taste, 
that permeate so many aspects of the national civilization. These quali- 
ties have their weaker side. We are familiar with the overmechanization. 
the emotional timidity or shallowness (quite a different thing from cmo- 
tional restraint), the exaggeration of manner at the expense of content, 
that are revealed in some of the manifestations o\' the French spuit. 
Those elements of French civilization that give characteristic evidence 
of the qualities of its genius may be said, in our present limited sense, 
to constitute the culture of France; or, to put it somewhat ditTerenil). 
the cultural significance of any element in the civilization o\' France is 
in the light it sheds on the French genius. From this standpoint we can 
evaluate culturally such traits in French civilization as the formalism o\ 
the French classical drama, the insistence in F-rench education on the 
study of the mother-tongue and of its classics, the prevalence of epigram 
in French life and letters, the intellectualisi cast so ofien gi\en to aesthe- 
tic movements in France, the lack of iiirgidity in modern I rench music, 
the relative absence of the ecstatic note in religion, the slnnig tendency 
to bureaucracy in French administration, luich and all o{ these and 
hundreds of other traits could be readily paralleled from the civiii/alion 



52 /// Culnn-c 

of England. Nevertheless, their relative cultural significance, I venture 
to think, is a lesser one in England than in France. In France they seem 
to lie more deeply in the grooves of the cultural mold of its civilization. 
Their study would yield something like a rapid bird's-eye view of the 
spirit of French culture. 

Let us turn to Russia, the culture of which has as definite a cast as 
that of France. 1 shall mention only one, but that perhaps the most 
significant, aspect of Russian culture, as I see it - the tendency of the 
Russian to see and think of human beings not as representafives [408] 
of types, not as creatures that appear eternally clothed in the garments 
of civilization, but as stark human beings existing primarily in and for 
themselves, only secondarily for the sake of civilizafion. Russian democ- 
racy has as its fundamental aim less the creation of democratic institu- 
tions than the effective liberafion of personality itself. The one thing 
that the Russian can take seriously is elemental humanity, and elemental 
humanity, in his view of the world, obtrudes itself at every step. He is 
therefore sublimely at home with himself and his neighbor and with 
God. Indeed, I have no doubt that the extremest of Russian atheists is 
on better speaking terms with God than are the devout of other lands, 
to whom God is always something of a mystery. For his environment, 
including in that term all the machinery of civilization, the Russian 
has generally not a little contempt. The subordination of the deeps of 
personality to an institution is not readily swallowed by him as a neces- 
sary price for the blessings of civilization. We can follow out this sweep- 
ing humanity, this almost imperfinent prodding of the real self that lies 
swathed in civilization, in numberless forms. In personal relations we 
may note the curious readiness of the Russian to ignore all the institu- 
tional barriers which separate man from man; on its weaker side, this 
involves at times a personal irresponsibility that harbors no insincerity. 
The renunciation of Tolstoi was no isolated phenomenon, it was a sym- 
bol of the deep-seated Russian indifference to insfitutionalism, to the 
accreted values of civilization. In a spiritual sense, it is easy for the 
Russian to overthrow any embodiment of the spirit for insfitufionalism; 
his real loyalties are elsewhere. The Russian preoccupation with elemen- 
tal humanity is naturally most in evidence in the realm of art, where 
self-expression has freest rein. In the pages of Tolstoi, Dostoyevski, Tur- 
genev, Gorki, and Chekhov personality runs riot in its morbid moments 
of play with crime, in its depressions and apathies, in its generous en- 
thusiasms and idealisms. So many of the figures in Russian literature 
look out upon life with a puzzled and incredulous gaze. 'This thing 



One: Culture, Society, and the Indiviihuil 53 

that you call civilization - is thai all there is to life?" we hear them ask 
a hundred times. In music too the Russian [409] spirit delights to un- 
mask itself, to revel in the cries and gestures of man as man. It speaks 
to us out of the rugged accents of a Moussorgski as out o{ the ucll- 
nigh unendurable despair of a Tschaikovski. It is hard to think i)f the 
main current of Russian art as anywhere infected by the dry rot o\ 
formalism; we expect some human flash or cry to escape from behind 
the bars. 

I have avoided all attempt to construct a parallel beluccii ilic spirit 
of French civilization and that of Russian civilization, between the cul- 
ture of France and the culture of Russia. Strict parallels force an empha- 
sis on contrasts. 1 have been content merely to suggest that underl\ing 
the elements of civilization, the study of which is the province of the 
ethnologist and culture-historian, is a culture, the adequate interpreta- 
tion of which is beset with difficulties and which is often left to men o^ 
letters. 



II. The genuine culture 

The second and third conceptions of the term "culture" are what I 
wish to make the basis of our genuine culture - the pretender to the 
throne whose claims to recognition we are to consider. We may accept 
culture as signifying the characteristic mold of a national ci\ ilization. 
while trom the second conception of culture, that of a traditional i\pe 
of individual refinement, we will borrow the notion o{ ideal form. I el 
me say at once that nothing is farther from my mind than to plead the 
cause of any specific type of culture. It would be idle to praise or blame 
any fundamental condition of our civilization, to praise or blame an> 
strand in the warp and woof of its genius. These conditions and these 
strands must be accepted as basic. They are sio\\l\ modinable, to be 
sure, like everything else in the history of man, bul radical nuHiilicaiu>n 
of fundamentals does not seem necessary for the production ol a genu- 
ine culture, however much a readjustment of their relations ma\ be. In 
other words, a genuine culture is perfectly concei\able m an\ i>pe or 
stage of civilization, in the mold of any national genius. It can be con- 
ceived as easily in terms of a Mohammedan polygammis society, or ol 
an American Indian "primitive" non-agnculiuial sociei\. as in those of 
our familiar occidental societies. On ihe 1410] i>ihcr haiui. uli.ii ma> b\ 



54 /// Culture 

contrast be called "spurious" cultures are just as easily conceivable in 
conditions of general enlightenment as in those of relative ignorance 
and squalor. 

The genuine culture is not of necessity either high or low; it is merely 
inherently harmonious, balanced, self-satisfactory. It is the expression 
of a richly varied and yet somehow unified and consistent attitude to- 
ward life, an attitude which sees the significance of any one element of 
civilization in its relation to all others. It is, ideally speaking, a culture 
in which nothing is spiritually meaningless, in which no important part 
of the general functioning brings with it a sense of frustration, of misdi- 
rected or unsympathetic effort. It is not a spiritual hybrid of contradic- 
tory patches, of water-tight compartments of consciousness that avoid 
participation in a harmonious synthesis. If the culture necessitates slav- 
ery, it frankly admits it; if it abhors slavery, it feels its way to an eco- 
nomic adjustment that obviates the necessity of its employment. It does 
not make a great show in its ethical ideals of an uncompromising oppo- 
sition to slavery, only to introduce what amounts to a slave system 
into certain portions of its industrial mechanism. Or, if it builds itself 
magnificent houses of worship, it is because of the necessity it feels to 
symbolize in beautiful stone a religious impulse that is deep and vital; 
if it is ready to discard institutionalized religion, it is prepared also to 
dispense with the homes of institutionalized religion. It does not look 
sheepish when a direct appeal is made to its religious consciousness, 
then make amends by furtively donating a few dollars toward the main- 
tenance of an African mission. Nor does it carefully instruct its children 
in what it knows to be of no use or vitality either to them or in its own 
mature life. Nor does it tolerate a thousand other spiritual maladjust- 
ments such as are patent enough in our American life of today. It would 
be too much to say that even the purest examples yet known of a genu- 
ine culture have been free of spiritual discords, of the dry rot of social 
habit, devitalized. But the great cultures, those that we instinctively feel 
to have been healthy spiritual organisms, such as the Athenian culture 
of the Age of Pericles and, to a less extent perhaps, the English culture 
of Elizabethan days, have at least tended to such harmony. [411] 

It should be clearly understood that this ideal of a genuine culture 
has no necessary connection with what we call efficiency. A society may 
be admirably efficient in the sense that all its activities are carefully 
planned with reference to ends of maximum utility to the society as a 
whole, it may tolerate no lost motion, yet it may well be an inferior 
organism as a culture-bearer. It is not enough that the ends of activities 



One: Culfinv. Soiicly. mul the liulniiluul 55 

be socially satisfactory, thai each niemhcr ol the coninuiiuly reel in 
some dim way that he is doing his bit toward ihc aiianimeni of a social 
benefit. This is all very well so far as it goes, but a genuine culture 
refuses to consider the individual as a mere cog, as an entit\ whose sdIc 
raison d'etre lies in his subservience to a collective purpose thai he is 
not conscious of or that has only a remote rele\anc\ {o his imcresis 
and strivings. The major activities of the individual must always be 
something more than means to an end. The great cultural fallac\ of 
industrialism, as developed up to the present time, is that in harnessing 
machines to our uses it has not known how to avoid the harnessing of 
the majority of mankind to its machines. The telephone girl who lends 
her capacities, during the greater part of the living day. to the manipula- 
tion of a technical routine that has an eventually high efficiency value 
but that answers to no spiritual needs of her own is an appalling sacri- 
fice to civilization. As a solution of the problem of culture she is a 
failure - the more dismal the greater her natural endowment. As uiih 
the telephone girl, so, it is feared, with the great majority of us, sla\e- 
stokers to fires that burn for demons we would destroy, were it not that 
they appear in the guise of our benefactors. The American Indian who 
solves the economic problem with salmon-spear and rabbit-snare oper- 
ates on a relatively low level of civilization, but he represents an incom- 
parably higher solution than our telephone girl of the questions that 
culture has to ask of economics. There is here no question o^ the imme- 
diate utility, of the effective directness, of economic etTort, nor o\' any 
sentimentalizing regret as to the passing of the "natural man." The 
Indian's salmon-spearing is a culturally higher type of activity than that 
of the telephone-girl or mill hand simply because there is normalK no 
sense of spiritual frustration [412] during its prosecution, no feeling o^ 
subservience to tyrannous yet largely inchoate demands, because it 
works in naturally with all the rest of the Indian's acti\ilies instead o{ 
standing out as a desert patch of merely economic etTori in the whole 
of life. A genuine culture cannot be defined as a sum of absiraciK desir- 
able ends, as a mechanism. It must be looked upon as a sturd> plant 
growth, each remotest leaf and twig o[^ which is organically fed by the 
sap at the core. And this growth is not here meant as a metaphor tor 
the group only; it is meant to apply as well to the individual. A culture 
that does not build itself out of the central interests and desires oi its 
bearers, that works trom general ends to the individual, is an external 
culture. The word "external," which is so often instincti\el> chosen to 



56 /// Culture 

describe such a culture, is well chosen. The genuine culture is internal, 
it works from the individual to ends. 

We have already seen that there is no necessary correlation between 
the development oi^ civilization and the relative genuineness of the cul- 
ture which tbrms its spiritual essence. This requires a word of further 
explanation. By the development of civilization is meant the ever 
increasing degree of sophistication of our society and of our individual 
lives. This progressive sophistication is the inevitable cumulative result 
of the sifting processes of social experience, of the ever increasing com- 
plications of our innumerable types of organization; most of all our 
steadily growing knowledge of our natural environment and, as a conse- 
quence, our practical mastery, for economic ends, of the resources that 
nature at once grants us and hides from us. It is chiefly the cumulative 
force of this sophistication that gives us the sense of what we call "pro- 
gress." Perched on the heights of an office building twenty or more 
stories taller than our fathers ever dreamed of, we feel that we are get- 
ting up in the world. Hurling our bodies through space with an ever 
increasing velocity, we feel that we are getting on. Under sophistication 
I include not merely intellectual and technical advance, but most of the 
tendencies that make for a cleaner and healthier and, to a large extent, 
a more humanitarian existence. It is excellent to keep one's hands spot- 
lessly clean, to eliminate smallpox, to administer anesthetics. Our grow- 
ing sophistication, our ever [413] increasing solicitude to obey the dic- 
tates of common sense, make these tendencies imperative. It would be 
sheer obscurantism to wish to stay their progress. But there can be no 
stranger illusion - and it is an illusion we nearly all share - than this, 
that because the tools of life are today more specialized and more re- 
fined than ever before, that because the technique brought by science is 
more perfect than anything the world has yet known, it necessarily fol- 
lows that we are in like degree attaining to a profounder harmony of 
life, to a deeper and more satisfying culture. It is as though we believed 
that an elaborate mathematical computation which involved figures of 
seven and eight digits could not but result in a like figure. Yet we know 
that one million multiplied by zero gives us zero quite as effectively as 
one multiplied by zero. The truth is that sophistication, which is what 
we ordinarily mean by the progress of civilization, is, in the long run, 
a merely quantitative concept that defines the external conditions for 
the growth or decay of a culture. We are right to have faith in the 
progress of civilization. We are wrong to assume that the maintenance 
or even advance of culture is a function of such progress. A reading of 



One: Culture. Socfcty. and the IndivUluul 57 

the facts of ethnology and ciihiiic hisioix j^roves plainls that niaxinia 
of CLikure have frequently been reached m low levels of sophislicalion; 
that minima of culture have been plumbed in scmie of the hiuhesl. C'i\ili- 
zation, as a whole, moves on; culture comes and goes. 

Every profound change in the tlou of ci\ili/alion. particularK e\er\ 
change in its economic bases, tends to bring about an unsettling and 
readjustment o[^ culture values. Old culture forms, habitual types o\ 
reaction, tend to persist through the force of inertia. The maladjustment 
of these habitual reactions to their new civilizational ein ironmeni brings 
with it a measure of spiritual disharmony, which the more sensitive 
individuals feel eventually as a fundamental lack of culture. Sometimes 
the maladjustment corrects itself with great rapidity, at other times it 
may persist for generations, as in the case of America, where a chrome 
state of cultural maladjustment has for so long a period reduced much 
of our higher life to sterile externality. It is easier, generally speaking, 
for a genuine culture to subsist on a lower lever of civilization: the 
differentiation of individuals as regards their social and economic func- 
tions is so much less than in [414] the higher le\els that there is less 
danger of the reduction of the individual to an unintelligible fragment 
of the social organism. How to reap the undeniable benefits o^ a great 
differentiation of functions, without at the same time losing sight o\ the 
individual as a nucleus of live cultural values, is the great and ditllcult 
problem of any rapidly complicating civilization. We are far from hav- 
ing solved it in America. Indeed, it may be doubted whether more than 
an insignificant minority are aware of the existence of the problem, ^el 
the present world-wide labor unrest has as one of its deepest roots some 
sort of perception of the cultural fallacy o'i the present form oi indu- 
strialism. 

It is perhaps the sensitive ethnologist who has studied an aboriginal 
civilization at first hand who is most impressed b\ the frequent \italil> 
of culture in less sophisticated levels. He cannot but admire the well- 
rounded life of the average participant in the ci\ili/aiion of a typical 
American Indian tribe; the firmness with which e\er> part of that lite 
- economic, social, religious, and aesthetic - is bound together into a 
significant whole in respect to which he is far from a passive pawn; 
above all, the molding role, oftentimes defimiclN creative, that he plays 
in the mechanism of his culture. When the political integrity of his tribe 
is destroyed by contact with the whites and the old cultural values cease 
to have the atmosphere needed for their continued viialit\. the Indian 
finds himself in a stale o\' bewildered \acuit\. I\cn if he succeeds in 



58 /// Ciilfurc 

making a fairly satisfactory compromise with his new environment, in 
making what his well-wishers consider great progress toward enlighten- 
ment, he is apt to retain an uneasy sense of the loss of some vague and 
great good, some state of mind that he would be hard put to it to define, 
but which gave him a courage and joy that latter-day prosperity never 
quite seems to have regained for him. What has happened is that he 
has slipped out of the warm embrace of a culture into the cold air of 
fragmentary existence. What is sad about the passing of the Indian is 
not the depletion of his numbers by disease nor even the contempt that 
is too often meted out to him in his life on the reservation, it is the 
fading away of genuine cultures, buih though they were out of the mate- 
rials of a low order of sophistication. [415] 

We have no right to demand of the higher levels of sophistication 
that they preserve to the individual his manifold functioning, but we 
may well ask whether, as a compensation, the individual may not rea- 
sonably demand an intensification in cultural value, a spiritual height- 
ening, of such functions as are left him. Failing this, he must be admit- 
ted to have retrograded. The limitation in functioning works chiefly in 
the economic sphere. It is therefore imperative, if the individual is to 
preserve his value as a cultured being, that he compensate himself out 
of the non-economic, the non-utilitarian spheres — social, religious, sci- 
entific, aesthetic. This idea of compensation brings to view an important 
issue, that of the immediate and the remoter ends of human effort. 

As a mere organism, man's only function is to exist; in other words, 
to keep himself alive and to propagate his kind. Hence the procuring 
of food, clothing, and shelter for himself and those dependent on him 
constitutes the immediate end of his effort. There are civilizations, like 
that of the Eskimo, in which by far the greater part of man's energy is 
consumed in the satisfaction of these immediate ends, in which most 
of his activities contribute directly or indirectly to the procuring and 
preparation of food and the materials for clothing and shelter. There 
are practically no civilizations, however, in which at least some of the 
available energy is not set free for remoter ends, though, as a rule, 
these remoter ends are by a process of rationalization made to seem to 
contribute to the immediate ones. (A magical ritual, for instance, which, 
when considered psychologically, seems to liberate and give form to 
powerful emotional aesthetic elements of our nature, is nearly always 
put in harness to some humdrum utilitarian end - the catching of rab- 
bits or the curing of disease.) As a matter of fact, there are very few 
"primitive" civilizations that do not consume an exceedingly large share 



One Culiinr. Sociclv. and ///<■ lihlivuliuil 59 

of their energies in ihc piirsuii of the iciiKUcr ciuK. iluuiyli n remains 
true that these remoter ends are nearly always runclionally or pseudo- 
tunctionally interwoven with the immediate ends. Art for art's sake may 
be a psycliological fact on tliese less sophisticated le\els: it is ci-it.nnlv 
not a cultural tact. 

On our own le\el o^ civilization the remoter ends tend to spin oil 
altogether tVom the immediate ones and lo assume the form of a (416) 
spiritual escape or refuge from the pursuit o'i the latter. The separation 
of the two classes of ends is never absolute nor can it e\er be: it is 
enough to note the presence o\^ a powerful drift o\^ the luc) away from 
each other. It is easy to demonstrate this drift by examples taken out 
of our daily experience. While in most primitive cisili/ations the dance 
is apt to be a ritual activity at least ostensibly associated with purposes 
of an economic nature, it is with us a merely and self-consciousl) plea- 
surable activity that not only splits off from the sphere o[' the pursuit 
of immediate ends but even tends to assume a position o\' hostilit) to 
that sphere. In a primitive civilization a great chief dances as a mailer 
of course, oftentimes as a matter of exercising a peculiarly honored 
privilege. With us the captain of industry either refuses to dance at all 
or does so as a half-contemptuous concession to the tyranny o'i social 
custom. On the other hand, the artist of a Ballet Russe has sublimated 
the dance to an exquisite instrument of self-expression, has succeeded 
in providing himself with an adequate, or more than adequate, cultural 
recompense for his loss of mastery in the realm of direct ends. Ihe 
captain of industry is one of the comparatively small class of indi\iduals 
that has inherited, in vastly complicated form, something of the feeling 
of control over the attainment of direct ends thai belongs b> cultural 
right to primitive man; the ballet dancer has saved and intensified for 
himself the feeling of spontaneous participation and creati\eness in the 
world of indirect ends that also belongs by cultural right to primitive 
man. Each has saved part of the wreckage of a submerged culture \o\ 
himself. 

The psychology of direct and indirect ends undergoes a gradual modi- 
fication, only partly consummated as yet, in the higher le\els ol ci\ili/a- 
tion. The immediate ends continue to exercise the same tyrannical sway 
in the ordering of our li\es. but as our spiritual selves become enriched 
and develop a more and more inordinate craving for subtler lorms ol 
existence, there develops also an attitude of impatience uith the solution 
of the more immediate problems o\^ life. In other words, the immediate 
ends cease to be felt as chief ends and gradual!) bcci^nc necessary 



60 /// Culture 

means, but only means, toward the attainment of the more remote ends. 
These remoter ends, in turn, so far from being looked upon as purely 
[417] incidental activities which result from the spilling over of an en- 
ergy concentrated almost entirely on the pursuit of the immediate ends, 
become the chief ends of life. This change of attitude is implied in the 
statement that the art, science, and religion of a higher civilization best 
express its spirit or culture. The transformation of ends thus briefly 
outlined is far from an accomplished fact; it is rather an obscure drift in 
the history of values, an expression of the volition of the more sensitive 
participants in our culture. Certain temperaments feel themselves im- 
pelled far along the drift, others lag behind. 

The transformation of ends is of the greatest cultural importance 
because it acts as a powerful force for the preservation of culture in 
levels in which a fragmentary economic functioning of the individual is 
inevitable. So long as the individual retains a sense of control over the 
major goods of life, he is able to take his place in the cultural patrimony 
of his people. Now that the major goods of life have shifted so largely 
from the realm of immediate to that of remote ends, it becomes a cul- 
tural necessity for all who would not be looked upon as disinherited to 
share in the pursuit of these remoter ends. No harmony and depth of 
life, no culture, is possible when activity is well-nigh circumscribed by 
the sphere of immediate ends and when functioning within that sphere 
is so fragmentary as to have no inherent intelligibility or interest. Here 
lies the grimmest joke of our American civilization. The vast majority 
of us, deprived of any but an insignificant and culturally abortive share 
in the satisfaction of the immediate wants of mankind, are further de- 
prived of both opportunity and stimulation to share in the production 
of non-utilitarian values. Part of the time we are dray horses; the rest 
of the time we are listless consumers of goods which have received no 
least impress of our personality. In other words, our spiritual selves go 
hungry, for the most part, pretty much all of the time. 



III. The cultured individual and the cultural group 

There is no real opposition, at last analysis, between the concept of 
a culture of the group and the concept of an individual culture. The 
two are interdependent. A healthy national culture is never a passively 
accepted heritage from the past, but implies [418] the creative participa- 
tion of the members of the community; implies, in other words, the 



One Ciillurc. Society, ciml ihc I/ii/ivulual (^\ 

presence of ciillurctl indi\ idiials. An auioiiialic pcrpclualion of slan- 
dardized values, not subjecl to the conslanl remodeling ot" individuals 
willing to put some part of themseKes into the forms they reeei\e from 
their predecessors, leads ic^ the dominance of impersonal formulas. Ihe 
individual is left out in the cold; the culture becomes a manner rather 
than a way of life, it ceases to be genuine. It is just as true, however. 
that the individual is helpless without a cultural heritage to work on. 
He cannot, out of his unaided spiritual powers, weave a strong cultural 
fabric instinct with the Hush of his own personality. Creation is a bend- 
ing of the form to one's will, not a manufacture o\' form c.v nihilo It 
the passive perpetuator of a cultural tradition gives us merely a manner, 
the shell of a life that once was. the creator tVom out of a cultural waste 
gives us hardly more than a gesture or a yawn, the strident promise o\ 
a vision raised by our desires. 

There is a curious notion atloat that "new" countries are especialK 
favorable soil for the formation of a virile culture. By new is meant 
something old that has been transplanted to a background de\oid o\ 
historical associations. It would be remarkable if a plant, flourishing m 
heavy black loam, suddenly acquired new \irilil\ on transplaniatuMi 
into a shallow sandy soil. Metaphors are dangerous things that pro\e 
nothing, but experience suggests the soundness o\' this particular meta- 
phor. Indeed, there is nothing more tenuous, more shamelessly imitati\e 
and external, less virile and self-joyous, than the cultures of so-called 
"new countries." The environments of these transplanted cultures are 
new, the cultures themselves are old with the sickly age o\' arrested de- 
velopment. If signs of a genuine blossoming of culture are bekitedly 
beginning to appear in America, it is not because America is still new; 
rather is America coming of age, beginning to feel a little old. In a 
genuinely new country, the preoccupation with the immediate ends ol 
existence reduces creativeness in the sphere oi" the more remote ends to 
a minimum. The net result is a perceptible dwarfing of culture. The old 
stock of non-material cultural goods lingers on witlunit being subiecled 
to vital remodelings, becomes [419] progressively impoverished, and 
ends by being so hopelessly ill-adjusted to the economic and social cn\i- 
ronment that the more sensitive spirits tend to break with it altogether 
and to begin anew with a frank recognition o\' the new einiriMimenlal 
conditions. Such new starts are invariahls crude: the\ are K>ng m hear- 
ing the fruits of a genuine culture. 

It is only an apparent paradox thai the suhilesi and the most dccisiNC 
cultural intluences of personality, the most fruitful revolts, are disccrni- 



62 /// Culnirc 

ble in those environments that have long and uninterruptedly supported 
a richly streaming culture. So far from being suffocated in an atmo- 
sphere of endless precedent, the creative spirit gains sustenance and 
vigor tor its own unfolding, and, if it is strong enough, it may swing 
free of that very atmosphere with a poise hardly dreamed of by the 
timid iconoclasts of unformed cultures. Not otherwise could we under- 
stand the cultural history of modern Europe. Only in a mature and 
richly differentiated soil could arise the iconoclasms and visions of an 
Anatole France, a Nietzsche, an Ibsen, a Tolstoi. In America, at least 
in the America of yesterday, these iconoclasms and these visions would 
either have been strangled in the cradle, or, had they found air to 
breathe, they would have half-developed into a crude and pathetic isola- 
tion. There is no sound and vigorous individual incorporation of a cul- 
tured ideal without the soil of a genuine communal culture; and no 
genuine communal culture without the transforming energies of person- 
alities at once robust and saturated with the cultural values of their time 
and place. The highest type of culture is thus locked in the embrace of 
an endless chain, to the forging of which goes much labor, weary and 
protracted. Such a culture avoids the two extremes of "externality" - 
the externality of surfeit, which weighs down the individual, and the 
externality of barrenness. The former is the decay of Alexandrianism, 
in which the individual is no more; the latter, the combined immaturity 
and decay of an uprooted culture, in which the individual is not yet. 
Both types of externality may be combined in the same culture, fre- 
quently in the same person. Thus, it is not uncommon to find in Amer- 
ica individuals who have had engrafted on a barren and purely utilitar- 
ian culture a [420] cultural tradition that apes a grace already em- 
balmed. One surmises that this juxtaposition of incongruous atmo- 
spheres is even typical in certain circles. 

Let us look a little more closely at the place of the individual in a 
modern sophisticated culture. I have insisted throughout that a genuine 
culture is one that gives its bearers a sense of inner satisfaction, a feeling 
of spiritual mastery. In the higher levels of civilization this sense of 
mastery is all but withdrawn, as we have seen, from the economic 
sphere. It must, then, to an even greater extent than in more primitive 
civilizations, feed on the non-economic spheres of human activity. The 
individual is thus driven, or should be if he would be truly cuUured, to 
the identification of himself with some portion of the wide range of 
non-economic interests. From the standpoint adopted in this study, this 
does not mean that the identification is a purely casual and acquisitive 



One: Culture. Smictv. and i he hulnuluul 63 

process; it is. indeed, nuide not so nuieh lor iis own sake as in order lo 
give the self the vvherevviihal lo develop iis powers. Concretel> consid- 
ered, this would mean, for instance, that a mediocre person moderately 
gifted with the ability to express his aesthetic instincts m plastic form 
and exercising that gift in his own sincere and humble way (lo ihe ne- 
glect, it may be. o[' practicalK all other interests) is ipso facto a more 
cultured indi\idual than a person of brilliant endowments who has 
acquainted himself in a general way with all the "best" that has been 
thought and felt and done, but who has never succeeded in bringing 
any portion oi" his range o\'^ interests into direct relatuMi with his voli- 
tional self, with the innermost shrine of his personality. An individual 
of the latter type, for all his brilliance, we call "flat." A tlat person 
cannot be truly cultured. He may, of course, be highly cultured in the 
conventional sense of the word "culture," but that is another story. I 
would not be understood as claiming that direct creativeness is essential. 
though it is highly desirable, for the development of individual culture. 
To a large extent it is possible to gain a sense of the required masters 
by linking one's own personality with that of the great minds and hearts 
that society has recognized as its significant creators. Possible, that is. 
so long as such linking, such vicarious experience, is attended by some 
portion of the etYort, the tluttering toward [421] realization that is in- 
separable from all creative effort. It is to be feared, however, that the 
self-discipline that is here implied is none too often practiced. Ihe link- 
ing, as I have called it, of self with master soul too often degenerates 
into a pleasurable servitude, into a tacile abnegation of one's in\n indi- 
viduality, the more insidious that it has the approval o\' current judg- 
ment. The pleasurable servitude may degenerate still further into a vice. 
Those of us who are not altogether blind can see in certain of our 
acquaintances, if not in ourselves, an indulgence in aesthetic or scientific 
goods that is strictly comparable to the abuse of alcoholic intoxicants. 
Both types of self-ignoring or self-submerging habit are signs of a debili- 
tated personality; both are antithetical to the formation of culture. 

The individual self, then, in aspiring to culture, fastens upon the accu- 
mulated cultural goods of its society, not so much for the sake o\ ihc 
passive pleasure oi' their acquirement, as for the sake oi' the stimulus 
given to the unfolding personalitv and o\' the orientation derived in the 
world (or better, a world) of cultural values. Ihe orientation, com 
tional as it may be, is necessary if onlv [o give the self a moJu.s wi...... 

with society at large. The individual needs [o assnnilale much o\ ihc 
cultural background o\~ his societv. nianv o( the current sentiments of 



64 /// Culture 

his people, to prevent his self-expression from degenerating into social 
sterility. A spiritual hermit may be genuinely cultured, but he is hardly 
socially so. To say that individual culture must needs grow organically 
out of the rich soil of a communal culture is far from saying that it 
must be forever tied to that culture by the leading strings of its own 
childhood. Once the individual self has grown strong enough to travel 
in the path most clearly illuminated by its own light, it not only can 
but should discard much of the scaffolding by which it has made its 
ascent. Nothing is more pathetic than the persistence with which well- 
meaning applicants to culture attempt to keep up or revive cultural 
stimuli which have long outlived their significance for the growth of 
personality. To keep up or brush up one's Greek, for example, in those 
numerous cases in which a knowledge of Greek has ceased to bear a 
genuine relation to the needs of the spirit, is almost a spiritual crime. It 
is acting "the dog in the manger" with one's own soul. If the traveling 
in the path of the [422] self's illumination leads to a position that is 
destructive of the very values the self was fed on, as happened, though 
in very different ways, with Nietzsche and with Tolstoi, it has not in the 
slightest lost touch with genuine culture. It may well, on the contrary, 
have arrived at its own highest possible point of cultural development. 

Nietzsche and Tolstoi, however, are extreme types of personality. 
There is no danger that the vast army of cultured humanity will ever 
come to occupy spiritual positions of such rigor and originality. The 
real danger, as is so abundantly attested by daily experience, is in sub- 
mitting to the remorselessly leveling forces of a common cultural heri- 
tage and of the action of average mind on average mind. These forces 
will always tend to a general standardization of both the content and 
the spirit of culture, so powerfully, indeed, that the centrifugal effect of 
robust, self-sustaining personalities need not be feared. The caution to 
conformity with tradition, which the champions of culture so often feel 
themselves called upon to announce, is one that we can generally dis- 
pense with. It is rather the opposite caution, the caution to conformity 
with the essential nature of one's own personality, that needs urging. It 
needs to be urged as a possible counter-irritant to the flat and tedious 
sameness of spiritual outlook, the anemic make-believe, the smug intol- 
erance of the challenging, that so imprison our American souls. 

No greater test of the genuineness of both individual and communal 
culture can be applied than the attitude adopted toward the past, its 
institutions, its treasures of art and thought. The genuinely cultured 
individual or society does not contemptuously reject the past. They 



One: Culture, Sociciy. mul ihc /m/iviJuctl 65 

honor the works o\^ the past, bul not because ihey are genis ot hisiorical 
chance, but because, being out otour reach, they must needs be looked 
at through the enshrining gkiss of museum cases. These works of the 
past still excite our heartfelt interest and sympathy because, and onl\ 
in so far as, they may be recognized as the expression of a human spirit 
warmly akin, despite all differences of outward garb, to our own. Ihis 
is very nearly equivalent to saying that the past is of cultural interest 
only when it is still the present or may yet become the future. Paradoxi- 
cal as it may seem, the historical spirit has always been something oi' 
an anticultural force, has always acted in some measure as an unwitting 
deterrent of the cultural utilization of the past. The historical [423] spirit 
says, "Beware, those thoughts and those feelings that you so rashl> 
think to embody in the warp and woof of your own spirit thes are 
of other time and of other place and they issue from alien motives. In 
bending over them you do but obscure them with the shadow o( your 
own spirit." This cool reserve is an excellent mood for the making o\' 
historical science; its usefulness to the building of culture in the present 
is doubtful. We know immensely more about Hellenic antiquity in these 
days than did the scholars and artists of the Renaissance; ii umild be 
folly to pretend that our live utilization of the Hellenic spirit, accurately 
as we merely know it, is comparable to the inspiration, the creative 
stimulus, that those men of the Renaissance obtained from its fragmen- 
tary and garbled tradition. It is difficult to think o\' a renaissance o\' 
that type as thriving in the critical atmosphere of today. We should 
walk so gingerly in the paths of the past for fear of stepping on anachro- 
nisms, that, wearied with fatigue, we should finally sink into a heavy 
doze, to be awakened only by the insistent clatter o\' the preseni It ma\ 
be that in our present state of sophistication such a spirit of criticism, 
of detachment, is not only unavoidable but essential for the preserxalion 
of our own individualities. The past is now more of a past than ever 
before. Perhaps we should expect less o( it than e\er before. Or rather 
expect no more of it than it hold its portals wide open, that we may 
enter in and despoil it of what bits we choose for our prett> nu^saics. 
Can it be that the critical sense of history, which galvanizes the past 
into scientific life, is destined to slay it for the life o\' euliure'.' More 
probably, what is happening is that the spuiiual currents of ioda\ arc 
running so fast, so turbulently, that we find it difficult to gel a culturally 
vital perspective of the past, which is thus, for the time being. Icli as a 
glorified mummy in the hands o( the pundits. .And. for the time being, 
those others of us who take their culture neiiiier .is knowledge nor as 



66 /// Culture 

manner, but as life, will ask of the past not so much "what?' and 
"when?" and "where?" as "how?" and the accent of their "how" will be 
modulated in accordance with the needs of the spirit of each, a spirit 
that is free to glorify, to transform, and to reject. 

To summarize the place of the individual in our theory of culture, we 
may say that the pursuit of genuine culture implies two types [424] of 
reconciliation. The self seeks instinctively for mastery. In the process of 
acquiring a sense of mastery that is not crude but proportioned to the 
degree of sophistication proper to our time, the self is compelled to 
suffer an abridgment and to undergo a molding. The extreme differenti- 
ation of function which the progress of man has forced upon the indivi- 
dual menaces the spirit; we have no recourse but to submit with good 
grace to this abridgment of our activity, but it must not be allowed to 
clip the wings of the spirit unduly. This is the first and most important 
reconciliation - the finding of a full world of spiritual satisfactions 
within the straight limits of an unwontedly confined economic activity. 
The self must set itself at a point where it can, if not embrace the whole 
spiritual life of its group, at least catch enough of its rays to burst 
into light and fiame. Moreover, the self must learn to reconcile its own 
strivings, its own imperious necessities, with the general spiritual life of 
the community. It must be content to borrow sustenance from the spiri- 
tual consciousness of that community and of its past, not merely that 
it may obtain the wherewithal to grow at all, but that it may grow 
where its power, great or little, will be brought to bear on a spiritual 
life that is of intimate concern to other wills. Yet, despite all reconcilia- 
tions, the self has a right to feel that it grows as an integral, self-poised, 
spiritual growth, whose ultimate justifications rest in itself, whose sacri- 
fices and compensations must be justified to itself. The concentration 
of the self as a mere instrument toward the attainment of communal 
ends, whether of state or other social body, is to be discarded as leading 
in the long run to psychological absurdities and to spiritual slavery. It 
is the self that concedes, if there is to be any concession. Spiritual free- 
dom, what there is of it, is not alms dispensed, now indifferently, now 
grudgingly, by the social body. That a different philosophy of the rela- 
tion of the individual to his group is now so prevalent, makes it all the 
more necessary to insist on the spiritual primacy of the individual soul. 

It is a noteworthy fact that wherever there is discussion of culture, 
emphasis is instinctively placed upon art. This applies as well to indivi- 
dual as to communal culture. We apply the term "cultured" only with 
reserve to an individual in whose life the [425] aesthetic moment plays 



One: Culture. Society, ami the Imlniduul 67 

no part. So also, if \\c wcnild calch soiiiclhing o\' the spirit, the genius. 
of a bygone period or of an exotic ci\ ih/alion. ue turn first and lore- 
most to its art. A thoughtless analysis would see in this nothing but 
the emphasis on the beautiful, the deeorative. that ecMnporis uiih the 
conventional conception of culture as a life of iradiiii)iiall\ molded re- 
finement. A more penetrative analysis discards such an interpretation. 
For it the highest manifestations of culture, the very quintessence of the 
genius of a civilization, necessarily rest in art. for the reason that art is 
the authentic expression, in satisfying form. o\' experience; experience 
not as logically ordered by science, but as directly and intuitively pre- 
sented to us in life. As culture rests, in essence, on the harmonious 
development of the sense of mastery instinctively sought by each indi\i- 
dual soul, this can only mean that art, the form o[^ consciousness in 
which the impress of the self is most direct, least hampered by outuard 
necessity, is above all other undertakings of the human spnit bound to 
reflect culture. To relate our lives, our intuitions, our passing moods to 
forms of expression that carry conviction to others and make us li\e 
again in these others is the highest spiritual satisfaction ue know o{, 
the highest welding of one's individuality with the spirit o\' his ci\ili/a- 
tion. Were art ever really perfect in expression, it would indeed be im- 
mortal. Even the greatest art, however, is full of the dross of con\en- 
tionality, of the particular sophistications of its age. As these change, 
the directness of expression in any work of art tends to be increasingl\ 
felt as hampered by something fixed and alien, until it gradualK falls 
into oblivion. While art lives, it belongs to culture; in the degree thai it 
takes on the frigidity of death, it becomes o\' interest onl> to the stud> 
of civilization. Thus all art appreciation (and production, for that 
matter) has two faces. It is unfortunate that the face directed to ci\ili/a- 
tion is so often confounded with that which is fixed on culiure 



IV. The geography (.>!" ciiliuic 

An oft-noted peculiarity of the development o\ culture is ilie laci 
that it reaches its greatest heights in comparaineh small, auiononunis 
groups. In fact, it is doubtful if a genuine culture [426] ever properly 
belongs to more than such a restricted group, a group between the 
members of which there can be said to be something like direct intensne 
spiritual contact. This direct contact is enriched by the CiMiimon cultural 
heritage on which the minds of all are led; it is rendered swifi and 



68 /// Culture 

pregnant by the thousands of feelings and ideas that are tacitly assumed 
and that constantly glimmer in the background. Such small, culturally 
autonomous groups were the Athens of the Periclean Age, the Rome of 
Augustus, the independent city-states of Italy in late medieval times, the 
London of Elizabethan days, and the Paris of the last three centuries. 
It is customary to speak of certain of these groups and of their cultures 
as though they were identical with, or represented, widely extended 
groups and cultures. To a curiously large extent such usages are really 
figures of speech, substitutions of a part for the whole. It is astonishing, 
for instance, how much the so-called "history of French literature" is 
really the history of literary activity in the city of Paris. True enough, a 
narrowly localized culture may, and often does, spread its influence far 
beyond its properly restricted sphere. Sometimes it sets the pace for a 
whole nationality, for a far-flung empire. It can do so, however, only at 
the expense of diluting in spirit as it moves away from its home, of 
degenerating into an imitative attitudinizing. If we realized more keenly 
what the rapid spread or imposition of a culture entails, to what an 
extent it conquers by crushing the germs of healthier autonomous 
growth, we would be less eager to welcome uniformizing tendencies, 
less ready to think of them as progressive in character. A culture may 
well be quickened from without, but its supersession by another, 
whether superior or not, is no cultural gain. Whether or not it is 
attended by a political gain does not concern us here. That is why the 
deliberate attempt to impose a culture directly and speedily, no matter 
how backed by good will, is an affront to the human spirit. When such 
an attempt is backed, not by good will, but by military ruthlessness, it 
is the greatest conceivable crime against the human spirit, it is the very 
denial of culture. 

Does this mean that we must turn our back on all internationalistic 
tendencies and vegetate forever in our nationalisms? Here we are con- 
fronted by the prevalent fallacy that internationalism is [427] in spirit 
opposed to the intensive development of autonomous cultures. The fal- 
lacy proceeds from a failure to realize that internationalism, national- 
ism, and locahsm are forms that can be given various contents. We 
cannot intelligently discuss internationahsm before we know what it is 
that we are to be internationalistic about. Unfortunately we are so ob- 
sessed by the idea of subordinating all forms of human association to 
the state and of regarding the range of all types of activity as contermi- 
nous with political boundaries, that it is difficult for us to reconcile the 
idea of a local or restrictedly national autonomy of culture with a purely 



Oni'. Cult inc. Society, und the hull vidua! 69 

political state-sovereignty and with an economic-political international- 
ism. 

No one can see clearly what is destined to be the larger outcome of 
the present world contlicts. They may exacerbate rather than alla\ na- 
tional-political animosities and thus tend to strengthen the prestige of 
the state. But this deplorable result cannot well be other than a passing 
phase. Even now it is evident that the war has, in more ways than one. 
paved the way tor an economic and, as a corollary, a semi-poliiical 
internationalism. All those spheres of activity that relate to the satislac- 
tion of immediate ends, which, from the vantage point that we have 
gained, are nothing but means, will tend to become international func- 
tions. However the internationalizing processes will shape themscKes in 
detail, they will at bottom be but the retlection of that growmg impa- 
tience of the human spirit with the preoccupation with direct ends, 
which I spoke of before. Such transnational problems as the distribu- 
tion of economic goods, the transportation of commodities, the control 
of highways, the coinage, and numerous others, must e\entuall> pass 
into the hands of international organizations for the simple reason that 
men will not eternally give their loyalty to the uselessly naiiiMial admni- 
istration of functions that are of inherently international scope. As this 
international scope gets to be thoroughly realized, our present infatua- 
tions with national prestige in the economic sphere will show themsehes 
for the spiritual imbecilities that they are. 

All this has much to do with the eventual development of culture. As 
long as culture is looked upon as a decorative appendage o\' large (428] 
political units, one can plausibly argue that its preservation is bound 
up with the maintenance of the prestige o( these units. But genuine 
culture is inconceivable except on the basis of a highly individual spiri- 
tual consciousness, it rarely remains healthy and subtle when spread 
thin over an interminable area, and in its higher reaches it is in no 
mood to submit to economic and political bonds. Nin\ a generalized 
international culture is hardly thinkable. The national-political unit 
tends to arrogate cuhure to itself and up to a certain point it succeeds 
in doing so, but only at the price of serious cultural impo\erishmeni o( 
vast portions of its terrain. If the economic and political intei!ni\ of 
these large state-controlled units becomes graduall> uiuicrmined b\ the 
growth of international functions, their cultural niison dctre must also 
tend to weaken. Culture must then tend with e\er increasing intensii> 
to cling to relatively small social and to minor political units, units that 
are not too large to incorporate the individuality that is to culture as 



70 /// Culture 

the very breath of life. Between these two processes, the integration of 
economic and poHtical forces into a world sovereignty and the disinteg- 
ration of our present unwieldy culture units into small units whose Hfe 
is truly virile and individual, the fetish of the present state, with its 
uncontrolled sovereignty, may in the dim future be trusted to melt away. 
The political state of today has long been on trial and has been found 
wanting. Our national-political units are too small for peace, too large 
for safety. They are too small for the intelhgent solution of the large 
problems in the sphere of direct ends; they are too large for the fruitful 
enrichment of the remoter ends, for culture. 

It is in the New World, perhaps more than in any other part of the 
globe, that the unsatisfactory nature of a geographically widespread 
culture, of little depth or individuality to begin with, is manifest. To 
find substantially the same cultural manifestations, material and spiri- 
tual, often indeed to the minutest details, in New York and Chicago 
and San Francisco is saddening. It argues a shallowness in the culture 
itself and a readiness to imitation in its bearers that is not reassuring. 
Even if no definite way out of the flat cultural morass is clearly discerni- 
ble for the present, there is no good basking forever in self-sufficiency. 
It can only be of benefit [429] to search out the depths of our hearts 
and to find wherein they are wanting. If we exaggerate our weakness, 
it does not matter; better chastening than self-glorification. We have 
been in the habit of giving ourselves credit for essentially quantitative 
results that are due rather to an unusually favoring nature and to a 
favoring set of economic conditions than to anything in ourselves. Our 
victories have been brilliant, but they have also too often been barren 
for culture. The habit of playing with loaded dice has given us a danger- 
ous attitude of passivity - dangerous, that is, for culture. Stretching 
back opulently in our easy chairs, we expect great cultural things to 
happen to us. We have wound up the machinery, and admirable ma- 
chinery it is; it is "up to" culture to come forth, in heavy panoply. The 
minute increment of individuality which alone makes culture in the self 
and eventually builds up a culture in the community seems somehow 
overlooked. Canned culture is so much easier to administer. 

Just now we are expecting a great deal from the European war. No 
doubt the war and its aftermath will shake us out of some part of our 
smugness and let in a few invigorating air currents of cultural influence, 
but, if we are not careful, these influences may soon harden into new 
standardizations or become diluted into another stock of imitative atti- 
tudes and reactions. The war and its aftermath cannot be a sufficient 



One: Cullurc. Society, ami i he hulnulunl 7| 

cultural cause, they arc al best hiii aiuuhcr set of laNoring conditions. 
We need not be too much astonished if a Periclcan cullurc docs not 
somehow automatically burst into bloom. Sooner or later \se shall have 
to get down to the humble task o^ exploring the depths ol our con- 
sciousness and dragging to the light what sincere hits olrenecied experi- 
ence we can find. These bits will not always be beautiful, thev will nol 
always be pleasing, but they will be genuine. And then we can build. In 
time, in plenty ot time - for we must have patience -a genuine culture 
- better yet, a series of linked autonomous cultures uill grace our 
lives. And New York and Chicago and San Francisco uill li\e each in 
its own cultural strength, not squinting from one to another to see 
which gets ahead in a race for external values, but each serenely oblivi- 
ous of its rivals because growing in a soil of genuine cultural \alues. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in The Anierlain Jourmil of Socioloi^y 29. 
401-429 (1924). Reprinted by permission of the I ni\ersity of Chicago 
Press. Section II, with the exception of the first three sentences, also 
appeared under the title "Civilization and Culture" in 77/c /)/(// 67. 
233-236 (1919). Section I also appeared as "Culture, (ienuine and Spu- 
rious^' in The Dalhousie Review 2, 165-178 (1922); sections Ml and 1\. 
with the exception of the first paragraph of section III. also appeared 
as "Culture in New Countries" in The Dalhintsic Review 2, 358-368 
(1922). 



Notes on Psychological Inlerprclalioii in a Cji\cn 

Society (1926) 

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC ). toundcd in 1925 by Lnucrsily of Chi- 
cago poHtical scientist Charles Merriani. hcuan in the following year to sponsor annual 
conferences for prominent scholars in the emerging intercliseiplinary social sciences The 
conferences were held at Dartmouth College in Hanover. New Hampshire. (For further 
information on these conferences and the interdisciplinary social science movement dur- 
ing this period, see Darnell 1990.) 

Sapir's talk at the first of these "Hanover Conferences'" in 1926 modestly referred to 
"notes on" his chosen topic; nonetheless, the paper summarized his thinking on what 
would later be called ditlerences in national character. Sapir preferred other labels, such us 
"as-if personality." a concept he developed further in preparing his lectures on Pw Psychol- 
ogy of Culture. Sapir published little on these ideas during his lifetime. howe\er; instead. 
anthropological conceptions of national character reached their culmination in the work 
of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict - both of whom were substantially influenced b> 
Sapir's thinking up to this period (1926) but were not in such close contact with him there- 
after. The culture-and-personality school which the latter two scholars de\ eloped within 
anthropology was quite different from Sapir's subsequent work on personality, work w hich 
was influenced by Sapir's association with the psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan. 

Although copies of this 1926 paper were circulated, along with transcripts of other 
portions of the conference proceedings, among the conference participants. Sapir ne\er 
published it. It appears in this volume for the first time. The text is taken from the 
transcripts of the conference and was evidently never prepared in an> other form. .Ap- 
parently, most participants in the conference spoke extemporaneoush and were re- 
corded by SSRC stenographers. 

The 1926 conference lasted from August 9 to September 3 and included 19 plenary 
lectures, as well as other activities. The transcripts of discussion of other lectures record 
only a few remarks by Sapir. none particularly extensive. Accordingly, we present here 
only the session of August 19, 1926, which began with Sapir's paper and continued with 
a discussion, which we represent in abbreviated form. In order to preser\e something of 
the oral and spontaneous quality of the occasion, and because the iranscnpl itself is 
the only record of what was said, we have not attempted lo edit the portions we prcMrnl 
verbatim, other than in punctuation and spelling. 



Notes on Psychological Oricniiiiioii iii a (ii\oii Sociciy 

I am afraid this particular subject tails outside ihc iicncra! rubric o( 
the proceedings of this week. Hie discussions thai ha\e preceded this 



74 /// Culture 

have all been very special and detailed studies which were intended, I 
believe, to illustrate method. A paper which is not special in detail is 
supposed to illustrate method. Unfortunately, I am not aware of having 
any method or illustrations of method, inasmuch as my paper is going 
to contain little of factual interest. I hope however that the discussions 
will give some body to what I was going to say. 

In order to reassure apprehensive members, I was asked if I was 
going to say anything improper. I hasten to assure you that all of my 
illustrations are chaste. 

The subject of social psychology is one that has interested all of us, 
but as far as I myself am concerned, I find myself redefining it every 
time I use the term, and very much up in the air as to what it really 
means. As soon as I try to give it a definite connotation, I find I ask 
myself the same old questions over again. I sometimes wonder whether 
I am any the wiser for all the cogitations. 

Perhaps the best way to get at this concept of social psychology, 
which will be the setting of the remarks which I wish to make later, is 
to ask ourselves a few questions and answer them yea or nay. 

In the first place, there is a certain notion which used to be current 
that social psychology is a kind of psychology that inhered in a mind 
different from the ordinary mind, supposed to be some sort of super- 
mind, which carried on somehow and which was lodged in fragmentary 
fashion in individual minds. That old-fashioned, metaphysical notion 
lingers on in the Jung psychology, and of course it is one of the criti- 
cisms of that psychology that it operates so much with this super-per- 
sonal mind in which social phenomena, social values, are supposed to 
inhere. I think all of us have got away from that, it is so utterly meta- 
physical. 

There is a second conception which I think is even more mischievous 
because it is more plausible. It is a very current conception, and my 
private opinion is that it is the most pernicious difficulty that students 
of social science have to deal with. This definition or conception of 
social psychology I am going to try to define. I may be all wrong; if so, 
I would Hke to have it come out in the discussion. If you will not profit 
by my remarks, I shall by yours. 

It seems to me a great deal of the discussion I have listened to in 
regard to the social sciences, which social psychology is supposed to 
clear up for us, rests on the assumption that these social sciences are 
the direct functions of the group, of society, as such, the solidarity of 
human beings getting together and doing things. Therefore, if you only 



One Culture. Society, utnl the liulivuhtal 75 

knew how the group functions psychologically, you would have a lc\cr 
to the understanding of social science; in fact, you would have social 
science. It sounds plausible, but I think it is wrong, it is so \ery nearly 
self-evident as to be pernicious. I will try to explain as best I can uh\ i 
think it is wrong, and why it has caused confusion in our nnnds. 

In the fnst place, if we take up the social sciences and study their 
subject matter without preconceptions, we find they are not built up o\ 
all those reactions that are due to the interaction o\' human beings as 
groups - manifestly not. If A and B come together and hit each other 
on the head with sticks they happen to pick up, that is communal activ- 
ity of a definite sort, but the laws of that kind of acti\ity are o^ no 
special interest, so tar as I can see, for the social sciences. At any rate, 
that type of behavior is not the subject matter of social science. I think 
that is evident. I am not interested in acti\ities of that kind. Why not* 
If social science were the collectivity of studies devoted to all those 
reactions that grow out of communal human conduct, that kind o'i 
activity - the hitting of A by B in this random way - should be o^ 
supreme interest to us, but it just isn't, which shows we ha\e neglected 
one very important factor in the definition of the subject matter i>f 
social science. There is something there we haxen'i clearl\ envisaged. 
What is that something? 

Anthropologists (and. in their wake, a great many sociologists) have 
gradually become clear what that something is. It is a very simple thing 
but it is easy to ignore it. It is the fact that we have a cumulative 
tradition of patterns of behavior which we <So not lose sight o\' from 
generation to generation, and only those kinds o{ human behavior are 
of interest to the social scientists that run in the grooses ot those pal- 
terns. A hitting B in the manner described was not following an) \er>' 
special pattern that was of that kind of interest. It was of group interest. 
It illustrated nicely the action of mind on mind, and bod\ on body, but 
it did not illustrate the operation of any socially sigmficanl pattern. 
Therefore, it tell outside o\^ the rubric o\^ social science. It is a simple 
example but possibly clear enough for our purpose. 

We see, then, that we are justified in skepticism at the oulscl as lo 
the possibility of defining an> psychology that is to help us in siKial 
science in terms of a "group psycholog\."" in the simplest, most elcn - 
tary sense of the term. If we don't hold lo that, we are going lo tloui.-:. 
helplessly in any methodology we ma\ construct, and I am quilc sure I 
have seen many such fiounderings. 



76 /// Culture 

Let us give another example in order to clarify our minds on this 
point. I am going to take a more dubious example. I invite a friend of 
mine to a meal. We sit down at the Hanover Inn to eat a very good 
meal. From one standpoint, the behavior that results in the eating of 
the meal is social, and from another standpoint it is individual. It de- 
pends entirely on how I look at it. (I am using the term "social" this 
time with reference to the social sciences; it is an ambiguous term, I 
admit.) It is social in so far as my meal is a ritual, following a pattern. 
I am not spurred on by hunger necessarily, or not very greatly. I don't 
react as an "original man" might react. I am heavily conditioned. But 
from an anthropological standpoint I am something else, not merely 
conditioned, but following out patterns worked out by my ancestors or 
those who set the pace in my society. But in so far as I am satisfying 
the cravings of hunger, I am illustrating certain truths of individual 
psychology. This is a very complicated substitute for a simple pattern 
the individual psychologist can work out. In the first example, there 
was no social significance in the act. There probably was, as we will see 
in a moment, but in a rough way there wasn't. In the second example, 
there was some social significance. 

Now all these very self-evident remarks I have made have a very 
important corollary. They show that there is no contrast, properly 
speaking, from the psychologist's viewpoint, between individual 
psychology and social psychology. That is an unfortunate and most 
fictitious contrast, it seems to me. But there is a difference from the 
standpoint of the social scientist between socially unvalidated or indivi- 
dual conduct and socially validated or cultural conduct. But that is a 
distinction the psychologist has no use for, as I see it - none whatever. 
The psychologist is interested in reactivities as such. He is not interested 
in the fact that some of these methods of conditioning reactions need 
an historical tradition to explain them. As a psychologist pure and sim- 
ple, he is not really interested. 

Let us look a little more closely at the distinction made between indi- 
vidual and social conduct. Personally, I think it is an unfortunate one, 
because it is hard for me to think of any activity which is not social in 
the simple, primitive sense of group activity, which is not the kind of 
social activity we are really interested in, in social science. If you stop 
to think of it, there isn't any activity that is not in a communal matrix 
of some kind. Theoretically, we abstract from our fellow-men, parents, 
brothers and sisters, from all the thousands of human beings that sur- 
round us, but actually there is very little of which we are conscious in 



One: Cuhurc. Society, and ilw lnili\uliuil 77 

psychology, or, lo piil it more acemalcls. in aclual luiiiuin behavior, 
which does not presuppose the existence o^ this society we are hving in. 

It is as much a fiction to speak of individual psychologv as to speak 
of social psychology. It is true that we have the illusion that any particu- 
lar human reaction we engage in is carried by the individual in some 
kind of emironmcnl thai has lo be defined. But inasmuch as that reac- 
tivity is always directed toward or presupposes other individuals, it is 
just as logical to start with social psychology and, by process of abstrac- 
tion, to work out an individual, theoretical psychology, which 1 think 
is going to be done. Individual psychology is a secondary thing vshich 
has to be arrived at by the process of abstraction and elinnnation. 

I am not so specially interested in that distinction, but leave that to 
the psychologists. All I am interested in is blurring the distinction be- 
tween social and individual psychology. It may be useful to make it, 
but take behavior as it is, not as it is arrived at by a process of elimina- 
tion, and there is no real difference. You will realize I do not jump at the 
conclusion, therefore, that this psychology, call it individual or social or 
both, is necessarily capable of direct application to the understanding 
of patterned human conduct. 

In the first place, this patterned human conduct is a sort of arbitrary 
selection; certainly it is tYom the psychologist's standpoint. There is no 
earthly reason why such activity as the dance, the svmphony. or the 
actions in a political campaign, or any of the dozens and hundreds and 
thousands of patterns of activity we study in social science, so far as 
the psychologist can see. should have been taken out as o[' special inter- 
est and codified in the types o[^ behavior in which the social scientist is 
interested. 

I don't see why the psychologist should contentedly assume that the 
science of economics envisages a type o^ behavior naturally distinct 
from the kind I defined in the case of A hitting B on the head But 
economic behavior is of interest to us in the social sciences. 

The concept of culture has been defined caiefullv At the risk of carry- 
ing coals to Newcastle, I am going to say a few words about it. If i pick 
up a stick and hit a man on the head with it. and somebodv else sees 
me doing this, takes note of it, and hits somebody else on the head in 
the same way, and thus starts a cumulative process. si> that that becomes 
the accepted way in which you express vmir anger, always to hit some- 
body on the head, then 1 have started something. 1 have started a tradi- 
tion, a patterned type o^ behavior. So far as the psychologist is con- 
cerned, it makes no ditTerence how you envisage this sequence hislori- 



78 /// Culture 

cally; it is always the same kind of process. It is what it was to begin 
with, spontaneous. So far as individual psychology is concerned, you 
never get away from the starting point. So far as the culture student is 
concerned, that type of behavior has to be studied as a pattern, with 
definite historical sequence, tending in a certain direction. 

It means, therefore, that as students of social science, we study not 
only the reactions of the individual which have social significance, but 
that we also use the imponderable cultural stimuli themselves of such 
reactions, which are laid down in the form of patterns, carried on from 
generation to generation. We never dare lose sight of the fact that the 
conduct is envisaged historically. 

You may say history is bunk, with our friend, Henry Ford, but you 
dare not lose sight of the fact that your method of envisaging social 
behavior is that of a series of cross-sections in history. You may be 
interested only in the mechanics of social activity in the present, but 
actually you are simply defining one of the cross-sections in the histori- 
cal current. 

I want to say a few words about the conception of drift or direction 
in this historical stream of patterned activities. It has often been noticed 
that historical events have a sequential logic. Even if you take so appar- 
ently spontaneous and personal a thing as the writing of dramas, you 
find that there is a certain definite drift that takes place. You see how 
the Elizabethan drama grew up. It went through the early blood and 
thunder stage with Kidd and Greene, and then you see how this tech- 
nique was worked up to the magnificent achievement of Shakespeare, 
then how certain principles involved became over-elaborated and led to 
a luxuriance of expression, a lack of vitality, and a decline. That is a 
short span, but the Elizabethan drama went through a certain gamut 
of stages. 

While we know it is only a figure of speech to say that there was a 
certain history of this drama which can be defined impersonally, we do 
feel there is some truth in that way of putting it. It means that if Shake- 
speare had come a little earlier, he would not have been Shakespeare. 
Marlowe a little later might have been greater than Shakespeare. We 
don't envisage these particular types of cultural acfivity as condidoned 
entirely by the personalities that carry them. They have to occupy stra- 
tegic points in the historical stream. We see again that we cannot under- 
stand social activity as a series of personal reactions to which the tech- 
nique of a supposed social psychology has been applied. We have to see 



One: Culture, Society, and the hu/iviJual 7y 

these activities, whether \\c arc explicit abtuii ihcin ov iu>i. as historical 
sequences ahhough we may only envisage i^ne nioiiienl in that sequence. 

Let us take an entirely different example, the example oi language. 
Our English language has certain peculiarities. Vbu can dci'me ihcm 
without reference to the idiosyncrasies of a particular person It is my 
organs that articulate, my emotionalit\ that coK)rs the arliculatu>fi I 
can't really abstract from my particular reactions and arri\e at a notion 
which is of any particular value psychologically. Ne\erlheless. I can 
defme my speech in institutional terms so as to make it a concept of 
value for social science. It is a bit oi' a crux. How are wc going to use 
any kind of psychology for the understanding of a phenomenon which 
is depersonalized? Perhaps I had better elaborate, as it seems a bit cr\p- 
tic. 

Suppose I say such a thing as "Get out o( here." Well, that has a 
certain emotional charge, certain peculiarities of articulation of mme. 
If I wanted to understand the complete psychology of that utterance. I 
couldn't neglect any of those factors. That is exactly what I don't do. I 
don't care about my particular emotional charge. I can stud\ m\ partic- 
ular reactions, and others like them, until I am blue in the face and 
know mighty little about the English language as an institution. I can 
study all the psychology I have a mind to, so far as it is illustrated by 
this pattern of activity, and know nothing about it. as the result o\' m> 
laborious studies. That is my conviction. I can be as unpsychological- 
minded as you like, but if I go about the historical study o\' I-nglish in 
the right spirit and with the right technique, I can arrive at \er> valid 
conclusions as to what the English language is like, what kind of form 
it has, how it has developed, and what its tendcncv is in the future, it 
is a bit of a paradox, but it is true. 

Here is the peculiar thing about it all: If 1 abstract from the purel> 
personal peculiarities of this sentence, this utterance, and ha\e a sort of 
residuum left involving certain average types o\' articulatuMi. certain 
general morphological principles, and so on. 1 can eventuallv make 
statements that seem to envisage some kind o\ psvchologv. paradoxi- 
cally enough. 

Here's what I mean. This sentence, "(Jet out o\' here," is an example 
of a million articulations involving certain principles oi historical pro- 
cess. If I have the proper documentarv e\ idence. I can set this in relation 
to millions that have preceded it in the past, and I can show there has 
been in the course of time a series of complicated changes in the pallcrn. 
I can show how certain consonants change, luns certain lorms change. 



80 /// Culture 

I can show how this institution that we call the English language, as 
exemplified in this sentence, was shifting in form. I can show that those 
changes have a kind of logic of their own and a psychology of their 
own apparently. There is a certain consistency of change, a certain di- 
rection of drift. If I gather all the changes that have taken place in the 
English language, expressed in general terms, I can show that they are 
not helter-skelter changes, but that they happened according to prin- 
ciples that can be formulated. I can show, for instance, that there was 
a tendency for final syllables to be unaccented, and I can show that all 
the vocalic changes follow certain laws; the tongue tended to move up, 
say, and affected the set of vowel sounds in certain ways. 

It is very much as though we had a person slipping away from some 
habit he had formed. You know how when you abbreviate a process, 
through repeated activity, you tend to slur it. Something happens in the 
deformation of the pattern of activity. I have got away from the person 
himself in socialized activity, and yet, I am able to show that in the 
historical changes there is a kind of process which looks superficially 
like the kind of process that takes place in the individual. 

So we have allowed a certain kind of social psychology to slip in by 
the back door, but it is a metaphorical psychology or unreal kind of 
social psychology. How can we explain that? Evidently there is some 
kind of a cumulative process, some principle of selection, according to 
which certain tendencies to change human activities are allowed uncon- 
sciously by society, in so far as it patterns its conduct, and certain others 
are not allowed. That is, any individual varies the pattern pretty much 
at random. If his variations are in the direction of certain drifts or 
tendencies, they will somehow (I can't give the philosophy of it) have a 
greater potency than if their drift or tendency were in an opposite direc- 
tion. It can be shown by historical evidence that if an individual pro- 
nounces a certain vowel or consonant in a direction opposite to the 
accumulated drift up to that point, his particular variation will have no 
value. It will fall by the wayside so far as the historical current is con- 
cerned. He may be the King of England - it just doesn't count. But it 
his pronunciation seems to reaffirm the accumulated drift, it is accepted. 

I don't think any of us are powerful enough to quite understand what 
that means, but the actuality of these drifts, these cumulative processes, 
cannot be doubted by anyone who has studied history, language, or 
whatever type of patterned activity he may take up. In so far as the 
psychologist has never worked out a methodology of cumulative drifts 
in human behavior, he is not at present of much value in the major 



One: Culture. Soeietv. unil the Imliviihutl g| 

problems of social science. Thai is ihc way it seems ii> me. Thererorc. 
loo much must not be expected from psychology at the present lime m 
the clearing up of our particular problems. I think indeed we may have 
more to offer, through the establishment i>f historical sequences, to ihc 
psychologist than he has to offer to us. I ha\e noticed a great many 
formulations in configurative psychology which ha\e been familiar m 
other terms to philologists for generations, it ui>uld be inlereslmg lo 
develop that point in a special study. 

We have arrived at the conception o^ a drift in patterns o{ human 
conduct that has some kind of psychological value. It cant be the ordi- 
nary type. It is a type of disembodied psychology that we ha\e here. 
Let me jump a bit and take up something different: you will see hou ii 
hitches on later. 

Suppose I take up such a phenomenon as war. There are i\so ways 
of looking at war from a psychological standpoint. 1 can look upon 
war as directly expressive of the kind of simple emotional response that 
war is supposed to be expressive of, call it whatever >ou like. On the 
other hand, I can refuse to look upon war in any such way and consider 
it cold-bloodedly as a patterned institution. The two points o\' view are 
rather different. There is a problem here: on the one hand, war does. 
surely, if we are honest, express, in a highly complicated social stylized 
tbrm, an emotion of hostility. I don't think we can deny that categori- 
cally. You can't altogether conceive of war as a peaceful pursuit that 
happens to kill certain people. That isn't quite the whole story, in spile 
of the cynical remarks often made about the nature o\' war. \ou have 
to feel hot and angry to carry on war successful 1\. Here is a pretty 
problem, it seems to me, of the relation beiueen the indiNidual and 
society. 

If you look at the actual facts, you discover many individuals who 
are not warlike. Such an individual does not feel angry about a particu- 
lar war. He doesn't care a rap who caused it. He dix'sn't hate his icxhni- 
cal enemy. He feels as though he were playing a game of poker or chess. 
There are such people. A general, one o( the prime movers in the con- 
duct of the war, might have a psychology of just that \\\k. If vou gel 
hold of that person and study him with your laboratory technique, you 
don't Tind out anything about the supposed psychological motivation 
of war. So far as you can see, what led to his warlike activity was a 
desire to work out the tactics o\^ strategy, or the desire lo gel ahead of 
somebody else who was in a similar position as himself, and he v^anis 
to get ahead so as to win a medal, to be pnnid o\ the medal. So far 



82 /// Culture 

as this individual is concerned, warlike activity has no psychological 
experience previsaged for him at all. It is a design which society has 
wrought for his delectation. He gives it a psychological meaning, but it 
is a psychological meaning that isn't supposed to be the same as the 
kind of psychological significance we believe to be inherent in warlike 
conduct. 

It seems, then, that no matter what your psychological origin may 
be, or complex of psychological origins, of a particular type of pat- 
terned conduct, the pattern itself will linger on by sheer inertia, which 
is a rather poor term for the accumulated force of social tradition; and 
entirely different principles of psychology come into play which may 
even cancel those which originally motivated the nucleus of the pattern 
of activity. Patterns of activity are continually getting away from their 
original psychological incitation. There are many kinds of patterned 
activity which need to be revalidated from time to time in order to have 
them retain their significance, unless we can give them a new signifi- 
cance by putting a new psychology into them, as it depends on what 
the pattern is, as to whether revalidation takes place or not. 

War can persist out of sheer inertia of the pattern of war, and it does 
so persist, but it needs, somewhere or other, to have a revalidation in 
the original terms, psychologically speaking. 

Contrast two individuals: one, the general, who perhaps moves the 
springs of warfare, but has little of the feeling of hatred, and another, 
a patriot perhaps, who feels bitterly about the aggressor and puts punch 
into his warlike reactions. For whom has the warlike activity a greater 
significance? From the standpoint of the original motivation of war, it 
is for the latter that war means more. 

We see, then, that we have two kinds, roughly speaking, of psycholog- 
ical validation for any particular pattern: an individual validation which 
may not correspond to the original one, and a revalidafion in terms of 
the original one, more or less. 

That is badly stated, I believe, but you will see pretty much what I 
mean. This is a somewhat disturbing point of view because it means 
that there can't be any general psychology for the patterned conduct 
which alone we really know. In the back of our minds we know pretty 
well that any particular type of patterned conduct means different 
things to different people, but we are constantly forgetting it or pretend- 
ing to forget it, in order that we may conceive of humanity as banded 
together in groups that carry on under the influence of communal stim- 
uli. The latter formulation doesn't adequately represent the true state 



One: Culture. Society, iiml t/w Individuul Bj 

of affairs. If \\c ccnild ha\c a Hue rccortl o\' the iiulividual psychology 
o\^ patterned conduct, we would llnd thai \\ meant differenl things to 
different people. Religious conduct means quite different things for dif- 
ferent people. We are getting far away. then, from the possibihl) of 
applying any kind of social psychology to cultural beha\ior. because 
there isn't anything in society to psychologize. We are dealing with the 
evolution of forms in social science which incidentally receive indi\idual 
psychological validation. When you so \alidale. \ou ha\e \nui si.ri.il 
psychology, or individual psychology, call it what you like. 

Now this matter of revalidation in original terms that I spoke ot is 
very important, it seems to me. because it appears that owing to the 
consistent direction of the drifts of change, there are certam kinds o\ 
psychological significance that are more orthodox, as it uere. m terms 
of the patterns themselves than other kinds of validation. 

Let me give a simple example. I gave war before; I will give one which 
is perhaps a little clearer. Let us take religious activity. A man goes to 
church. He goes through all the motions, sits in the pew, reads his pra\- 
ers, sings the hymns, but he is thinking of something dilTerent - for 
instance, the game of golf that he is going to play afterwards. He is 
simply going through certain forms. So tar as the psychology o\' re Hi: ion 
is concerned, there isn't any. You aren't going to get information of 
much value out of his mental experience, but from the standpoint of 
social science, he is a good subject for the study o\' "religious" behavior. 
We have no right to rule him out. 

But there happen to be some individuals who are vers fervent, even 
at this late date. They really do believe. They have certain emotions that 
might appropriately be called religious. They are feiveni. address their 
prayers with conviction, are in a state of ecstasy, so that thev are under- 
going reactions that are like those that the speculative psychoii^gisi has 
in mind when he deals with the origins of religious conduct. These may 
be as he determines them, or not: that is another storv. The conduct of 
the second individual is more nearly like the conduct the student has in 
mind when he speculates psychologicallv about these origins. Nou might 
say that the second type o\^ religious conduct is more ■"valuable." al- 
though the pattern of religious behavior as such nia> Iv more poorly 
represented by it. 

In other words, we would say that the second individual is "Imnc" 
the pattern, giving it vitality, and helping to carr> on the psvchological 
drift of significance of the pattern. If there were not a great number ot 
individuals like hini. the paticin would have to be "revalued" or Nxomc 



84 /// Culture 

extinct. It would have to lose its vitality, as patterns do, and maybe 
wait for something of an entirely different nature to take its place. 

Here's what I want to point out: that we can say of all individuals 
who go through the forms of religious conduct that they are acting as 
//they were inspired by the feelings of those who really feel religiously, 
whether they really are or not. For the moment, we don't care whether 
they are or not. They are leading a life which, to be understood in 
"maximum" psychological terms, has to be interpreted as religious con- 
duct in a psychological sense, even though it doesn't really illustrate it 
for a moment. It means that certain people are undergoing types of 
behavior that suggest a psychology that they don't experience. In other 
words, we can look upon socialized behavior as symbolic of psychologi- 
cal processes not illustrated by the individuals themselves. 

There is, then, room for a new kind of "social psychology." I think 
it is a very real study. Psychoanalysts have vaguely got a slant on that 
kind of social psychology, but poorly in their actual instances. But by 
looking upon patterns as symbols of real or supposed psychological 
processes, they have done something of service, something which the 
anthropologists also have worked out in a crude, elementary way. I 
think psychologists have a great deal to learn from the social sciences 
of that kind of validation of readily accepted and maintained symbols. 

Now I am going to take another leap in order that you may see what 
I mean by the term "orientation." We are all familiar with the concept 
of the "spirit" of a given culture. Of course, we pooh-pooh it in careful 
scientific work, but we have a hunch that there is something there. We 
are all familiar with the metaphor of handling a whole society as though 
it were a kind of individual with a certain mentality. We know it isn't 
"true," but we know there is some kind of truth there. We say, for in- 
stance, that there is a certain psychological slant in Russian culture. We 
can't put our finger on it but we know there is something of real truth 
involved in phrases of this sort. Let's see what kind of truth it is. I'll 
say something about French culture, true or not. I'll say French culture 
is characterized by a spirit of extreme formalism. I see it in all kinds of 
ways. I see it in the bureaucracy of French government, the over-clarity 
of human conduct. I see it in the tendencies to over-stylized activity in 
the graces of life. I see it in their art. I notice that French poetry is very 
formal. It chooses its words with great meticulousness. To choose a 
wrong word counts for a more deplorable slip in French than in English. 
I see it in their music, which is always well-formalized even where it 
seems "formless"; it is just as stylized, just as patterned, as the older 



One: Culture. Socicly. and the hulivichuil g5 

classical music. The French novel is known lo be well construeled even 
where it is poor in content; such crude formless writers as Dickens and 
Wells are impossible in French. It was not accidental that the Ireneh 
called Shakespeare a "barbarian." 

All these isolated remarks aim to point out tiiai ihe French genius or 
spirit has aimed unconsciously to express itself in very detlnitely stylized 
form, that it has sacrificed intensity to lucidity. Does that mean thai 
your Frenchman as an individual is possessed of a psychology that 
necessarily gives rise to that kind of expression? It is too often assumed 
that he is. But if you deal with actual Frenchmen, Hesh-and-blood 
Frenchmen, you don't find that to be true. You know the lYenchman 
is just as irrational, just as temperamental as the Englishman; in fact, 
some people think he is more so because he gesticulates more. Vet we 
can understand the spirit of lucidity in French culture without reference 
to some kind of peculiar psychology lurking somewhere or other. The 
point is, the psychological slant given at some time or other in the 
general configurations we call French culture by particular individuals 
became dissociated, acted as a sort of symbol or pattern so that all 
following have to act as though they were inspired by the original moti- 
vation, as though they were acting in such or such a psychological sense, 
whether they temperamentally were or not. They in a sense dissociated 
themselves: into cultural beings, and into individuals pure and simple. 
I think it is important to understand that. 

Therefore, any particular Frenchman who comes in at a ceriaui tune 
and wishes to make a dent on the patterns of French culture will not 
succeed unless he somehow falls in line with the general drift o\ lYench 
culture. If he is too individual and acts in a manner which is entirel> at 
variance with the general spirit of French culture, he won't ha\e much 
infiuence. He may be a very much less talented indi\idual. but if he 
gives quite the right turn to the general cultural drift, he might be a 
potent personality, because culture tends to preserve itself in measurable 
stable form. 

So we can characterize whole cultures psychologicalK without predi- 
cating those particular psychological reactions o\' the individuals who 
carry on the culture. That is somewhat uncanns. but I think it is a 
reasonably correct view to take of society. 

The particular application I really had it in mind tv> make in this 
whole conception of orientation was the contrast between the mtrovcri 
and the extravert. Suppose I contrast the Hindu with the Chinese. We 
know that Hindus differ from each other, and that is likewise true of 



86 /// Culture 

the Chinese. There is not the slightest reason to beheve that Hindus are 
extraverted or introverted as a group. There is not the sHghtest reason 
to beheve the Chinese are extraverted or introverted as a group. Both 
undoubtedl) run the usual gamut o( individual \ariation. such as we 
run ourselves. I think that it is impossibly, unless one refuses to follow 
"hunches," to avoid the conviction, after some kind of study, however 
superficial, that the Hindu culture is relatively introverted and the Chi- 
nese culture is relatively extraverted. I don't know how it is possible to 
avoid it. While that kind of formulation may not seem valuable for 
particular purposes, I think that it has some value. Let me point out a 
few of the reasons that lead me to make that statement. 

I won't define introvert and extravert. We may as well take these 
terms for granted. Just take this question: Will the introverted person 
or extraverted person attach more importance to the documentation of 
the history of his own people? What is the type of personality that is 
very particular about the gathering of documents and their evaluation? 
The extravert, I should say. because he lives in the real world oi' time 
and place. If he abstracts from that world, he doesn't exist. The intro- 
vert has to be timeless, so to speak. He constructs formulations that 
have value regardless of time and place. He doesn't need the en\ iron- 
ment of maximal color. 

What is one of the outstanding facts about Hindu culture? The fact 
that it is hard to find dates in Hindu literature. One of the great prob- 
lems that historians of Hindu culture have to contend with is the finding 
of dates. We don't know when the great Hindu epics were written. Why? 
Because the dating of a document is not a matter of any value to the 
Hindu. The Maluibharata is something that exists in a timeless world. 
He conceives the sacred writings, the Vedas, as existing in a timeless 
world. It doesn't occur to him to ask when they were composed. Of 
course, we have beliefs somewhat similar to these, but nowhere have 
such formulations gone to such extremes as in India. 

The Chinaman is different. He is tremendously interested in the docu- 
mentation of his own history. He is interested in telling you that in the 
year 462 A. D. turnips were imported from Turkestan. Trivial facts of 
that kind are constantly being reported in Chinese history. You can't 
conceive of a greater contrast than the tone and spirit in which Hindu 
literature is conducted and that in which Chinese literature is con- 
ducted. The Chinese are extraverted on that point, and the Hindus are 
introverted. 



One: Culture. Society, ami ihc /nJiviJuul 87 

Take another example, poelr\. 1 am purposely taking \ery random 
examples, so you may see that they all tend to point the same way. 
Chinese poetry is very sober. That is win there is a great fad lor it now. 
We try to live in a world o( tlesh and blood, a world of reality, as 
eontrasted with a world of formulated fancies. That is one of the charms 
of Chinese poetry. Chinese poetry is interested in friendship more than 
in love, because friendship is more of a realit\ perhaps. Chinese poetry 
is ne\er extra\agant. The Chinese poet represents what he has himself 
experienced. He holds on to the modest things that ha\e meaning to 
him. 

Hindu poetry is exceedingly extra\agant. The lo\e poeir> o\' India 
abounds in far-fetched, and. to us, rather absurd metaphors; that is. 
the Hindu is content to formalize his emotions and his imagery in this 
particular realm of acti\ity, perfectK content to look away from the 
world of experience and li\e in an inner world o\ fanc\ thai takes the 
place of the w orld of experience. 

Let us take another tacet of cultural activity. philosoph\ and religion. 
What is characteristic of Chinese religion? It is extremely sober. The 
great religious teacher, Contucius. was really an ethical philosopher. He 
simply took the maxims o( his people and their patterns o\' religious 
and ethical conduct and tbrmulated them. He was close to the actual 
humble life of the people. There is \er\ little in his philosophs that wc 
can't understand today. 

What is characteristic of the Hindu in respect to philosoph\ anu icii- 
gion? It gets clean away from the world of experience. It formulates a 
whole lot of remote conceptions, puts them into elaborate systems 
which have little body, but which are held to \\\\h a fren/\ of adoration 
by the Hindu. 

At this point I want to tell you a funny little anecdote o\ an experi- 
ence I had with a Hindu student \isiting in the I'nited Stales. .At a 
scientific meeting I pointed out that there were a great man> variations 
in the pronunciation o\^ consonants o( the class h:p. a gamut of vana- 
tions in which we could select \arious points, and specif) a series of 
consonants pronounced with the lips. Then the contrast o( h to /> was 
seen to be in a sense artificial. Those were merel> selected types of 
articulation. A Hindu was present, an engineer, a practical man He 
was very much interested because he had a certain linguistic hobb>. He 
couldn't understand me. He said. "But you don't reall> mean thai there 
isn't a real h and a real /', do you*.' There is a real h. onl> some people 
pronounce it correctly and some iSo not." ^■ou see. he was reitymg these 



88 /// Culture 

experiences. Isn't it rather interesting? I don't know whether he was a 
typical Hindu, but isn't it rather interesting that he found it hard to see 
what I meant by my statement? You'd think he might with his mathe- 
matical training have understood; but he couldn't, because on the basis 
of Hindu culture, he had learned there were certain supernatural letters 
- consonants - embodied in the Sanskrit language, and there wasn't 
any question what was h and what was p. I am sure another friend of 
mine, a Chinaman, would not make a remark like that. I found he was 
uninterested in abstractions. I found he was tolerant of anything I could 
say about his language, whereas I am sure the Hindu wouldn't have 
been. Those are significant differences, it seems to me, and one might 
go on multiplying them. There is meaning in the statement that Hindu 
culture has an introverted slant. There is meaning in the statement that 
the Chinese culture has an extraverted slant. Our American culture also 
has an extraverted slant. 

I want further to make very emphatically the point that it does not 
follow from these statements that every Hindu is an introvert, and that 
every Chinaman is an extravert, but in so far as your Hindu acts in 
patterned form, he acts as if he were animated more or less by an intro- 
verted psychology, whether he is or is not; and the Chinaman acts as if 
he were actuated by an extraverted psychology. You see that brings up 
problems of conflict. You can ask yourself the question, can a culture 
which prevails in a given society, be satisfactory to a natural introvert 
and a natural extravert? I think it is a real problem. I think that one 
cay say that particular individuals are more at home in certain cultures 
than in others. I think one can go so far as to say that certain maladjust- 
ments, even psychoses, are helped along by the fact that there is a subtle 
disaccord between the orientation of an individual and the orientation 
of the culture itself with its psychological potentiality, depersonalized 
though patterned conduct is. It has a psychological suggestiveness. It is 
a series of symbols that suggest psychological significance. 

In order to indicate more clearly the reahty of this point of view, I 
am going to contrast the culture of the Eskimo with the culture of the 
Mojave Indians. Eskimo culture I think of as extraverted culture, and 
Mojave culture I think of as introverted culture. I do not mean that 
every Eskimo is an extravert. One of the characteristic things about 
Eskimo culture is its extreme sobriety. They have to use every help the 
environment gives them. Their myths are hero tales rather than myths. 
There is very little that is incredible in Eskimo mythology. There is a 
certain air about them of being at home in the real world. The Eskimo 



One: Culliirc. Socicly. and the Jiu/iviiJual 89 

has evolved a technology that is superbly adapted to his environment. 
His tloats. sleds, tents, everything that he has ecMistrueted has a maxi- 
mum \alue for his preservation in a forbidding environment; il is almost 
as though he took an in\enlor\ o\' the environment and studied its 
possibilities. He has gradually become adapted lo the environment. 

The Indians directly to the south you find are uncomfortable in the 
same environment; they shiver, where the Fskimo almi>si n-tasts. They 
have a very much harder time of it. It probably means that they are not 
so well adapted to the environment, but is also means that they have not 
developed the extreme extraversion the Eskimo has. rhe\ ha\e \alucs. 
orientations in their values, that are not of so much ser\ice to them m 
their forbidding environment. Presumably they were originally more ai 
home in an environment in which that orientation was not so inimical, 
and later moved on into a less friendly environment. 

Take such a thing now as the habits of life of the Eskimo, in villages. 
You find the Eskimo doesn't plague himself with imponderable values. 
A man may take residence in any village. His tbrms of marriage are ni>t 
very well fixed. You have a very slight development of polygamy, a little 
polyandry, but, on the whole, monogamy. Their whole spirit is one o( 
casual adaptation, an extraverted manner of looking at things. He 
thinks, "Oh, wait till I get there; then Til see what is best to be done." 
The Eskimo culture has the sort of spirit as though in its cnoIuIumi 
people had acted in accordance with that formula, not that they did. 
but that this is the slant of Eskimo culture. One of the striking things 
about Eskimo culture is the colorfulness of it. Eskimo art is far from 
despicable. The patterning of Eskimo clothing is carefully worked out. 
There is a certain buoyance, a certain jubilant spirit, in Eskimo culture 
that is unmistakable, as though these people were \er\ much at home 
in the world about them, and wanted to have the best o\' themselves 
exteriorized in what they produced. I realize that 1 am s[x\iking in 
rather vague terms, but I want this to be rather a hint than a demonstra- 
tion. 

Mojave culture is a pretty drab-looking thing. Iheic is no superb 
development of basketry. The niatcnal arts are not uell advanced. It is 
very hard to say what those people are doing, ^ou get the idea thai 
they are a sorry lot, but those who have studied the culture ol the 
Mojave Indians know they have an ideology \er\ much more complex 
than that of the Eskimo. Then \aUies are noi so \sell e\terion/ed. Picy 
have more remote, more indirect, formulations o\ patterns of conduct 



90 /// Culture 

than those you find among the Eskimo. Their reahty is more sub- 
jectively colored than the reality of the Eskimo. 

I will give you one very striking type of conduct which I think you 
will admit is as introverted as the Hindu's contempt for dates, and it is 
all the more striking because we have so many preconceived notions 
about primitive mentality. How does the mythology of the Mojave con- 
trast with the mythology of the Eskimo, which deals with a quasi-real 
world and which is carried on by the tradition of the group? 

You have a theory among the Mojave of an individually constructed 
mythology. If you want to find out about the creation of the world, 
how do you do it? You are not supposed to Hsten to what somebody 
else says about it, or has said about it. You are supposed to find out 
from your inner consciousness because your inner consciousness is the 
court of last appeal. That is what the introvert does. The introvert will 
tell you that you must first construct a theory and then see if it fits. 
That is what the Mojave Indian does. He does nothing less than go into 
a dream state, because he thinks that dreams are more real than waking 
realities. In his dream, he is transported back to the creation of the 
world. As an individual, then, brought back in this dream to the origin 
of things, he sees certain things happen. He sees how certain supernatu- 
ral beings act and how they ascend a fabulous mountain. He wakes 
from the trance-like condition and composes a long chant in which he 
details these events, and he says, "I saw these things. This is the truth." 

He didn't invent this myth. The same myth others have told before 
him. He has dreamed himself into the same kind of incidents that he 
has heard others tell. It is as though you had two versions of the gospel 
of St. Matthew, or as if the life of Christ as given by St. Matthew were 
remodeled in the gospel of St. Luke. He has that kind of feehng about 
it: "I was there, I saw it. Maybe my sight is keener and therefore I am 
more correct." 

These are the materials of truth for the Mojave Indian. That is a 
queer mythology, highly introverted. I could go on giving other details. 
It is as though the individuals were of introverted types, but if you were 
to go and take them to the laboratory and apply tests for introversion 
and extra version, you would not find they are more or less introverted 
or extraverted than anybody else, but in so far as they were carrying 
out patterns, they fell into their cultural orientafion. 

We have a very much more difficult problem in this domain of social 
psychology than most of us have been aware of. How best to solve it, 
I prefer to leave to cultural students and psychologists. I don't think 



One: Cult tire. Sociclv. and the Individual 91 

we are ripe for tliesc prohlcins al prcsciil. but it' I have succeeded in 
making iheir reality soniewhal clearer by gi\ing you a "hunch" ihere 
may be a psychological orienlalion wilhoul any correlated peculiarities 
of psychology in the individual, I will have done all I wish \o do. It 
bears on the whole question o\' the supposed mentality o^ races. You 
can't conclude anything from their patterned conduct, for reasons 
which are obvious in what I have said. It doesn't follow that because \\e 
are extraverted in conduct today for the most part, we are as indnidiKds 
extravert or introvert. That remains to he eiisco\ered. I submit, lurihei. 
for each individual this point of view makes a liiilc more signillcant the 
whole psychology of contlict both in individuals and m societs and as 
between individuals and society. Thus \ery much o\' what \se ha\e to 
say about neuroses and psychoses is implicitly in\ol\ed with cultural 
conceptions of the type I am trying to advance. 1 find some psychoana- 
lysts have more or less stumbled, in a rather feeble way. on concepts o^ 
this type. Burrow puts forward notions that are familiar, but in peculiar 
terms. So one sees a kind of convergence of hunches along the line I 
have been pointing out to you. Perhaps 1 haveni put these indi\idual 
hunches at all clearly, but I hope the discussion that follows will correci 
me where I need to be corrected. 

I may say this whole matter bears on the problems o[' compensatiiMi 
that many psychologists are interested in. If you arc brought up m a 
culture that has an introverted slant, and you are rather e\tra\erted. 
you will have to compensate in the introverted direction. That is what 
compensation means. You have to pretend to be extraverted il you are 
living in an extraverted culture and are natively an intro\en In abstract 
formulations of all kinds, you have to tic up somehow with the techno- 
logical world we are living in and what you have to do is make applica- 
tions of your particular kind of ideology. But if you are honest. \ou 
find you are more interested in the subjective formulations than \ou 
are in the applications. That is your way of compensating, ironing out 
the conflict of orientations. 

It means, then, you can't tell whether a person is extraverted or intro- 
verted by a simple study of overt beha\ ior. That is where man\ make 
drastic mistakes. If your whole culture is extia\ cried, it has a bias. Any 
individual has to be very extraverted in order to count as extras cried 
Kinds of compensations that are habitual will need to be of dilTerent 
types in different individuals. I have sometimes arri\ed at conclusions 
that are different than those overtly suggested. I am ihmking of a cer- 
tain individual who would generally be considered an intnnerl. I am 



92 /// Culiurc 

convinced he is an extravert. He is playing up to an introverted society, 
to an introverted orientation familiar to him in childhood. His compen- 
sations are of a kind that need a certain kind of cultural knowledge to 
understand. If you carry these ideas to a logical conclusion, you will 
see, alarmingly enough, that psychology, psychiatry, all practical things 
we are interested in as to personality, are very much more involved with 
the problems of social science than we had thought. 

Perhaps we social scientists who are always asking psychologists to 
aid us can be of assistance to them in suggesting reformulations of 
psychological problems. I don't think it is too supercilious to suggest 
that the borrowing need not be all on one side. 

* * * 

Following Sapir's presentation, the meeting was opened for discussion. Besides Sapir, 
participants in the discussion were: 

G. V. Hamihon (practicing psychiatrist. New York City) 

Truman L. Kelley (Professor of Education and Psychology, Stanford University) 

G. Elton B. Mayo (industrial psychologist; Associate Professor of Industrial Re- 
search. Graduate School of Business Administration. Harvard University) 

Harold G. Moulton (economist; Director of the Institute of Economics, Washington, 
D. C, and chair of the session) 

Leonard Outhwaite (Berkeley-trained anthropologist, staff member of the Laura 
Spelman Rockefeller Memorial) 

Frederic L. Wells (psychologist; chief of the Psychology Laboratory. Boston Psycho- 
pathic Hospital) 

Robert S. Woodworlh (Professor of Psychology. Columbia Llniversity) 

Clarence S. Yoakum (psychologist; Professor of Personnel Management and Direc- 
tor of the Bureau of University Research, University of Michigan) 

Tlie discussion proceeded as follows: 

YOAKUM. - Would you take for the moment the interest of the anthropologist in 
skulls and bones and contrast it with his interest in cultures? 

SAPIR. - The anthropologist is interested in both. It is a verbalism that we use the 
term anthropology for both. We started out with the idea in evolution that primitive 
man was somehow at the beginning of things - [that] we can understand the begin- 
nings of both races and institutions by studying primitive man. The term anthropol- 
ogy is a bad one, in my personal opinion. There is no reason why physical anthropol- 
ogy should be used. I think it would be better if we had a general term for the study 
of the form of society, whether advanced or primitive, and subdivided into primitive 
sociology and advanced sociology, and allowed physical anthropology to go off by 
itself. 

YOAKUM. - Am I correct in assuming that you believe that variability of the 
individuals is practically infinite? 



One Culture. Society, and the Individual 93 

SAPIR. - I dont know whai inftniie means. You ha\c continuous vanatioa but I 
don't know whether \ou would call it infmiic. 

^OAKl'M. - If It happened to be finite, you might cxammc a suffiacni numK-r .f 
individuals and so formulate that examination that wc could gener 
somethmg in the form of a proposition WouK' ' -ition am\cU al m vuch 

a wa\ e\er b\ an\ chance conform to some cu 

SAPIR - Could \ou give me an example oi the sort oi thing you ha\'e in mind? 

"^ OAK.UM. - The conception of the introvert which wc think we can armr at b\ 

examination of a series of indi\iduals. We think we can 

b\ that process. .\s 1 understand, it is not arrned at b\ i 

way. That is. 1 cant take Jones in the laboratory and examine him and then take 

Smith in. [and] so on through the series, and arri\e at the conclusion of who is an 

intro\ert. \et 1 believe we think we ha\e done that 

SAPIR. - I think we might show he was on the whole oi the introverted t\pe I 

think theories could be done but 1 think it is \ery ditTicult to do I think, .i 
of fact, one's judgement as to whether one is intro\ori .>r om- <v.tt h .. t.- 
from w hat seem to be the best indications of that. 

Suppose I were a personality student. My idea would be iiii> 1 ^>. 

whether Jones was an intro\ert. I would eliminate those indications i. ,_ 

direction. I would have to get at the unconscious leakage of his orientation, not so 
hea\il\ st\led, to know what he is. It might be less signitlcan; 
which are indicati\e of it. Where your acti\it\ i> dofimt^-K Nt\ 
has no value for the study of personality 

\Mien \ou want to get at the indi\idual. you ha\c to i. - 
importance in the con\entional sense. What is of maximum , 

WELLS. - Mr. ^oakum. are you alluding to such lists of traits as those gocien up 
by Freud? I think one can in most cases agree those represent mtroNcrt and cxiravcrt 
patterns in so far as those terms can be satisfactonU defined, but whether t*^ -.- 
actions are fundamental or compens^ilory in the individual. I doni know I 
Dr. Sapir made that point. We may say this indi\idual act; 
superficialK the characteristics of an introvert. NMiether wit 
ronmental and genetic setting he would ha\e shown thv>se ^ 
matter. 

VO.AKl'M. - Take the case cited b\ Dr Sapir o! 
that is a case in which we shall ncNcr know whethc: ^ 
the form or with the proper spint. 

WELLS. Wc can infer tVom other factors m their lives 

VO.\Kl NL - 1 dont know how we can use the lives. 

S.\PIR Sureh we find out something abv>ut the su*^-- "^ • .--tlni^tr* hx Jirc-vt 

inquir\. We make certain inferences iVom more or lesv 

intuitively know when a person is telling you a lie although wha; Iw 

and taken at tace \alue. 

VO.AKIM. What I am interested in. in those two cases, there must be ^ 

in their behavior to indicate the difference, one having the spint and the other mA. 



94 /// Culture 

SAPIR. - One never behaves according to behavior. I gave you an example of the 
expression, "Get out of here." There are a great many things about that individually 
characteristic of myself. Here is the point (and psychologists ignore it): I have to 
know what is the formalized cultural pattern of that reaction before I can say any- 
thing about what is individual reaction. 

Let me give you an example: How do you know that the fact that I accented the 
word "out" a little more heavily is significant? You know it because you know that 
as a matter of stylized activity, the syllable "out" has a slight accent as compared 
with the preceding syllable and the two following. The plus is indicative of certain 
individual reaction[s]. In some unknown language you wouldn't at all know from 
experience in the laboratory whether one were emotional or not. He might be jocose. 
You couldn't tell until you knew what the social background was, until you could 
relate individual expression to the cultural pattern. 

Take an interrogation like, "Isn't that so?" We know how to interpret that in 
emotional terms, terms of attitude, because we have certain habits. We have a sort 
of social form which allows us to recognize that, and a certain plus of individual 
significance. Suppose we had a language that stylized these intonational differences; 
such a statement as "Isn't that so?" might mean, "I took a walk yesterday." You 
have no right to assume that you understand the individual connotation of such a 
reaction until you see what immense significance that has if you carry it to its logical 
conclusion, in tests of people whose cultural activities we are not familiar with. 

We often say Frenchmen or Italians are very emotional. It may be they cannot 
be a member of their community until they act as if they were very much excited. 
Your psychological experiments aren't worth anything until you have a cultural 
gauge. 

HAMILTON. - I was thinking you might facilitate in clarifying this discussion by 
agreeing on what you mean by extravert and introvert. It seems to me the situation 
is a little simpler than it sounds when we consider, I believe, that we say of a person 
whose preponderance of interest is in direct experience rather than external provoca- 
tives, he is an introvert. On the other hand if we may say of a person his preponder- 
ance of interest is in the external provocatives rather than in direct experience, then 
we may call him an extravert. I think if you take that perhaps rather acceptable 
definition of extravert and introvert, a good deal of difficulty in determining to what 
extent behavior is following some traditional behavior which may have subjective 
characteristics of introversial behavior, the difficulty in allowing that won't be so 
great. 

SAPIR. - I think it is a matter that needs to be stressed, a point of view a little 
unfamiliar. It is not often allowed for. I think it is too often assumed an individual, 
in reacting, illustrates, so to speak, his native trends. I think it is not enough envis- 
aged to what extent that becomes an important differential, because we are in the 
habit of comparing the reactions of people as such. You have to apply superficial 
corrections. 

Hamilton then asked the clinicians Mayo and Wells to comment on whether they 
encountered difficulties in assessing introversion and extraversion in relation to pat- 
terned behavior. Both Mayo and Wells indicated that they did not find the terms intro- 
vert and extravert could apply in the same ways to clinical settings and to society at 
large. The sense of the terms as used tonight did not seem to be of value for the clinic. 



One: Culture. Society, n/ul the hhlivuluul i)5 

HAMILTON. - I am not personal in whai I am gomg to say to Dr. Sapir. bul I 

am thinking of anthropologists in general: What training have anlhrop. ' ,. 

qualify them to sort people out as extraverls anil introverts".' Of what v.ii,. ,c 

concepts extravert and introvert to ihem'.' 

SAPIR. - The important thing to bear m miiul is iluii this contrast wa-> > -i 

illustration. It may be this particular illustration that I look of the ps\. il 

slant, as I call it. was a poor one. One might show that there was more emotion 
latent, as it were, in the pattern of conduct. The onus o^ proof rests with those who 
invented the terminology, the psychologists themselves. Ihe anthropologists like lo 
use the terms for what they are worth. If psNchoaiiaKsts see they arc not of much 
value, they will have to discard them. 

OUTHWAITE. - It seems to me il is just possible a rather interesting point is 
getting by ... that is, this point about significant behavior, perhaps particularly 
psychoneurotic behavior or aberrant behavior of one form or other in connection 
with the social context or background of the individual who manifests it. ... 

As an example. Outhwaite raised the problem o^ ps\chialric assessment in "the case 
of the American negro." Given the unequal availability of hospitalization in North and 
South, the cultural dilTerences between regions, and the cultural dillerences between 
negro and white, psychiatric assessments would be subject to considerable error. 

SAPIR. - We know our own culture; we are not conscious o\' it. however, and that 
is where the differential error comes in. I wanted to give an example bearing that 
out. We find among the Eskimo the shaman or medicine man acts as if he were a 
hysteric. He goes through all the motions of hysteria, and perhaps he is, I don't 
know. I am not a psychiatrist. Their pattern of medicine-man activity demands hys- 
terical conduct. He autosuggests hysteria complex. I am not in a position lo disen- 
tangle what happens. The diagnosis of that hysteria is not the same as that of hyste- 
ria among ourselves, because the cultural background is notabh dilTerent in the two 
cases. 

I will give you another example, even more melodramatic, that is, that homosexu- 
ality has been patterned as the social type of acti\ ity among certain people. Some- 
times the medicine-men are recruited from that group. It isn't necessary to suppose 
that you are really dealing with types of personality that lead {o that kind of beha\i»>r 
naturally. You have a certain propulsion in the very patterns o\ the groups I think 
they are drastic. My point is, you have no right to treat the psychopalhology in 
those settings in exactly the same way as you would in our own setting. 

That has in it quite definitely a criticism of a great deal o\' psNchoanaiysis. thai 
is. the attempt to interpret symbols frctm cultures. 

Chairman Moulton called on the psychologists Woodworth and Kelley locommcni. 
Both indicated substantial agreement with Sapir. Kelley remarked. ""It seems to me the 
most important point of \iew Mr. Sapir has expressed is the idea that the expression of 
a person might be attributed to a culture situation and not to an original di;' 
his makeup." As an example, he mentioned a study of Chinese and Japanes. .. 
born in California. The study showed, he suggested, that sufvnor malhemalical ..' 
among the Japanese, and superior verbal ability among the t hinese. wim 
able to cultural ditTerences as they might have been had the children h 
China and Japan. 



96 /// Culture 

Sapir questioned the study and suggested that "at that time they would be heavily 
conditioned by cultural stimuli." Kelley thought "those encouragements are solely lim- 
ited to the school." 

SAPIR. - Verbalism is so highly derivative, it is a cultural concept in itself. I don't 
see how you could have [an] original difference in concept that involves the concept. 
You would have to reduce it to something simpler, on a lower level. ... Some anthro- 
pologists will say they have a hunch there may be emotional differences, but differ- 
ences of any such derived or secondary type as you speak of, would be looked on 
with general skepticism. You may be right. 

Woodworth and Sapir then discussed possible racial differences in cognitive abilities. 
Sapir pointed out the difficulty of devising tests that would reveal differences in inherent 
ability rather than cultural differences. Referring to experiments made by Bruner at the 
World's Fair at St. Louis, he noted: 

SAPIR. - Experiments are made as to higher faculties, and there is often the diffi- 
culty of technique in getting the kind of stimulus to reach the native. 

WELLS. - Porteus had some material in which they compared some white and 
aboriginal children. It is my impression that the children were equal during the 
earlier years, and that there was considerable disparity later. 

SAPIR. - Suppose our culture is the kind of culture that demands certain types of 
relations, wouldn't that be a selective factor? 

WOODWORTH. - It looks as if it would be. Putting forms in httle holes, that is a 
thing that would be uniform in different cultures. 

SAPIR. - Take one of the performance tests: You have a certain kind of machine, 
a simple thing, with a part missing, and you are supposed to point out what part is 
missing. To recognize the missing part is to know the cultural use of the thing. 

WOODWORTH. - We can't get the Indians to come and test us. so we get the 
anthropologists to do the next best thing to test us. 

SAPIR. - I am very much interested in this problem: Would you think it probable 
that an Indian woman who spoke English imperfectly but her own language well, 
would or could by the intuitivity of suggestion, when you work with her, get a hunch 
in a short time of facts in grammatical structure, abstract from particular cases, and 
make more or less imaginary forms which would be true, or show a recognition of 
formal relations pure and simple? 

WOODWORTH. - Yes. 

SAPIR. - That is what actually happened. 

WOODWORTH. - They will take a new word and put it in the right form, such 
forms as they have. 

SAPIR. - That isn't what I mean. I am speaking of the more explicit recognition 
of formal relationships: Suppose for instance I put a series of words in certain con- 
ventional form, according to my grammatical idea, first, second and third person, 
singular and plural, as we are taught. There is no reason why the Indian should 
formalize, but if you have done that to any extent with an Indian, he will, without 
suggestion sometimes, comply, showing he acquires the ability to exceed his own 
language in point of view. 



One: Culture. Society, ami llw InJiviiiuui 97 

WOODWORTH. - No psychologisl would cxpccl the Indian would be deprived of 
any of the abilities that the white man has, but to those who believe the Indian lo 
be inferior, there would be a small degree of doubt. 

SAPIR. - I don't believe we know very mueh about these raeial dilTerences anyway. 

The transcript records nothing further, except tiiat the meeting adjourned al ten 
o'clock. 



Editorial Note 

This material appeared in the transcripts of the Hanover Conference 
of the Social Science Research Council, Volume I, pages 231 260 
(1926). Not previously printed, it is published here by permission of the 
Social Science Research Council. 



Anthropology and Sociologv (1^)27) 
Editorial Introduction 

Sapir's increasing staUirc in interdisciplinary soeial seience uas il- 
lustrated by his invitation in 1927 to contribute to The Social Sciences 
and Their Interrelations, a volume on the social science disciplines and 
their potential collaborations. The senior editor. William Tielding Oyh- 
urn, had just joined Sapir in the Department of Sociology and Anthro- 
pology at the University of Chicago. The co-editor was anthropologist 
Alexander Goldenweiser, like Sapir a former student o\' Hoas. The \i>l- 
ume's aim was to orient social scientists toward the range of a\ailahle 
methods and theoretical problems other disciplines might olTer their 
own, but which no single individual could possibly explore for each oi 
the relevant disciplinary combinations. 

Anthropology, the editors felt, had remained outside the emerging 
social science framework because it lacked syntheses to communicate 
its perspective to colleagues in other disciplines. Sapir was their choice 
to remedy this unfortunate state of affairs. He was to write on the 
relationship between anthropology and sociology. 

In addition to sociology, anthropology was also discussed in rclaiion 
to economics, history, law (by Robert Lowie), political science, ps\ etiol- 
ogy (by Goldenweiser), religion and statistics (by Boas, who consis- 
tently taught this subject to would-be professional anthropologists at 
Columbia). There were five papers linking economics with \arious disci- 
plines, five on history (including a paper by Wilson Wallis on hislors 
and psychology), three on political science, and seven on sociology (in- 
cluding Ogburn's own piece on statistics, his specialization). lour pa- 
pers discussed social sciences in relation to more distant fields: bioli>i:\ 
(Frank Hankins), education (William Kilpatnck). the natural sciences 
(Morris R. Cohen), and philosophy (William P. Montague). 

In their introduction, Goldenweiser and Ogbuin lanicntcJ the isola- 
tion resulting from the increased speciali/aiion oi the social sciences, 
such that their "common philosophical matrix" could no longer be 
taken for granted (1927: 3). An urgent need lor practical applications, 
however, argued for dissolving arbitrar> boundaries o\ iheor\ and 



100 /// Cult we 

method. The editors called for a conception of social evolution indepen- 
dent of biology, and for the integration of psychology with the social 
sciences. With these points Sapir would doubtless have agreed; their 
lyrical defense of the need for statistics would, however, have failed to 
inspire him. 

Sociology was the most prestigious of the social sciences at this time, 
particularly at Chicago, and Sapir's topic allowed him a crucial forum 
for his own message, with the implicit understanding that it would be 
representative of anthropology. Many anthropological colleagues would 
not have recognized themselves here, however. 

Sapir argued that although the proper subject matter of anthropology 
was "primitive sociology," this subject matter could not be interpreted 
in social evolutionary terms. The new anthropology, in contrast, would 
lead to "insight into the essential patterns and mechanisms of social 
behavior" (1927: 336). This insight into society might be supplemented 
by historical reconstruction of culture. Such historical work, however, 
would have to proceed ethnographically, as "strictly localized social 
history," involving the gradual diffusion of cultural patterns (not, he 
emphasized, the distribution of unrelated elements). The psychological 
dimensions of these patterns were not accessible to individual awareness 
within a culture. This concept of the "basic and largely unconscious 
concepts or images that underlie social forms" (1927: 238) was devel- 
oped more elaborately in the paper for the symposium on the uncon- 
scious (also 1927; this volume). In short, after considering society, cul- 
ture, and individual psychology, Sapir defined culture in cognitive 
terms, as a realm of concepts and symbolic forms. 

Sapir's theoretical vision distinguished social pattern, cultural func- 
tion (an analyst's construct), and an "associated mental attitude" deriv- 
ing from individual psychology. These were independent variables, 
whose investigation promised "a social philosophy of values and 
transfers," the latter including culture change (1927: 323). Much of the 
imagery in which he described this programmatic agenda was drawn 
from psychiatry, including the idea of emotional transfer. Modern 
psychology, he suggested, studied "the projection of formal or rhythmic 
configurations of the psyche and ... the concrete symbolism of values 
and social relations" (1927: 343; emphasis ours). Because such factors 
were obscured in complex modern society by conscious rationalizations, 
the anthropological cross-cultural perspective would rescue the psychol- 
ogist and the traditional sociologist from their inability to take an ana- 
lyst's stance; that stance required an outsider's perspective. 



One: Ciihurc. Smictv. iiiui ilw ImlivUlual 101 

Anthropology, Sapir concluded, inighi he dctlncd as "ilic sdcuiI 
psychology of the symbor" (1927: 345). Historical explanations of eth- 
nographic data from so-called primitive societies, characteristic of 
American anthropology up until that time, uould gi\e way to a new 
vision o\' integration at the formal ov s\niholic level. Sapir did not 
acknowledge how far he had come from the particularisi ethnography 
of his own training or how few fellow anthrt^pologists. in 1927, would 
have shared his enthusiastic re\isionism. 

* * * 



Anthropology and Sociology 
Primitive Society: the Evolutionary Bias 

Just as unlettered and primitive peoples ha\e an economic basis o\ 
life that, however simple in its operation, is strictly comparable to the 
economic machinery that so largely orders the life of a modern ci\ili/ed 
society; and just as they have attained to a definite system o{ religious 
beliefs and practices, to traditionally conserved modes of artistic expres- 
sion, to the adequate communication of thought and feeling in terms 
of linguistic symbols, so also they appear everywhere as rather clearl> 
articulated into various types of social grouping. No human assemblage 
living a life in common has ever been discovered that does not possess 
some form of social organization. Nowhere do we find a horde in which 
the relations between its individuals is completel\ anarchic 

The sexual promiscuity, for instance, that was such a fa\orile topic 
of discussion in the speculative writings o[' the earlier anthropi>Iogis!s 
seems to be confined to their books. Among no primitne pei^ple that 
has been adequately studied and that conforms to its oun traditional 
patterns of conduct is there to be found such a thing as an unregulated 
sexual commerce. The "license" that has been so often reported is either 
condemned by the group itself as a transgression, as is the case on our 
own level, or is no license at all. but, as among the Todas o{ India and 
a great many Australian tribes thai are oigam/ed into marriage classes, 
is an institutionally fixed mode o\' behavior that Hows naturalK from 
the division of the group into smaller units between only certain ones 
of which are marital relations allowed. Hence "group marriage." a none 
too frequent phenomenon at best, is mnvhere an index of siKial anar- 



102 /// Culture 

chy. On the contrary, it is but a specialized example of the fixity of 
certain traditional modes of social classification and is psychologically 
not at all akin to the promiscuity of theory or of the underground life 
of civilized societies. 

If it be objected that intermarrying sub-groups do, as a matter of [98] 
fact, argue a certain social anarchy because they disregard the natural 
distinctiveness of the individual, we need but point out that there are 
many other intercrossing modes of social classification, the net result 
of which is to carve out for the biological individual a social individual- 
ity while securing him a varied social participation. Not all the members 
of the same marriage class, for instance, need have the same totemic 
affiliations; nor need their kinship relations, real or supposed, toward 
the other members of the tribe be quite the same; nor need they, whether 
as hunters or as votaries in ancestral cults, have the same territorial 
associations; nor need their social ranking, based perhaps on age and 
on generally recognized ability, be at all the same; the mere difference 
of sex, moreover, has important social consequences, such as economic 
specialization, general inferiority of social status of the women, and 
female exclusion from certain ceremonial activities. The details vary, 
naturally, from tribe to tribe and from one geographical province to 
another. 

All this is merely to indicate that a large and an important share of 
anthropological study must concern itself with primitive types of social 
organization. There is such a thing as primitive sociology, and the soci- 
ologist who desires a proper perspective for the understanding of social 
relations in our own life cannot well afford to ignore the primitive data. 
This is well understood by most sociologists, but what is not always so 
clearly understood is that we have not the right to consider primitive 
society as simply a bundle of suggestions for an inferred social prehis- 
tory of our own culture. Under the powerful aegis of the biological 
doctrine of evolution the earlier, classical anthropologists tacitly as- 
sumed that such characteristic features of primitive life as totemism or 
matrilineal kinship [99] groups or group marriage might be assigned 
definite places in the gradual evolution of the society that we know 
today. 

There is no direct historical evidence, for instance, that the early Teu- 
tonic tribes which give us the conventionally assumed starting point for 
the Anglo-Saxon civilization had ever passed through a stage of group 
marriage, nor is the evidence for a totemistic period in the least convinc- 
ing, nor can we honestly say that we are driven to infer an older organ- 



One: Culture. Sociclv. ciiul the liuliviilunl \()\ 

ization into matrilineal clans for these peoples. \\i\ so coininccd ucrc 
some of the most brilliant of the earlier anthropologists thai jusi such 
social phenomena could be inferred on comparative evidence \\m- the 
cruder peoples as a whole, and so clear was it to them thai a parallel 
evolutionary sequence of social usages might be assumed for ail man- 
kind, that they did not hesitate to ascribe to ihc prehistoric period of 
Anglo-Saxon culture customs and social classifications that were famil- 
iar to them from aboriginal Australia or Africa or North America. !"he\ 
were in the habit of looking for "survivals'' of primitive conditions in 
the more advanced levels, and they were rarely unsuccessful in fmding 
them. 



Critique of Classical Evolution 

The more critical schools of anthropology that followed spent a great 
deal of time and effort in either weakening or demolishing the ingenunis 
speculative sequences that their predecessors had constructed. It grad- 
ually appeared that the doctrine of social stages could not he made lo 
fit the facts laboriously gathered by anthropological research. One o^ 
the favorite dogmas of the evolutionary anthropologists was the great 
antiquity of the sib (clan) or corporate kinship group. The earliest form 
of this type of organization was believed to be based on a matrilineal 
mode of reckoning descent. Now while it is true that a large number o\' 
fairly primitive tribes are organized into matrilineal sibs, such as many 
of the tribes of Australia, it proved to be equally true thai other iribcs 
no whit their superior in general cultural advance counted clan (gens) 
descent in the paternal line. 

Thus, if we consider the distribution of sib instnuiions m abonguial 
North America, it is not in the least obvious that the bulValo-hunimg 
Omaha of the American Plains, organized into patrilineal sibs (genics). 
were culturally superior to, or represented a more e\ol\ed type ofstxial 
organization than, say, the Haida or Tlingit or Tsimshian o\' the west 
coast of British Columbia and southern [100] Alaska, who possessed an 
exceedingly complex system of caste and privilege, had developed a very 
original and intricate art that was far beyond the modest advances made 
by any of the tribes of the Plains, and lived as fishermen m defmiich 
localized villages, yet whose sibs (clans) were o{ the matrilineal l\|xv 
Other American evidence could easily be adduced to prove that on the 
whole the matrilineally organized tribes represciiled a later jXTiod ol 



104 /// Culture 

cultural development than the patrilineal ones, whatever might be the 
facts in aboriginal Australia or Melanesia or other quarters of the primi- 
tive world. It was remarkable, for instance, that the confederated Iroqu- 
ois tribes and the town-dwelling Creeks of the Gulf region and many 
of the Pueblos (for example, ZunT and Hopi) of the Southwest, all three 
agricultural and all three obviously less primitive in mode of life and in 
social polity than our Omaha hunters, were classical examples of socie- 
ties based on the matrilineal clan. Criticism could go farther and show 
that the most primitive North American tribes, like the Eskimo, the 
Athabaskan tribes of the Mackenzie Valley and the interior of Alaska, 
and the acorn-eating peoples of California, were not organized into sibs 
at all, whether of the matrilineal or the patrilineal type. 

Countless other examples might be enumerated, all tending to show 
that it was vain to set up unilinear schemes of social evolution, that 
supposedly typical forms of archaic society had probably never devel- 
oped in certain parts of the globe at all, and that in any event the 
sequence of forms need not everywhere have been in the same sense. 
The older schematic evolution thus relapsed into the proverbial chaos 
of history. It became ever clearer that the culture of man was an exceed- 
ingly plastic process and that he had developed markedly distinct types 
of social organization in different parts of the world as well as interest- 
ingly convergent forms that could not, however, be explained by any 
formula of evolutionary theory. 

At first blush critical anthropology seems to have demolished the 
usefulness of its own data for a broader sociology. If anthropology 
could not give the sociologist a clear perspective into social origins and 
the remoter social developments that were consummated before the 
dawn of history, of what serious consequence was its subject-matter for 
a general theory of society? Of what particular importance was it to 
study such social oddities, charming or picturesque though they might 
be, as the clan totemism or the clan exogamy of [101] Australian blacks 
or American redskins? It is true that anthropology can no longer claim 
to give us a simple scaffolding for the building of the social history of 
man, but it does not follow that its data are a rubbish heap of odd- 
ments. It may be and probably is true that anthropology has more to 
tell us than ever before of the nature of man's social behavior; but we 
must first learn not to expect its teachings to satisfy any such arbitrary 
demands as were first made of it. 

The primary error of the classical school of anthropology was (and 
of much anthropological theory still is) to look upon primitive man as 



One: Culture. Society, ami tin- hulivuluul 105 

a sort of prodromal type of cultured hmnaniiy. Muis. there was an 
irresistible tendency to see his significance not in terms o\ unfolding 
culture, with endless possibilities for intricate de\elopmenl aU)ng s[x*- 
cialized lines, not in terms of place and of environing circumstance, but 
always in terms o[' inferred and necessarily distorted time. The present 
anthropological outlook is broader and far less formalized. What the 
sociologist may hope to get from the materials of social anthropi)k)gy 
is not predigested history, or rather the pseudo-history that called itself 
social evolution, but insight into the essential patterns and mechanisms 
of social behavior. This means, among other things, that we are to be 
at least as much interested in the many points of accord between primi- 
tive and sophisticated types of social organization as in their sensatiDiial 
differences. 



The Family as Primary Social Unit 

We can perhaps best illustrate the changing point o[' \ ieu by a brief 
reference to the family. The earlier anthropologists were greatK im- 
pressed by the importance and the stability of the family in modern life. 
On the principle that everything that is true of ci\ilized societ> must 
have evolved from something very different or e\en opposed in primi- 
tive society, the theory was formulated that the family as we understand 
it today was late to arrive in the history of man, that the most primiiiNc 
peoples of today have but a weak sense of the reality o\ the famil\. and 
that the precursor of this social institution was the more inclusive sib 
(clan). Thus the family appeared as a gradually evolved and somewhat 
idealized substitute of, or transfer from, a more cumbersome and tyran- 
nically bound group of kinstblk. 

A more caretul study of the facts seems to indicate thai the family 
[102] is a well-nigh universal social unit, that ii is the nuclear l>pc o{ 
social organization/;^//- excellence. So far iVoni a study of clans, genies. 
and other types of enlarged kinship group giving us the clue to the 
genesis of the family, the e.xact oppt>site is true. Ihe family. \Mih its 
maternal and paternal ties and its caiduIlN elaborated kinship relations 
and kinship terminology, is the one social pattern inli> which man has 
ever been born. It is the pattern that is most likel> to serve as the 
nucleus for, or as model oW other social units. We can. then, understand 
the development of sib and kindred institutions as proliferations of the 
universal family image. The ternnnology of clan alTiliaiion or non-aO'ili- 



106 /// Culture 

ation is simply an extension of the terminology of specific familial and 
extra-familial relationships. The modern family represents the persis- 
tence of an old social pattern, not the emergence of a new one. Clan 
and gentile organizations blossomed here and there on a stem that is 
still living. What is distinctive of practically all primitive societies is not 
the clan or gens or moiety as such, but the tremendous emphasis on the 
principle o^ kinship. One of the indirect consequences of this emphasis 
may be the gradual overshadowing, for a certain period, of the family 
by one or more of its derivatives. 



Diffusion and Inferred History 

Such an example as this illustrates the value of anthropological data 
for the fixing of formal perspectives in social phenomena. Meanwhile, if 
anthropology no longer indulges in the grand panorama of generalized 
prehistory, it has by no means given up all attempts at reconstructing 
the history of primitive societies. On the contrary, there is more inferen- 
tial history being built out of the descriptive data of primitive life than 
ever before; but it is not a pan-human history, finely contemptuous of 
geography and local circumstance. Social institutions are no longer be- 
ing studied by ethnologists as generalized phenomena in an ideal 
scheme, with the specific local details set down as incidental avatars of 
the spirit. The present tendency among students of primitive society is 
to work out the details of any given institution or social practice for a 
selected spot, then to study its geographical distribution or, if it is a 
composite of various elements, the distribution of each of these ele- 
ments, and gradually to work out by inferences of one kind and another 
a bit of strictly localized social history. The greatest importance is at- 
tached to the discovery of continuities in these distributions, [103] which 
are felt to be most intelligibly explained by the gradual diffusion of a 
given social feature from one starting point. 

Today we are not satisfied, for instance, to note the existence of ma- 
ternal clans among the Haida, of Queen Charlotte Islands, and to com- 
pare them, say, with the maternal clans of the ZunT and Hopi in the 
Southwest. Nothing can be done with these isolated facts. Should it 
appear that the clans of the two areas are strikingly similar in the details 
of their structure and functioning and that the areas are connected by 
a continuous series of intermediate tribes possessing maternal clans, 
there would be good reason to believe that the Haida and ZunT-Hopi 



One: Culture. Saiictv luul tlu /lu/ixuluul li*" 

organizations are derivatives ol a single hislorieal process. Bui this is 
not the case. The clan organizations are vers dilTerent and the clan 
areas are separated by a vast territory occupied b\ chniless irihes. The 
American ethnologist concludes thai the general sunilarils ui the siKial 
structures ot the separated areas is not due to a common history but lo 
a formal convergence; he has no notion that the antecedents o\' clan 
development were necessarily the same in the two cases. On the other 
hand, the Haida clan system is strikingly similar in structure, type of 
localization, totemic associations, privileges, and functions to the clan 
systems of a large number of neighboring tribes (Tlingit. Nass River. 
Tsimshian, Bella Bella, Kitamat). so that one is irresistibly led to believe 
that the social system arose only once in this area and that it was grad- 
ually assimilated by peoples to whom it was originally foreign. 

Analogous cases of the diffusion of social features over large and 
continuous but strictly limited areas can be cited without end (for exam- 
ple, Australian maternal clans; Australian marriage classes; men's clubs 
in Melanesia; age societies in the North American Plains; caste institu- 
tions in India), and in nearly all of these cases one may legitimate!) 
infer that their spread is owing chietly to the imitation of a pattern that 
was restricted in the first place to a very small area. 



The Reality of Parallel Social Dc\ clopmciits 

The recent tendency has been to emphasize diffusion and historical 
inferences from the facts of diffusion at the expense of con\ergences in 
social structure, certain extremists even going so far as to deny the 
possibility of the latter. It is important for students o\ the structural 
variations and the history of society to realize the [l()4j important part 
that the borrowing of social patterns has played at all times and on all 
levels of culture; but the reality and the significance of formal paral- 
lelisms should never be lost sight o[\ At present anthropologists are 
timid about the intensive, non-historical study o\' typical social forms. 
The "evolutionary" fallacies are still fresh in their minds, and the danger 
of falling into any one of a variety o\' facile •"psNchological" modes of 
interpretation is too obvious. But anthiopolog> cannot long ci>nimuc 
to ignore such stupendous facts as the independent development of sibs 
in different parts of the world, the widespread tendencs toward the rise 
of religious or ceremonial societies, the rise ol occupational castes, the 
attachment of differentiatiniz svmbt^ls to social uniis. and a host of olh- 



108 /// Culture 

ers. Such classes of social phenomena are too persistent to be without 
deep significance. It is fair to surmise that in the long run it is from 
their consideration that the sociologist will have the most to learn. 

Few anthropologists have probed deeply into these problems. Hasty 
correlations between various types of social phenomena have been 
made in plenty, such as Rivers 's brilliant and unconvincing attempt to 
derive systems o( kinship terminology from supposedly fundamental 
forms of social organization; but the true unraveling of the basic and 
largely unconscious concepts or images that underlie social forms has 
hardly been begun. Hence the anthropologist is in the curious position 
of dealing with impressive masses of material and with a great number 
of striking homologies, not necessarily due to historical contact, that he 
is quite certain have far-reaching significance, but the nature of whose 
significance he is not prepared to state. Interpretative anthropology is 
under a cloud, but the data of primitive society need interpretation none 
the less. The historical explanations now in vogue, often exceedingly 
dubious at best, are little more than a clearing of the ground toward a 
social interpretation; they are not the interpretation itself. We can only 
glance at a few of those formal convergences or underlying tendencies 
in primitive social organization which we believe to be of common inter- 
est to anthropology, to sociology, and to a social psychology of form 
which has hardly been more than adumbrated. 



The Kinship "Image" 

It has frequently been noted that the kinship principle tends to take 
precedence in primitive life over other principles of social classification. 
[105] A good example of this is afforded by the West Coast tribes of 
Canada. Here the integrity of the local group, the village, with a recog- 
nized head chief, is pretty soHdly established. Nevertheless we are con- 
stantly hearing in the legends of a particular family or clan, if feeling 
itself aggrieved for one reason or another, moving off with its house 
boards and canoes either to found a new village or to join its kinsmen 
in an old one. There is also direct historical evidence to show that the 
clan or family constitution of the villages was being reassorted from 
time to time because of the great inner coherence and the relative mobil- 
ity of the kinship groups. Among the Nagas of Assam the villages as 
such had little of the spirit of community and mutual helpfulness, but 
were split up into potentially hostile clans which lived apart from one 



One: Culture. Soclav. und ihc huiiviJual l(i>-> 

another and were constantly on guard against attack from fellow \illag- 
ers. Here the feeling of kinship solidarity, stinuilaled, ii is iruc. by cere- 
monial ideas with regard to feuds and head-hunluig, actually turned 
the village into a congeries o\^ beleaguered camps. The significance of 
such facts is that they show with dramatic clarity how a poiciii M>cial 
pattern may Hy in the face of reason, of mulual ad\anlage. and e\en oi 
economic necessity. 

The application to modern conditions is obvunis enough. The ideol- 
ogy which prevents a Haida clan from subordiiiaimg its petty pride to 
the general good of the village is precisely the same as that which today 
prevents a nation from allowing a transnational economic unit, say the 
silk industry, tVom functioning smoothly. In each case a social group- 
pattern - or formal "image," in psychological terms (clan; nation) - 
so dominated feeling that services which would natural!) tlou in the 
grooves of quite other intercrossing or more inclusise group-patterns 
(mutual defense in the village; effective production and distribution of 
a class of goods by those actively engaged in handling it) must sulTcr 
appreciable damage. 



Function and Form in Sociology 

This brings us to the question of the functional nature of social 
groups. Our modern tendency is to see most associations oi" human 
beings in terms of function. Thus, it is ob\'ious that boards oi trade, 
labor unions, scientific societies, municipalities, political parlies, and 
thousands of other types of social organization are most easily ex- 
plained as resulting tYom the etTorts of like-minded or similarh inter- 
ested individuals to compass certain ends. As we go [KKi] back to the 
types of organization which we know to be more deeply rooted in iuir 
historic past, such as the family, the naiioiKili(\. aiui the political stale. 
we find that their function is far less obvious, it is either all but absent 
from consciousness, as in the case of the family, or inextricably inter- 
twined with sentiments and loyalties that are not explicable b\ ihe mere 
function, real or supposed, of the social unit. Ihe stale mighi be defined 
in purely territorial and functional terms, but political history is lililc 
more than an elaborate proof that the state as we ha\e actually known 
it refuses either to "stay put" or to "■stick to business."' However, ii is 
evident that the modern state has tended more and more in the dirtxtion 
of a clearer functional definition. b\ \\a\ both of reslriclion and of 



110 /// Culnire 

extension. The dynastic and religious entanglements, for instance, which 
were at one time considered inseparable from the notion of a state, have 
loosened or disappeared. Even the family, the most archaic and perhaps 
the most stubborn of all social units, is beginning to have its cohesive- 
ness and its compulsions questioned by the intercrossing of functional 
units that lie outside of itself. 

When we compare primitive society with our own, we are at once 
impressed by the lesser importance of function as a determinant of or- 
ganization. Functional groupings there are, of course, but they are sub- 
sidiary, as a rule, to kinship, territorial, and status groups. There is a 
very definite tendency for communal activities of all sorts to socialize 
on the lines suggested by these groups. Thus, among the West Coast 
Indians, membership in the ceremonial or secret societies, while theore- 
tically dependent upon the acquirement of power from the initiating 
guardian spirits, is in reaUty largely a matter of privilege inhering in 
certain lines of descent. The Kwakiutl Cannibal Society, for instance, is 
not a spontaneous association of such men and women as possess unu- 
sual psychic suggestibility, but is composed of individuals who have 
family traditions entitling them to dance the Cannibal dance and to 
perform the rituals of the Society. Among the Pueblo Indians there is a 
marked tendency for the priesthood of important rehgious fraternities 
to be recruited from particular clans. Among the Plains tribes the polic- 
ing of the camp during the annual buffalo hunt was entrusted not to a 
group expressly constituted for the purpose but to a series of graded 
age societies, each serving in turn, as among the Arapaho, to the sibs, 
as among the Omaha, or to some other set of social units that had other 
grounds for existence. [107] 

We must be careful not to exaggerate the importance of facts such as 
these, for undoubtedly there is much intercrossing in primitive society 
of the various types of social organization; yet it remains true that, by 
and large, function tends to wait on alien principles, particularly kin- 
ship. In course of time, as numbers grow and pursuits become more 
specialized, the functional groups intercross more freely with what may 
be called the natural status groups. Finally, with the growing complexity 
of the mechanism of life the concept of the purpose of a given group 
forces itself upon the social consciousness, and if this purpose is felt to 
be compelling enough, the group that it unifies may reduce to a second- 
ary posifion social units built on other principles. Thus, the clan tends 
to atrophy with the growth of political institutions, precisely as today 



One: Culiurc, Socicly. ami the Iiu/ivic/mil \ \ \ 

State autonomy is beginning to weaken in ihc face of transnalii>nal func- 
tions. 

Yet it is more tiian doubtful if ihe gradual unfi)ldnig o\' sdcuiI 
patterning tends indetlnitely to be controlled b\ function. The prag- 
matic temper of present-day thinking makes such an assumpiiDii seem 
natural. Both anthropology and history seem to show, however, that 
any kind of social grouping, once established, tends to persist, and that 
it has a life only partly conditioned by its function, which may be 
changed from age to age and from place to place. Certainly anthropol- 
ogy has few more impressive hints for sociological theory than the func- 
tional equivalence of different types of social units. 

Among the Indians of the Plains, whether organized into sibs or mer- 
ely into territorial bands, the decoration of articles of clothing, in so far 
as it does not involve a symbolic reference to a vision, in which case it 
becomes a matter of intimate personal concern, is neither \ested in par- 
ticular women nor differentiated according to sib or territorial umis. 
The vast majority of decorative motives are at the free disposal o\' all 
the women of the tribe. There is evidence that in certain o( the Plains 
tribes the women had developed industrial guilds or sororities for the 
learning of moccasin techniques and similar items, but if these sex-func- 
tional groups specialized in any way in the use of particular designs, it 
would only emphasize the point that the decoration o\' clothing had 
nothing to do with the basic organization of the tribe. The facts read 
quite differently for such West Coast tribes as the Haida and Tsimshian. 
Here, owing to the fact that the clans had mythological crests and to 
the further fact that these crests were often represented on articles o\' 
[108] clothing in highly conventionalized form, artistic expression was 
necessarily intertwined with social organization. The representation o\' 
a conventionalized beaver or killer-whale on a hat or dancuig apron 
thus actually becomes a clan privilege. It helps to defme or obiectity 
the clan by so much. 

Another example of an identical or similar function applied to dit- 
ferent social units is afforded by the ceremonial playmg o[' lacrosse 
among several eastern tribes of the North American abiMigmes. Both 
the Iroquois and the Yuchi, of the Southeastern area, uere orgam/cd 
into clans (matrilineal sibs), but while the Iroquois pitted their i\so 
phratries, or clan aggregations, against each other, among the \in:h\ the 
game was not a clan or phratric function at all but \sas pla>ed b\ the 
two great status groups, "Chiefs" and "Warriors." membership in \Khich 
depended on patrilineal, not matrilineal. descent. 



112 /// Culture 

The Transfer of Social Patterns 

Such instances are not exceptions or oddities. They may be multipHed 
indefmitely. Any student who has worked through a considerable body 
of material of this kind is left with a very lively sense of the reality of 
types of organization to which no absolutely constant functions can be 
assigned. Moreover, the suspicion arises that many social units that now 
seem to be very clearly defined by their function may have had their 
origin in patterns which the lapse of time has reinterpreted beyond re- 
cognition. A very interesting problem arises - that of the possible 
transfer of a psychological attitude or mode of procedure which is 
proper to one type of social unit to another type of unit in which the 
attitude or procedure is not so clearly relevant. Undoubtedly such 
transfers have often taken place both on primitive and on sophisticated 
levels. 

A striking example of the transfer of a "pattern of feeling" to a social 
function to which it is glaringly inapplicable is the following, again 
quoted from the West Coast Indians: The psychic peculiarity that leads 
certain men and women to become shamans ("medicine-men" and "me- 
dicine-women") is so individual that shamanism shows nearly every- 
where a marked tendency to resist grooving in the social patterns of the 
tribe. Personal ability or susceptibility counts far more than conven- 
tional status. Nevertheless, so powerful is the concept of rank and of 
the family inheritance of privilege of every conceivable type among the 
West Coast people [109] that certain tribes of this area, such as the 
Tlingit and Nootka, have actually made of shamanistic power an inher- 
itable privilege. In actual practice, of course, theory has to yield to 
compromise. Among the Nootka, for instance, certain shamanistic of- 
fices are supposed to be performed by those who have an inherited right 
to them. Actually, however, these offices necessitate the possession of 
supernatural power that the incumbent may not happen to possess. He 
is therefore driven to the device of deputing the exercise of his office to 
a real shaman whom he pays for his services but who does not acquire 
the titular right to the office in question. The psychology of this pro- 
cedure is of course very similar to the more sophisticated procedure of 
rubber-stamping documents in the name of a king who is profoundly 
ignorant of their contents. 

A very instructive example of pattern transfer on a high level of cul- 
ture is the complex organization of the Roman Catholic Church. Here 
we have a bureaucrafic system that neither expresses the personal 



One: Culture. Society, uiul the Im/ivuhml \\\ 

psychology of snobbery and place-hunting nov can be seriously cx- 
phiined as due to the exigencies of the rehgious spirit which the organ- 
ization serves. There is, of course, reason to beheve that this organiza- 
tion is to a large extent a carry-over of the complex structure ot Runian 
civil administration. That the Jews and llic c\ angelical Protestant sects 
have a far looser type of church organization does not prove thai ihcy 
are, as individuals, more immediately s\va\ed b\ the demands o\' reli- 
gion. All that one has a right to conclude is that m iheir case religion 
has socialized itself on a less tightly knit pattern, a pattern that was 
more nearly congruent with other habits of their social life. 

Nor can there be a serious doubt that some of our current aiiiiudes 
toward social units are better suited to earlier types o\' organization 
than to the social units as they actually function today. A dispassionate 
analysis of the contemporary state and a full realization o\' the extent to 
which its well-being depends upon international understandings would 
probably show that the average individual views it with a more pro- 
found emotion than the facts warrant. To the state, in other words, arc 
carried over feelings that seem far more appropriate for more ncarl> 
autonomous social bodies, such as the tribe or the self-supporting na- 
tionality. It is not unreasonable to maintain that a too passionate stale 
loyalty may hinder the comfort of its object in precisely the same way 
that an overzealous mother, wrapped up in the family image, nia> hin- 
der the social [110] functioning of her beloved son. it is ditTicult to \iew 
social and political problems of practical importance with a cool eye. 
One of the most subtle and enlightening of the fruits of anthropological 
research is an understanding of the very considerable degree to w hich 
the concepts of social pattern, function, and associated mental attitude 
are independently variable. In this thought lies the germ o\^ a svKial 
philosophy of values and transfers that joins hands in a very suggestive 
way with such psychoanalytic concepts as the "'image" and the iranster 
of emotion. 



Rhythmic Configurations in Socict\ 

Modern psychology is destined to aid us m our understanding of 
social phenomena by its emphasis on the projection of formal or rh\lh- 
mic configurations of the psyche and on the concrete symbolizalion o( 
values and social relations. We can do no more than suggest here ihal 
both of these kinds of mental functioning arc plcniifull> illustrated in 



114 /// Culture 

primitive society, and that for this reason anthropology can do much 
to give their consideration an adequate place in sociological theory. 
They are just as truly operative in our more sophisticated culture, but 
they seem here to be prevented from a clear-cut expression along the 
lines of social organization by the interference of more conscious, ratio- 
nal processes and by the leveling and destructive influence of a growing 
consciousness of purpose. 

The projection in social behavior of an innate sense of form is an 
intuitive process and is merely a special phase of that mental function- 
ing that finds its clearest voice in mathematics and its most nearly pure 
aesthetic embodiment in plastic and musical design. Now it has often 
been observed how neatly and symmetrically many primitive societies 
arrange their social units and with how perfect, not to say pedantic, a 
parallelism functions are distributed among these units. An Iroquois or 
Pueblo or Haida or Australian clan is closely patterned on the other 
clans, but its distinctive content of behavior is never identical with that 
of any of these. Then, too, we find significantly often a tendency to 
exteriorize the feeling for social design in space or time. The Omaha 
clans or Blackfoot bands, for instance, took up definite positions in the 
camp circle; the septs of a Nootka or Kwakiutl tribe were ranked in a 
certain order and seated according to definite rule in ceremonial gather- 
ings; each of the Hopi clans was referred to one of the four cardinal 
points; the Arapaho age societies were graded in a temporal series [111] 
and took their turn from year to year in policing the camp; among some 
of the Western Bantu tribes of Africa the year was divided into segments 
correlated with territorial groupings. The significance of such social 
phenomena as these, which could easily be multipled, is probably far 
greater than has generally been assumed. It is not claimed that the 
'tendency to rhythmic expression is their only determinant, but it is cer- 
tainly a powerful underlying factor in the development of all social 
parallelisms and symmetries. 



Symbolical Associations 

The importance of symbolical associadons with social groupings is 
well known. Party slogans, national flags, and lodge emblems and rega- 
lia today can give only a diluted idea of what power is possessed by the 
social symbol in primitive life. The best-known example of the socializa- 
tion of symbols among primitive people is of course that complicated. 



One: Culture. Society, urn/ the linlividual \ \ S 

indefinitely varied, and enormously disinhuicd class o^ phenomena thai 
is conveniently termed totemism. The central importance of toiemism 
lies not so much in a mystic identification of the individual or uroup 
with an animal, a plant, or other classes of objects held in religious 
regard (such identifications are by no means uncommon iii primitive 
cultures, but are not necessary to, or even typical of, toiemism) as in 
the clustering of all kinds of values that pertain to a social unit around 
a concrete symbol. This symbol becomes surcharged with emoiiDual 
significance not because of what it merely is or is thought lo be in 
rational terms, but because of all the vital experiences, inherited and 
personal, that it stands for. Totemism is, on the plane o\' primitive soci- 
ology, very much the same kind of psychological phenomenon as the 
identification in the mind of the devout Christian of the cross with a 
significant system of religious practices, beliefs, and emotions. 

When a Haida Indian is a member of a clan that possesses, say, the 
Killer-whale crest, it is very ditTicult for him to function in any social 
way without being involved in an explicit or implicit reference lo the 
Killer-whale crest or some other crest or crests with which it is associ- 
ated. He cannot be born, come of age, be married, give feasts, be iin itcd 
to a feast, take or give a name, decorate his belongings, or die as a mere 
individual, but always as one who shares in the traditions and usages 
that go with the Killer-whale or associated crests. Hence the social sym- 
bol is not in any sense a [112] mere tag; it is a traditional index o\' ihe 
fullness of life and of the dignity of the human spirit which transcends 
the death of the individual. The symbol is operative in a great many 
types of social behavior, totemism being merely one of its most articu- 
late group expressions. The symbol as unconscious evaluator of indivi- 
dual experience has been much discussed in recent years, li needs no 
labored argument to suggest how much light anthropolog\ ma\ ihrou 
on the social psychology of the symbol. 



Selected References 

Boas, F. 

1911 The Mind of Primitive Man. 

1895 The Social Organization and Secret Societies o^ the KwakiutI Indi- 
ans. Report. U. S. National Museum, pp. ."^I'^ ^'^' 
Codrington, R. H. 

1891 The MeUmesians: Studies in their .inihropolojiy and Folk-Lore. 



116 /// Culture 

Cunow, H. 

1894 Die Vermimitseliafts-Orgcmisatkmen der Australneger. 
1912 Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe und der Familie. 
Dorsey, J. O. 

1 884 Omaha Sociology. Bureau of American Ethnology, 3rd Annual Re- 
port, pp. 211-37. 
Frazer. J. G. 

1911 Tofemism and Exogamy. 
Gifford, E. W. 

1918 Clans and Moieties in Southern Cahfornia. University of California 
Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, XIV, 
pp. 155-219. 
Goldenweiser, A. A. 

1922 Early Civilization, an Introduction to Anthropology. (Particularly 
chaps. XII and XIII.) 

1910 Totemism, an Analytical Study. Journal of American Folk-Lore, 
XXXIII, pp. 179-293. 

Graebner, F. 

1911 Methode der Ethnologie. 
Hartland, E. S. 

1917 Matrihneal Kinship and the Question of its Priority. Memoirs of 
the American Anthropological Association, IV, pp. 1-90. 
Junod, H. A. 

1912 The Life of a South African Tribe. 
Kroeber, A. L. 

1917 ZunT Kin and Clan. American Museum of Natural History, Anthro- 
pological Papers, XVIII, pp. 39-205. 

1 923 Anthropology. 
Lowie, R. H. 

1910 Plains Indian Age-Societies: Historical and Comparative Summary. 

American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Paper s,X\, 

pp. 877-984. 
1920 Primitive Society. 
Malinowski, B. 

1913 The Family among the Australian Aborigines. 
Morgan, L. H. 

1871 Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. 

Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, XVII. 
1877 Ancient Society. 

1 904 League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois. 
Radin, R 

1915 The Social Organization of the Winnebago Indians, an Interpreta- 
tion. Geological Survey of Canada, Museum Bulletin, no. 10. 



One: Culture, Society, and the Imlividiuil \ \ 7 

Rivers, W. H. R. 

1906 The Todas. 

1914 The History of Melanesian Society. 

1914 Kinship and Social Ori^anizafion. 
Sapir, E. 

1916 Time Perspective in Aboriginal American Culture, .i ^m.i'. m 
Method. Geological Survey of Canada. Memoirs, no. 90 
Schurtz, H. 

1902 Altersklassen und Mdnnerhiinde. 
Spencer, B., and Gillen, F. J. 

1899 The Native Tribes of Central Australia. 
Swanton, J. R. 

1905 Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida. .\fcni(>ir\ at ih,- tm, ,• 

ican Museum of Natural History, Vlll. 
1905 The Social Organization of American Indians. Anicricun Amiiropol- 
ogist, N. S., pp. 663-73. 
Thomas, William I. 

1909 Source Book for Social Origins. 
Tylor, E. B. 

1889 Primitive Culture. 

1889 On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions; ap- 
plied to Laws of Marriage and Descent. Journal of the .Anthropologi- 
cal Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. XVI 11. pp. 24.>-''2 
Webster, H. 

1908 Primitive Secret Societies. 
Wissler, C. 

1911 The Social Life of the Blackfoot Indians. .American Museum of \ai- 

ural History, Anthropological Papers, VII, pp. 1-64. 
1923 Man and Culture. 
Westermarck, E. A. 

1903 The History of Human Marriage. 3d ed. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in The Social Sciences und Iluir Interrelations. 
edited by William Fielding Ogburn and Alexander Cioldenwciscr (Bos- 
ton: Houghton Mifflin), 97- 1 13 (1927). Reprinted by permission. 



Speech as a Personality Trail ( 1927) 
Editorial Introduction 

In response to the experimental evidence presented b\ his inicrdisci- 
phnary colleagues, especially in psychology, Sapir turned to what he 
called "language psychology" to clarify his intuitions about individual 
personality.' He argued that people unconsciously extracted informa- 
tion about the personality of others from the stream o\' beha\ ior. Per- 
sonality was not accessible through the isolated individual but oiil\ uiih 
the mediation of culture (cf. Sapir's 1926 Hanover Conference paper. 
this volume). Although people were only minimally aware of their own 
cultural patterns, they regularly recognized deviations from the patterns 
they expected. Thus, their intuitions could shed light on the relation- 
ships between individual and culture. 

Sapir's quasi-experimental variables included voice (closest lo biolog- 
ical heredity), the socially expressive parameters of \oice dynamics, pro- 
nunciation and vocabulary, and style (the most culturalls experiential ).- 
Although Sapir did not pursue this experimentational elTori \er> far. 
there are echoes of his foray in "The Psychological Realii> o\' the I'ho- 
neme" (1933) and in his paper on phonetic symbolism ( 1929). 

The essay's emphasis on cultural convention, as mediating between 
the individual personality and the behaviors through which that person- 
ality finds expression, ran counter to many currents in the mielleclual 
context of the time. Many psychologists and even anthropologists as- 
sumed that personality could be inferred directly from behavior, and 
that insofar as cultures differed in the bcha\KMs tlic> fostered, so also 
did peoples differ in their essential personality. Attributing typical per- 
sonality to entire social groups - especially nations on the basis of 
behavioral details judged according to what the> would mean in Anglo- 
American contexts was, in those days, iniclkvtiKill> respectable. Sapir*8 
essay counters those prevailing notions, both in its interposing of cul- 
tural convention and in its insistence on the \ariabilit\ o\' indi\iduals' 
personalifies, and expressive behaviors, uilhiii a communil\ 



120 /// Ciillurc 

Speech as a Personality Trait 
Abstract 

Speech is intuitively interpreted by normal human beings as an index of personal 
expression. Its actual analysis, however, from this standpoint is difilcult. Several 
distinct strands may be detected in what looks at first sight like an integral phenome- 
non. The social norm is always to be distinguished from the individual increment of 
expression, which is never discernible in itself, but only as measured against this 
norm. Moreover, "speech" consists of at least five levels of behavior, the expressive 
value of any one of which need not be confirmed by all the others. These levels are 
the voice as such, speech dynamics, the pronunciation, the vocabulary, and the style 
of connected utterance. Owing to the possibility of detecting conflict and other symp- 
tomatic reactions in speech, language behavior becomes a suggestive field for re- 
search in problems of personality. 

If one is at all given to analysis, one is impressed with the extreme 
complexity of the various types of human behavior, and it may be as- 
sumed that the things that we take for granted in our ordinary, everyday 
life are as strange and as unexplainable as anything one might find. 
Thus, one comes to feel that the matter of speech is very far from being 
the self-evident or simple thing that we think it to be; that it is capable 
of a very great deal of refined analysis from the standpoint of human 
behavior; and that one might, in the process of making such an analysis, 
accumulate certain ideas for the research of personahty problems. 

There is one thing that strikes us as interesting about speech: on the 
one hand, we find it difficult to analyze; on the other hand, we are very 
much guided by it in our actual experience. That is perhaps something 
of a paradox, yet both the simple mind and the keenest of scientists 
know very well that we do not react to the suggestions of the environ- 
ment in accordance with our specific knowledge alone. Some of us are 
more intuitive than others, it is true, but none is entirely lacking in the 
ability to gather and be guided by speech impressions in the intuitive 
exploration of personality. We are taught that when a man speaks he 
says something that he [893] wishes to communicate. That, of course, 
is not necessarily so. He intends to say something, as a rule, yet what 
he actually communicates may be measurably different from what he 
started out to convey. We often form a judgment of what he is by what 
he does not say, and we may be very wise to refuse to limit the evidence 
for judgment to the overt content of speech. One must read between 
the lines, even when they are not written on a sheet of paper. 

In thinking over this matter of the analysis of speech from the point 
of view of personahty study, the writer has come to feel that we might 



One C'uliuir. Socicly. uml ilw Imtivuhul 121 

have two quite distincl approaches; two quite distinct analyses might 
be undertaken that would intercross in a \ery intricate fashion. In the 
first place, the analysis niiiihi dilTeienliale the indi\idual and sociel). in 
so far as society speaks ihrousih the Midi\idual. The second kind of 
analysis would take up the dilTereni levels of speech, starting from the 
lowest level, which is the Nc^ice itself, clear up to the formation of com- 
plete sentences. In ordinar\ life we say that a man coineys certain im- 
pressions by his speech, bul we rarely stop to analyse this apparent unit 
of behavior into its superimposed levels. We might give him credit lor 
brilliant ideas when he merely possesses a smooth voice. We are often 
led into misunderstandings o^ this sort, though we are not generally so 
easily fooled. We can go over the entire speech situation without being 
able to put our finger on the precise spot in the speech complex thai 
leads to our making this or that personalitv judgment. Just as the dog 
knows whether to turn to the right or to the left, so we know that wc 
must make certain judgments, but we might well be mistaken if we tried 
to give the reason for making them. 

Let us look for a moment at the justification for the first kind of 
analysis, the differentiation between the social and the pureh individual 
point of view. It requires no labored argument to prove that this distinc- 
tion is a necessary one. We human beings do not e.xist out of socicly. If 
you put a man in a cell, he is still in societv. because he carries his 
thoughts with him, and these thoughts, pathologic though they be, were 
formed with the help of society. On the other hand, we Ctin never have 
experience as such, however greatly we may be interested in them. lake 
so simple a social pattern as the word "horse." A horse is an animal 
with [894] four legs, a mane, and a neigh; but. as a matter o\' fact, the 
social pattern of reference to this animal does uo\ exist in its purity. 
All that exists is my saying "horse" today, "horse" veslerdav. "horse" 
tomorrow. Each of the events is different. There is something peculiar 
about each o[^ them. The voice, for one thing, is never quite the simic. 
There is a different quality o{ emotion m each articulation, and the 
intensity of the emotion, too, is different. It is not dilficull to see wh> 
it is necessary to distinguish the social point of view from the individual, 
for society has its patterns, its set ways of di^ng things, its dislmctivc 
"theories" of behavior, while the individual has his melhiul i>f handling 
those particular patterns of societv, giving them just enough of a iwisl 
to make them "his" and no one else's. We are so interested in ourselves 
as individuals and in others wlu> dilfer. however slightly, from us thai 
we are always on the alert to mark the variations from the nuclear 



122 /// Cullurc 

pattern of behavior. To one who is not accustomed to the pattern, these 
variations appear so shght as to be all but unobserved. Yet they are of 
maximum importance to us as individuals; so much so that we are liable 
to forget that there is a general social pattern to vary from. We are 
often under the impression that we are original or otherwise aberrant 
when, as a matter of fact, we are merely repeating a social pattern with 
the very slightest accent of individuality. 

To proceed to the second point of view, the analysis of speech on its 
different levels: If we were to make a critical survey of how people react 
to voice and what the voice carries, we should find them relatively naive 
about the different elements involved in speech. A man talks and makes 
certain impressions, but, as we have seen, we are not clear as to whether 
it is his voice which most powerfully contributes to the impression, or 
the ideas which are conveyed. There are several distinct levels in speech 
behavior which to linguists and psychologists are, each of them, sets of 
real phenomena, and we must now look at these in order to obtain 
some idea of the complexity of normal human speech. I will take up 
these various levels in order, making a few remarks about each of them 
as I proceed. 

The lowest or most fundamental speech level is the voice. It is closest 
to the hereditary endowment of the individual, considered [895] out of 
relation to society, "low" in the sense of constituting a level that starts 
with the psychophysical organism given at birth. The voice is a compli- 
cated bundle of reactions and, so far as the writer knows, no one has 
succeeded in giving a comprehensive account of what the voice is and 
what changes it may undergo. There seems to be no book or essay that 
classifies the many different types of voice, nor is there a nomenclature 
that is capable of doing justice to the bewildering range of voice phe- 
nomena. And yet it is by delicate nuances of voice quality that we are 
so often confirmed in our judgment of people. From a more general 
point of view, voice may be considered a form of gesture. If we are 
swayed by a certain thought or emotion, we may express ourselves with 
our hands or some other type of gesturing, and the voice takes part in 
the total play of gesture. From our present point of view, however, it is 
possible to isolate the voice as a functional unit. 

Voice is generally thought of as a purely individual matter, yet is it 
quite correct to say that the voice is given us at birth and maintained 
unmodified throughout life? Or has the voice a social quality as well as 
an individual one? I think we all feel, as a matter of fact, that we imitate 
each other's voices to a not inconsiderable extent. We know very well 



One: Cnliiiir. Soiiciv. unJ i/ic /nJivtJiiul 123 

that if. for some reason (^r oilier, llie liiiibre ol the \oice ihal wc arc 
lieir lo lias been eriliei/ed. we Irv lo iiiodity il. so thai il ma> nol be a 
socially unpleasant insirunienl o\' speech. There is aluays si>melhing 
about the voice that nuisl be ascribed lo the st)cial backiirourul. prc- 
cisel\ as in the case of gesture, (iestures are not the siniple, indiMduai 
things they seem lo be. They are largely peculiar to this or ihal society. 
In the same way, in spite of the personal and relati\el\ fixed character 
of the \oice, we make iii\oluntar\ adjustments in the lar\n\ that bring 
about significant modifications in the \oice. Therefore, in deducing fun- 
damental traits of personality from the \i>ice ue must tr\ to discnlanglc 
the social element from the purely personal one. If ue are nol careful 
to do this, we may make a serious error of judgment. A man has a 
strained or raucous voice, let us say. and we might infer thai he is 
basically "coarse-grained." Such a judgment might be entirely wide o\ 
the mark if the particular societ\ in which he hxes is an oul-of-doors 
society that indulges in a good deal of swearing and (S96j rather rough 
handling of the voice. He may have had a very soft voice to begin 
with, symptomatic of a delicate psychic organization, which gradually 
toughened under the intluence o( social suggestion. The personality 
which we are trying to disentangle lies hidden under its overt manifesta- 
tions, and it is our task to de\elop scientific methods to gel at the 
"natural," theoretically unmodified voice. In order to interpret the \oice 
as to its personality value, one needs to have a good idea o\' how much 
of it is purely individual, due to the natuial formation of the lar\n\. lo 
peculiarities of breathing, to a thousand and one factors that the anato- 
mist and the physiologist may be able lo define for us. One might ask 
at this point: Why attach importance to the quality o\' the \oicc'.' What 
has that to do with personality? After all is said and done, a man's voice 
is primarily tbrmed by natural agencies, it is w hat CJod has blessed him 
with. Yes, but is that not essentially true o\' the whole o\ personality? 
Inasmuch as the psychophysical organism is \ery much of a unit, we 
can be quite sure on general principles that m loi>kmg for the thing wc 
call personality we have the right to attach importance to the thing wc 
call voice. Whether personalil\ is cxi^rcssed as adequately in the voicv 
as in gesture or in carriage, we i.\o not know. Perhaps it is e\en more 
adequately expressed in the voice than in these. In an\ CNcnt. it is clear 
that the nervous processes that control \oice production must share 
in the indi\idual trails o\ ihc ncr\ous organization that condition the 
personality. 



124 /// Culture 

The essential quality of the voice is an amazingly interesting thing to 
puzzle over. Unfortunately we have no adequate vocabulary for its end- 
less varieties. We speak of a high-pitched voice. We say a voice is 
"thick," or it is "thin"; we say it is "nasal" if there is something wrong 
with the nasal part of the breathing apparatus. If we were to make an 
inventory of voices, we should find that no two of them are quite alike. 
And all the time we feel that there is something about the individual's 
voice that is indicative of his personality. We may even go so far as to 
surmise that the voice is in some way a symbolic index of the total 
personality. Some day, when we know more about the physiology and 
psychology of the voice, it will be possible to line up our intuitive judg- 
ments as to voice quality with a scientific analysis of voice formation. 
We do not know [897] what it is precisely that makes the voice sound 
"thick," or "vibrant," or "flat," or what not. What is it that arouses us 
in one man's voice, when another's stirs us not at all? I remember listen- 
ing many years ago to an address by a college president and deciding 
on the spur of the moment that what he said could be of no interest to 
me. What I meant was that no matter how interesting or pertinent his 
remarks were in themselves, his personality could not touch mine be- 
cause there was something about his voice that did not appeal to me, 
something revealing as to personahty. There was indicated - so one 
gathered intuitively - a certain quahty of personality, a certain force, 
that I knew could not easily integrate with my own apprehension of 
things. I did not listen to what he said; I listened only to the quality of 
his voice. One might object that that was a perfectly idiotic thing to do. 
Perhaps it was, but I believe that we are all in the habit of doing just 
such things and that we are essentially justified in so doing —not intel- 
lectually, but intuitively. It therefore becomes the task of an intellectual 
analysis to justify for us on reasoned grounds what we have knowledge 
of in pre-scientific fashion. 

There is little purpose in trying to list the different types of voice. 
Suffice it to say that on the basis of his voice one might decide many 
things about a man. One might decide that he is sentimental; that he is 
cruel - one hears voices that impress one as being intensely cruel. One 
might decide on the basis of his voice that a person who uses a very 
brusque vocabulary is nevertheless kind-hearted. This sort of comment 
is part of the practical experience of every man and woman. The point 
is that we are not in the habit of attaching scientific value to such judg- 
ments. 



One: Culture. Society, and the Imlniiiuul 



i^2 



We have seen ihal llic \i)ice is a siKial as well as an individual phc- 
iKMiienon. If one v\ere {o make a prDt'iniiKi eiiouuh analysis, one might. 
at least in theory. car\e out the soeial part of the voiee and discard it 
- a diirieiilt thing to (\o. One finds people, for example, who hase \cry 
pleasant \oices. hut it is sociel\ that has made them ple»isanl. One may 
then try to go back to what the \oiee would ha\e been wilhoul Us 
specific social development. This nuclear or primary qualit\ of voice has 
in many, perhaps in all, cases a [89S] symbolic \alue. I he unconscious 
symbolisms are of course not limited to the \oice. II \ou wrinkle >our 
brow, that is a symbol of a certain attitude. If you act expansively by 
stretching out your arms, that is a svmbol of a changed attitude lo your 
immediate environment. In the same manner the voice is to a laivc 
extent an unconscious symbolization of one's general attitude 

Now all sorts of accidents may iiappen to the \oice and depri\e it. 
apparently, of its ''predestined form."" In spite of such accidents, how- 
ever, the voice will be there for our discovery. These factors that spoil 
the basic picture are found in all forms of human behaxior. and we 
must make allowances tor them here as e\er\ where else in beha\ior. 
The primary voice structure is something that we cannot get at immedi- 
ately, but must uncover by hacking awa\ the \arious superimpi^scd 
structures, social and individual. 

What is the ne.xt level of speech? What we ordinaril\ call voice is 
voice proper plus a great many variations of behavior that are inter- 
twined with voice and give it its dynamic qualit\. This is the le\el o\ 
voice dynamics. Two speakers may have \erv much the same basic qual- 
ity of voice, yet their "voices," as that term is tndinarily understood, 
may be very different. In ordinary usage we are not always careful lo 
distinguish the voice proper from voice dynamics. One of the most im- 
portant aspects of voice dynamics is intonation, a \ery interesting field 
of investigation for both linguist and psychologist. Intonation is a much 
more complicated matter than is generally believed. It may ho divided 
into three distinct levels, which intertwine into the unit pattern of K-ha- 
vior which we may call "individual intonation." In the first place, there 
is a very important social element in intonatu>n uhich has lo he kepi 
apart from the individual \ariation; in the second place, this social ele- 
ment of intonatit^n has a tuofold determination. We have certain ill- 
ations which are a necessar\ part of mir speech. II I say. lor exan.j.^. 
"Is he coming?"" I raise the pitch o{ the \oice on the last word. There is 
no sutTicient reason in nature uh> I should ha\e an upward inllcx'tion 
o[^ the voice in sentences o\' this i\pe. We are apt lo assume that this 



126 /// Culture 

habit is natural, even self-evident, but a comparative study of the dy- 
namic habits of many diverse [899] languages convinces one that this 
assumption is on the whole unwarranted. The interrogative attitude 
may be expressed in other ways, such as the use of particular interroga- 
tive words or specific grammatical forms. It is one of the significant 
patterns of our English language to elevate the voice in interrogative 
sentences of a certain type, hence such elevation is not expressive in the 
properly individual sense of the word, though we sometimes feel it to 
be so. 

But more than that, there is a second level of socially determined 
variation in intonation, the musical handling of the voice generally, 
quite aside from the properly Hnguistic patterns of intonation. It is 
understood in a given society that we are not to have too great an 
individual range of intonation. We are not to rise to too great a height 
in our cadences; we are to pitch the voice at such and such an average 
height. In other words, society tells us to limit ourselves to a certain 
range of intonation and to certain characteristic cadences, that is, to 
adopt certain melody patterns peculiar to itself If we were to compare 
the speech of an English country gentleman with that of a Kentucky 
farmer, we should find the intonational habits of the two to be notably 
different, though there are certain important resemblances, due to the 
fact that the language they speak is essentially the same. Neither dares 
depart too widely from his respective social standard of intonation. Yet 
we know no two individuals who speak exactly alike so far as intonation 
is concerned. We are interested in the individual as the representative 
of a social type when he comes from some far place. The southerner, 
the New Englander, the middle-westerner - each has a characteristic 
intonation. But we are interested in the individual as an individual when 
he is merged in, and is a representative of, our own group. If we are 
dealing with people who have the same social habits, we are interested 
in the slight intonational differences which the individuals exhibit, for 
we know enough of their common social background to evaluate these 
slight differences. We are wrong to make any inferences about personal- 
ity on the basis of intonation without considering the intonational habit 
of one's speech community or that carried over from a foreign language. 
We do not really know what a man's speech is until we have evaluated 
his social background. If a Japanese talks in a monotonous voice, we 
[900] have not the right to assume that he is illustrating the same type 
of personality that one of us would be if we talked with his sentence 



One: Cull lire. Sociclv. and the Indnuluul 127 

melody. Furthermore, ifue liear an Italian running through his whole 
possible gamut o^ tone we are apt to say that he is lemperamenlal or 
that he has an interesting personality. Yet we {\o not know whether he 
is in the least temperamental until we know what are the normal Italian 
habits of speech, wlial Italian st)ciet\ allows its members in the way of 
melodic play. Hence a major intonation curve, objectively considered, 
may be of but minor importance from the standpoint of indiMdual 
expressiveness. 

Intonation is only one o[' the man\ phases o\' \oice dsnamics. 
Rhythm, too, has to be considered. Here again there are several layers 
that are to be distinguished. First of all. the primary rhythms of speech 
are furnished by the language one is brought up in. and are not due to 
our indiv idual personality. We have certain \ery defmite peculiarities of 
rhythm in English. Thus, we tend to accent certain syllables strongly 
and to minimize others. That is not due to the fact that \se wish to he 
emphatic. It is merely that our language is so constructed that we must 
follow its characteristic rhythm, accenting one syllable in a word or 
phrase at the expense of the others. There are languages that do not 
follow this habit. If a Frenchman accented his words in our English 
fashion, we might be justified in making certain inferences as to his 
nervous condition. Furthermore, there are rhythmic forms which are 
due to the socialized habits of particular groups, rhsihms which are 
over and above the basic rhythms of the language. Some sections of our 
society will not allow emphatic stresses; others allow or demand a 
greater emphasis. Polite society will allow far less pla> in stress and 
intonation than a society that is constituted b\ attendance at a baseball 
or football game. We have, in brief, two sorts of socialized rhsthm; the 
rhythms of language and the rhythms of social expressiveness. .And. 
once more, we have individual d\namic factors. Some ol us lend lo be 
more tense in our rhythms, to accent certain syllables more definilelN. 
to lengthen more vowels, to shorten unaccented \owels more frecK 
There are, in other words, individual rhythmic \ariations in addilK>n lo 
the social ones. 

There are still other dynamic facti^rs than inionalion and (901) 
rhythm. There is the relative continuity of speech. .A great mans people 
speak brokenly, in uneasy splashes of word groups; others speak contin- 
uously, whether they ha\e anything to say or nol. With the lallcr 1>|X- 
it is not a question o\' having the nece.ssar\ words al i>ne's dispt>s;il; il 
is a question o\^ mere continuity o\' linguistic expression. Hierc arc six-ial 



128 /// Culmrc 

speeds and continuities and individual speeds and continuities. We can 
be said to be slow or rapid in our utterances only in the sense that we 
speak abo\e or below certain socialized speeds. Here again, in the 
matter of speed, the individual habit and its diagnostic value for the 
study of personality can be measured only against accepted social 
norms. 

To summarize the second level of language behavior, we have a 
number of factors, such as intonation, rhythm, relative continuity, and 
speed, which have to be analyzed, each of them, into two distinct levels: 
the social and the individual. The social level, moreover, has generally 
to be divided into two levels, the level of that social pattern which is 
language and the level of the linguistically irrelevant habits of speech 
manipulation that are characteristic of a particular group. 

The third level of speech analysis is pronunciation. Here again one 
often speaks of the "voice" when what is really meant is an individually 
nuanced pronunciation. A man pronounces certain consonants or vow- 
els, say, with a distinctive timbre or in an otherwise peculiar manner, 
and we tend to ascribe such variations of pronunciation to his voice; 
yet they may have nothing at all to do with the quality of his voice. In 
pronunciation we again have to distinguish the social from the indivi- 
dual patterns. Society decrees that we pronounces certain selected con- 
sonants and vowels, which have been set aside as the bricks and mortar, 
as it were, for the construction of a given language. We cannot depart 
very widely from this decree. We know that the foreigner who learns 
our language does not at once take over the sounds that are peculiar to 
us. He uses the nearest pronunciation that he can find in his own lan- 
guage. It would manifestly be wrong to make inferences of a personal 
nature from such mispronunciations. But all the time there are also 
individual variations of sound which are highly important and which in 
many cases have a symptomatic value for the study of personality. [902] 

One of the most interesting chapters in linguistic behavior, a chapter 
which has not yet been written, is the expressively symbolic character 
of sounds quite aside from what the words in which they occur mean 
in a referential sense. On the properly linguistic plane, sounds have no 
meaning; yet if we were to interpret them psychologically we should 
find that there is a subtle, though fleeting, relation between the "real" 
value of words and the unconscious symbolic value of sounds as actu- 
ally pronounced by individuals. Poets know this in their own intuitive 
way. But what the poets are doing rather consciously by means of art- 



One: Culture. Society, ami the luiliviihuil 129 

istic devices, we are doing Lincc>nsciousl\ all ot ihc nine on a vast, if 
humble, scale. It has been pointed out, tor instance, that there arc cer- 
tain expressive tendencies toward diminuti\e forms of pronunciation If 
you are talking to a child, you change \iHir "le\cl o\ communication" 
without knowing it. The \\o\\\ 'tin\"' ma\ become ■teeiu ' There is no 
rule o\^ English grammar that justifies the change of \ouel. but the word 
"teeny" seems to ha\e a more directly symbolic character than "tins." 
and a glance at the symbolism o'i phonetics gives us the reason for this 
When we pronounce the ec of "teeny." there is very little space belueen 
the tongue and the roof of the mouth; in the first part of the / of "liny" 
there is a great deal of space. In other words, the cc variation has the 
value of a gesture which emphasizes the notion, or rather feeling. o\' 
smallness. In this particular case the tendency to symbolize diminutise- 
ness is striking because it has caused one word to pass over to an en- 
tirely new word, but we are constantlv making similar symbolic adjust- 
ments in a less overt way without being aware of the process. Some 
people are much more symbolic in their use of sounds than others. .A 
man may lisp, for instance, because he is unconsciously symbolizing 
certain traits which lead those who know him to speak of him as a 
"sissy." His pronunciation is not due to the fact that he cannot pro- 
nounce the sound of .s properly; it is due to the fact that he is dri\en to 
reveal himself He has no speech defect, though there is o\' course also 
a type o\^ lisping that is a speech defect and that has to be kept apart 
from the symbolic lisp. There are a great man\ other unconsciously 
symbolic habits of articulation for which we ha\e no current terminol- 
ogy. But we cannot discuss such variation fruitfull\ until [903] ue ha\e 
established the social norm of pronunciation and ha\e a just notion ot 
what are the allowable departures within this social norm. If one goes 
to England or France or any other fcMcign count r\ and sets down im- 
pressions on the interpretative significance o\' the voices and pronuncia- 
tions perceived, what one says is not likely to be o\' value unless one 
has first made a painstaking study o\^ the social norms ot which the 
individual phenomena are variants. The lisp that one notes may bo what 
a given society happens to require, hence it is no psychological lisp in 
our sense. One cannot draw up an absolute psychological scale lor 
voice, intonation, rhythm, speed, or pronunciation o{ vowels and con- 
sonants without in every case ascertaining the social background ot 
speech habit. It is always the individual variation that matters; never 
the objective behavior as such. 



130 /// Culture 

The fourth speech level, that of vocabulary, is a very important one. 
We do not all speak alike. There are certain words which some of us 
never use. There are other, favorite, words, which we are always using. 
Personality is largely reflected in the choice of words; but here too we 
must distinguish carefully the social vocabulary norm from the more 
significantly personal choice of words. Certain words and locutions are 
not used in certain circles; others are the hall-mark of locale, status, or 
occupation. We listen to a man who belongs to a particular social group 
and are intrigued, perhaps attracted, by his vocabulary. Unless we are 
keen analysts, we are likely to read personality out of what is merely 
the current diction of his society. Individual variation exists, but it can 
properly be appraised only with reference to the social norm. Sometimes 
we choose words because we like them; sometimes we slight words be- 
cause they bore or annoy or terrify us. We are not going to be caught 
by them. All in all, there is room for much subtle analysis in the deter- 
mination of the social and individual significance of words. 

Finally, we have style as a fifth speech level. Many people have an 
illusion that style is something that belongs to literature. Style is an 
everyday facet of speech that characterizes both the social group and 
the individual. We all have our individual styles in both conversation 
and considered address, and they are never the [904] arbitrary and ca- 
sual things we think them to be. There is always an individual method, 
however poorly developed, of arranging words into groups and of 
working these up into larger units. It would be a very complicated prob- 
lem to disentangle the social and individual determinants of style, but 
it is a theoretically possible one. 

To summarize, we have the following materials to deal with in our 
attempt to get at the personality of an individual in so far as it can be 
gathered from his speech. We have his voice. We have the dynamics of 
his voice, exemplified by such factors as intonation, rhythm, continuity, 
and speed. We have pronunciation, vocabulary, and style. Let us look 
at these materials as constituting so and so many levels on which expres- 
sive patterns are built. One may get a sense of individual patterning on 
one of these levels and use this sense to interpret the other levels. Objec- 
tively, however, two or more levels of a given speech act may produce 
either a similarity of expressive effect or a contrast. We may illustrate 
from a theoretical case. We know that many of us, handicapped by 
nature or habit, work out compensatory reactions. In the case of the 
man with a lisp whom we termed a "sissy," the essentially feminine 
type of articulation is likely to remain, but other aspects of his speech. 



One Culture. Society, (uul the Ifu/ivuluiil \}\ 

including his voice. nia\ shcn\ something ot his etTorl lo compensate. 
He may affect a masculine type e>f intonation or. abo\e all. consciousK 
or unconsciously, he may choose words that are intended lo show ihal 
he is really a man. In this case we ha\e a \er\ mteresting ct>nnicl. 
objectified within the realm of speech behavior. It is here as in all other 
types of behavior. One may express on one level ol patterning what i>ne 
will not or cannot express on another. One may inhibit on one le\el 
what one does not know how to inhibit on amnher. whence results a 
"dissociation" -which is probably, at last analysis, nothing but a nota- 
ble divergence in expressive content of functionally related patterns. 

Quite aside from specific inferences which we may make from speech 
phenomena on any one of its levels, there is a great deal o\' interestmg 
work to be done w ith the psychology of speech woven out o\' its dif- 
ferent levels. Perhaps certain elusive phenomena of \oice are the result 
of the interweaving of distinct patterns of expression. We sometimes get 
the feeling that there are two things [905] being communicated by the 
voice, which may then be felt as splitting itself into an "upper" and a 
"lower" level. 

It should be fairly clear from our hasty review that if we make .i 
level-to-level analysis of the speech of an indi\idual and if we carefulls 
see each of these levels in its social perspective, we obtain a \aluable 
level for psychiatric work. It is possible that the kind of analysis which 
has here been suggested, if carried far enough, may enable us to arrne 
at certain very pertinent conclusions regarding personalit\. intuni\el\ 
we attach an enormous importance to the voice and to the speech beha- 
vior that is carried by the voice. We ha\'e not much to say about it as a 
rule, not much more than an "I like that man's \oice." or "I do not like 
the way he talks." Individual speech analysis is difficult to make. paril> 
because of the peculiarly fleeting character of speech, partly because it 
is especially difficult to eliminate the social determinants of speech, in 
view of these difficulties there is not as much significant speech analssis 
being made by students of behavior as we might wish, but the dilUcul- 
ties do not relieve us of the responsibilit\ o( making such researches. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in the American Jonnuil ol .Set/c/cvi M. 
892-905 (1927). Reprinted by permission of the I'niversiiy of Chicago 
Press. An abstract of this article also appeared in Hcalih HulU'im. Illi- 
nois Society for Mental Hygiene. December \^)2(\ 



132 /// Culture 

Notes 

1. An abstract of this paper appeared in the December 1926 issue of Health Bulletiiu pub- 
lished by the Illinois Society for Mental Hygiene. 

2. Sapir's student. Stanley Newman, pursued this line of research through much of the 
1930's, partly in collaboration with psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan. 



The Meaniim o\^ Rcliizion ( 192S) 
FdiU^rial IiilriHluctioii 

Sapir's claim that religion was universal, albeit elaborated into a reli- 
gious system onl\ in developed society, originally appeared in /he 
Anicrican Mercury and was directed toward a popular audience as- 
sumed to be unaware of the functional equivalence o\' diverse cultural 
forms. Every human society provides the religious person with conven- 
tional symbols to attain ''spiritual serenitv " in dealing with the px'rplexi- 
ties of everyday life. Sapir worried, however, about his inability to dis- 
tinguish religious behavior from the religious sentiment which he as- 
sumed to underlie it. He considered the formal features oi religion, c. g., 
gods and spirits, as mere rationalizations for the religious behavior of 
individuals. This behavior was external to the true function o( religion 
as providing emotional security to the individual through a coherent 
philosophy of life (cf. ''Culture, Genuine and Spurious," this volume). 

The ethnographic record documented multiple forms of religious be- 
havior as well as different psychological interpretations of those forms. 
Amerindian peoples of the plains and the pueblos, for example, shared 
many religious forms; but the former stressed the loneliness o( the indi- 
vidual and the latter depersonalized ritual. Moreover, religion was inte- 
grated with other parts of ciilliirc and cmild not be fully separated from 
them. The same behavioral act could have multiple functions. Sapir's 
recurrent concern with the cultural form and its function for the indivi- 
dual pervades both his crosscultural comparative framework and his 
theory of culture. 

This essay was published again in 1929, under the title "Religu^n and 
Religious Phenomena," in a twelve-volume series. \/iin atui His \\t>rUl 
Northwestern University Hssdys in C'tinteniponirv Thouj^ht. assembled 
under the editorship of the philosopher Haker Brownell. Coniribulors 
included such notables as Clarence Darrow. Berlrand Russell. Charlotte 
Perkins (}ilman, and Stuart Chase, among manv others Most o\ the 
anthropologists in the group were represented in v<>lume 4. Stiiking 
Mankind, which included papers bv Clark Wissler, Sapir's Chicago col- 
league Fay-Cooper Cole, Melville .1 Herskovits. William M NKd.n 



134 /// Cullurc 

ern, and the historian Ferdinand Schevill. Sapir's contribution, how- 
ever, was placed in volume 11, Religious Life, along with papers by 
Shailer Mathews, Ernest F. Tittle, Rufus M. Jones, and Francis 
J. McConnell. 



The Meaning of Religion 

A very useful distinction can be made between "a religion" and "reli- 
gion." The former appears only in a highly developed society in which 
religious behavior has been organized by tradition; the latter is univer- 
sal. 

The ordinary conception of a religion includes the notions of a self- 
conscious "church," of religious officers whose functions are clearly de- 
fined by custom and who typically engage in no other type of economic 
activity, and of carefully guarded rituals which are the symbolic expres- 
sion of the life of the church. Generally, too, such a religion is invested 
with a certain authority by a canonical tradition which has grown up 
around a body of sacred texts, supposed to have been revealed by God 
or to have been faithfully set down by the founder of the religion or by 
followers of His who have heard the sacred words from His own lips. 

If we leave the more sophisticated peoples and study the social habits 
of primitive and barbaric folk, we shall find that it is very difficult to 
discover religious institutions that are as highly formalized as those that 
go under the name of the Roman Catholic Church or of Judaism. Yet 
religion in some sense is everywhere present. It seems to be as universal 
as speech itself and the use of material tools. It is difficult to apply a 
single one of the criteria which are ordinarily used to define a religion 
to the religious behavior of primitive peoples, yet neither the absence 
of specific religious officers nor the lack of authoritative religious texts 
nor any other conventional lack can seriously mislead the student into 
denying them true rehgion. Ethnologists are unanimous in ascribing 
religious behavior to the very simplest of known societies. So much of 
a commonplace, indeed, is this assumption of the presence of religion 
in every known community - barring none, not even those that flaunt 
the banner of atheism - that one needs to reaffirm and justify the 
assumption. 



One: Culture. Soeietv. and the hulnuluiil \'S^ 

How arc uc to define religion'.* Can ue yet behind pricsls and prayers 
and gods and rituals and discover a lornuila thai is nol loo broad lo 
be nieaning[rul] nor so specific as to raise rmile questions of exclusion 
or inclusion'.' 1 beliexe it is possible to i\o this it" we ignore for a moment 
the special tornis of beha\ ior deemed religious and attend to the essen- 
tial meaning and function of such behavior. Religion is precisely one of 
those words that belong to the more intuiti\e portion i>f mir vocabulary. 
We can often apply it safely and une\pectedl\ uilhoul the slighlesl 
concern for whether the individual or group termed religious is priesi- 
ridden or not. is addicted to pra\er or nol. or belie\es or does nol 
believe in a god. Almost unconsciously the term has come to have for 
most of us a certain connotation o^ personality. Some indi\iduals are 
religious and others are not, and all societies have religion in the sense 
that they provide the naturall\ religious person with certain read>-made 
symbols for the exercise o\' his religious need. 

The formula that I would venture to suggest is simply this: Religion 
is man's never-ceasing attempt to discover a road to spiritual seremts 
across the perplexities and dangers of dails life. Wow this serenity is 
obtained is a matter of infinitely varied [73] detail. Where the need for 
such serenity is passionately felt, we have religious yearning; where it is 
absent, religious behavior is no more than sociall\ sanctioned form or 
an aesthetic blend of belief and gesture. In practice it is all but impos- 
sible to disconnect religious sentiment from foinial religious conduct, 
but it is worth divorcing the two in order that \se ma> insist all the 
more clearly on the reality o[' the sentiment. 

What constitutes spiritual serenity must be aiisuered afresh fore\ery 
culture and for every community - in the last analysis, for e\ery indivi- 
dual. Culture defines for every society the world in which it lives, hence 
we can expect no more of any religion than that it awaken and over- 
come the feeling of danger, of individual helplessness, that is proper lO 
that particular world. The ultimate problems of an Ojibw.i Indian are 
different as to content from those of the educated devotee i>f nuxiern 
science, but with each o{ them religion means the haunting realization 
of ultimate powerlessness in an inscrutable \\o\W. and the unquestion- 
ing and thoroughly irrational conviction o{ the possibility of gaining 
mystic security by somelunv identifying i>neself with what can never be 
known. Religion is omnipresent fear and a vast humility paradmically 
turned into bedrock security, for once the fear is imaginalivelv taken lo 
one's heart and the humility confessed for good and all. the triumph of 
human consciousness is assuretl. Ihere can be neither fear nor humilia- 



136 III Culture 

tion for deeply religious natures, for they have intuitively experienced 
both of these emotions in advance of the declared hostility of an over- 
whelming world, coldly indifferent to human desire. 

Religion of such purity as I have defined it is hard to discover. That 
does not matter; it is the pursuit, conscious or unconscious, of ultimate 
serenity following total and necessary defeat that constitutes the core 
of religion. It has often allied itself with art and science, and art at least 
has gained from the alliance, but in crucial situations religion has al- 
ways shown itself indifferent to both. Religion seeks neither the objec- 
tive enlightenment of science nor the strange equilibrium, the sensuous 
harmony, of aesthetic experience. It aims at nothing more nor less than 
the impulsive conquest of reality, and it can use science and art as little 
more than stepping stones toward the attainment of its own serenity. 
The mind that is intellectualist through and through is necessarily baf- 
fled by religion, and in the attempt to explain it makes Httle more of it 
than a blind and chaotic science. 

Whether or not the spirit of religion is reconcilable with that of art 
does not concern us. Human nature is infinitely complex and every type 
of reconciliation of opposites seems possible, but it must be insisted 
that the nucleus of religious feeling is by no means identical with aesthe- 
tic emotion. The serenity of art seems of an utterly different nature from 
that of religion. Art creates a feeling of wholeness precipitating the flux 
of things into tangible forms, beautiful and sufficient to themselves; 
religion gathers up all the threads and meaninglessnesses of life into a 
wholeness that is not manifest and can only be experienced in the form 
of a passionate desire. It is not useful and it is perhaps not wise to insist 
on fundamental antinomies, but if one were pressed to the wall one 
might perhaps be far from wrong in suspecting that the religious spirit 
is antithetical to that of art, for rehgion is essentially ultimate and irrec- 
oncilable. Art forgives because it values as an ultimate good the here 
and now; religion forgives because the here and now are somehow irrel- 
evant to a desire that drives for ultimate solutions. 



II 

Religion does not presuppose a definite belief in God or in a number 
of gods or spirits, though in practice such beliefs are generally the ra- 
tionalized background for religious behavior. [74] 



One: Culture. Sociciv. inul i/ic JndiviJual 

Belief, as a matter o\ tact, is not a properly religious conccpl at all. 
but a scienlitlc one. The sum total of one's beliefs may be said lo consti- 
tute one's science. Some of these beliefs can be suslamed by an appeal 
to direct personal experience, others rest for their warrant on the au- 
thority of society or on the authority of such indniduals as are known 
or believed to hold in their hands the keys of llnal deminisiralion. So 
far as the normal indi\idual is concerned, a belief m the realil\ of mole- 
cules ov at(.")ms is of c\actl\ the same naluie as a belief in (iod or immor- 
tality. The true di\ision here is not between science and religious belief, 
but between personally serifiable and personally uinerillable belief. A 
philosophy o\' life is not religion if the phrase connotes merel\ a cluster 
of rationalized beliefs. Only when one's philosophy o\' life is \iiali/ed 
by emotion does it take on the character of religion. 

Some writers have spoken of a specifically religious emotion, but it 
seems quite unnecessary to appeal to any such hypothetical concept. 
One may not rest content to see in religious emotion nothing more nor 
less than a cluster o\~ such t\pical emotional experiences as fear, awe. 
hope, love, the pleading attitude, and any others that may be experi- 
enced, in so far as these psychological experiences occur in a context of 
ultimate values. Fear as such, no matter how poignant or ecstatic, is 
not religion. A calm belief in a God who creates and rewards and pun- 
ishes does not constitute religion if the believer fails to recogni/e the 
necessity of the application of this belief to his personal problems. ()nl> 
when the emotion of fear and the belief in a Ciod are somehow inte- 
grated into a value can either the emotion or the belief be said to be of 
a religious nature. This standpoint allows for no specific religious emo- 
tions nor does it recognize any specific forms o\' belief as necessary for 
religion. All that is asked is that intensity of feeling join with a philoso- 
phy of ultimate things into an unanalyzed con\ iction o\' the possibility 
of securit> in a world of values. 

One can distinguish, in theory if not in practice, between individual 
religious experience and socialized religious beha\ior. Some writers on 
religion put the emphasis on the realit> and intensity of the mdiMdual 
experience, others prefer to see in religion a purely social pattern, an 
institution on which the iiulix idiial must draw m t^rder to have religious 
experience at all. The contrast between these two points of \iew is prob- 
ably more apparent than real. Ihe suggestions for religious behaMor 
will always be found to be o( .social origin; it is the validation of this 
behavior in indi\idual or in soci.il terms that may be thought to Nar>'. 
This is equi\alent to sa>ing that some societies tend lo seek the most 



138 /// Culture 

intense expression of religious experience in individual behavior (includ- 
ing introspection under that term), while others tend toward a collective 
orthodoxy, reaching an equivalent intensity of life in forms of behavior 
in which the individual is subordinated to a collective symbol. Religions 
that conform to the first tendency may be called evangelistic, and those 
of the second type ritualistic. 

The contrast invites criticism, as everyone who has handled religious 
data knows. One may object that it is precisely under the stimulation 
of collective activity, as in the sun dance of the Plains Indians or in 
the Roman Catholic mass, that the most intense forms of individual 
experience are created. Again, one may see in the most lonely and self- 
centered of religious practices, say the mystic ecstasies of a saint or the 
private prayer of one lost to society, little more than the religious beha- 
vior of society itself, disconnected, for the moment, from the visible 
church. A theorist like Durkheim sees the church implicit in every 
prayer or act of ascetic piety. It is doubtful if the mere observation of 
religious behavior quite justifies the distinction that I have made. A 
finer psychological analysis would probably show that the distinction is 
none the less valid — that societies differ or tend to differ according 
[75] to whether they find the last court of appeal in matters religious in 
the social act or in the private emotional experience. 

Let one example do for many. The religion of the Plains Indians is 
different in many of its details from that of the Pueblo Indians of the 
Southwest. Nevertheless there are many external resemblances between 
them, such as the use of shrines with fetishistic objects gathered in them, 
the color symbolism of cardinal points, and the religious efficacy of 
communal dancing. It is not these and a host of other resemblances, 
however, that impress the student of native American religion; it is 
rather their profound psychological difference. The Plains Indians' reli- 
gion is full of collective symbols; indeed, a typical ethnological account 
of the religion of a Plains tribe seems to be little more than a list of 
social stereotypes - dances and regalia and taboos and conventional 
religious tokens. The sun dance is an exceedingly elaborate ritual which 
lasts many days and in which each song and each step in the progress 
of the ceremonies is a social expression. For all that, the final validation 
of the sun dance, as of every other form of Plains religion, seems to rest 
with the individual in his introspective loneliness. The nuclear idea is 
the "blessing" or "manitou" experience, in which the individual puts 
himself in a relation of extreme intimacy with the world of supernatural 
power or "medicine." 



One Culture. Sociciv. luul the hulnuiiuil \V) 

Complctclv sociali/ctl iiliials aic noi ilic primary tact in ihc siruclurc 
of Plains religion; ihcy arc ralhcr an cxlciuicd \'ovm i)rihc nuclear indi- 
\idual experience. The recipienl of a blessniii may and docs m\ilc others 
to participate in the pri\ate ritual which has grown up around the Msion 
in which j^owei- and secLini> ha\e heeii xouciisafed li> hnn; he may even 
transfer his interest in the \isK>n to another indi\idual; m the course of 
time the original ritual. ci>mplicated by man\ accretions, mas become 
a communal form in which the whole tribe has the most ii\el> and 
anxious interest, as is the case with the be.i\ci buiulles or medicine pipe 
ceremonies o\ the Blackfoot Indians. A non-religious indi\idual may 
see little but show and outward circumstance in all this business of 
vision and bundle and ritual, but the religious consciousness of the 
Plains Indians never seems to ha\e lost sight of the inherently indiMdual 
warrant of the \ision and of all rituals which may e\enlually (low from 
it. It is highly significant that e\en in the sun dance, which is probabK 
the least individualized kind of religious conduct ann^ng these Indians, 
the high-water mark o\^ religious inlensil\ is fell to reside, not in an\ 
collective ecstasy, but in the individual emotions o\' those who ga/e at 
the center pole of the sun dance lodge and, still more, o\' the resolute 
few who are willing the experience the unspeakabl\ painful ecstasy o{ 
self-torture. 

The Pueblo religion seems to offer very much o\' a contrast to the 
religion of the Plains. The Pueblo religion is ritualized to an incredible 
degree. Ceremony follows relentlessly on ceremony, clan and religious 
fraternity go through their stalel\ s\mbolism of dance and prayer and 
shrine construction with the regularit\ o\' the seasons. All is anxious 
care for the norm and detail o[^ ritual. But it is not the mere bulk of 
this ritualism which truly characterizes the religion of the Hopi or /urti. 
It is the depersonalized, almost cosmic, qualitx o\' the rituals, which 
have all the air of pre-ordained things i>f nature which the mdi\idual is 
helpless either to assist or to thwart, and w hose mystic mtentuMi he can 
only comprehend by resigning himself to the traditions of his tribe and 
clan and fraternity. No private inlensils c>f religious experience will help 
the ritual. Whether the dancer is aroused to a strange ecstasy ox remains 
as cold as an automaton is a matter of perfect indilTerence to the Pueblo 
consciousness. All taint o\' the orgiastic is repudiated by the Pueblo 
Indian, who is content with ihe calm constraint and power of ihmgs 
ordained, seeing in himself wo disct>\erer o\' religii>us \irtue. hut or' 
correct and [76] measured transmitter o)^ things fx*rfect in themsc 
One might teach Protestant revi\ alism to a Blacktool or a Sioux; a ZuAi 
would smile uncompicheiulmgl). 



140 /// Cull we 

III 

Though rehgion cannot be defined in terms of beHef, it is none the 
less true that the religions of primitive peoples tend to cluster around a 
number of typical beliefs or classes of belief. It will be quite impossible 
to give even a superficial account of the many types of religious belief 
that have been reported for primitive man, and I shall therefore be 
content with a brief mention of three of them: belief in spirits (animism), 
belief in gods and belief in cosmic power (mana). 

That primitive people are animistic - in other words, that they be- 
lieve in the existence in the world and in themselves of a vast number 
of immaterial and potent essences - is a commonplace of anthropology. 
Tylor attempted to derive all forms of religious behavior from animistic 
beliefs, and while we can no longer attach as great an importance to 
animism as did Tylor and others of the classical anthropologists, it is 
still correct to say that few primitive religions do not at some point or 
other connect with the doctrine of spirits. Most peoples believe in a soul 
which animates the human body; some believe in a variety of souls (as 
when the principle of life is distinguished from what the psychologists 
would call consciousness or the psyche); and most peoples also believe 
in the survival of the soul after death in the form of a ghost. 

The experiences of the soul or souls typically account for such phe- 
nomena as dreams, illness, and death. Frequently one or another type 
of soul is identified with such insubstantial things as the breath, or the 
shadow cast by a living being, or, more materially, with such parts of 
the human body as the heart or diaphragm; sometimes, too, the soul is 
symbolized by an imaginary being, such as a mannikin, who may leave 
the body and set out in pursuit of another soul. The mobile soul and 
the ghost tend to be identified, but this is not necessarily the case. 

In all this variety of primitive belief we see Httle more than the dawn 
of psychology. The religious attitude enters in only when the soul or 
ghost is somehow connected with the great world of non-human spirits 
which animates the whole of nature and which is possessed of a power 
for good or ill which it is the constant aim of human beings to capture 
for their own purposes. These "spirits," which range all the way from 
disembodied human souls, through animals, to god-like creatures, are 
perhaps more often feared than directly worshipped. On the whole, it 
is perhaps correct to say that spirits touch humanity through the indivi- 
dual rather than through the group and that access is gained to them 
rather through the private, selfish ritual of magic than through religion. 



One ('nit tire. Sociclv. ami the JtidivUlual 141 

AH such Liciicrali/ations, lunsc\ci\ arc exceedingly dangerous. Almost 
any association of beliefs and atliliides is possible. 

Tylor believed that liie series: soul, ghost, spirit, god. nn.i> .i ikxi. 
genetic chain, "(iod'" uould be no nu^e than the Muli\iduali/ed it-i 
of all spirits, locali/cd iii earth or air or sea and specialized as lo func- 
tion or kind o\' pouer. ihe single "god" o\' a polytheistic panlhcon 
would be the transition stage between the urnndi\iduali/ed spirit and 
the Supreme Being o\' the great histi>rical religions. Ihese simple and 
plausible connections are uo longer lightly taken for granted by the 
anthropologists. There is a great deal o\' disturbing evidence which 
seems to show that the idea of a '^zoiS or of (u>d is not necessarily to be 
considered as the result o\' an evolution o^ the idea of soul or spirit. It 
would seem that some o^ the most primitive peoples we know o^ have 
arrived at the notion of an all-powerful being who stands quite outside 
the world of spirits and who tends to be identified with such cosmic 
objects as the sun or the sky. [77] 

The Nootka Indians of British Columbia, for instance, believe m the 
existence of a Supreme Being whom thcv idcnlifv with dav light and 
who is sharply contrasted both with the horde o^ mysterious beings 
("spirits") tVom whom they seek power for special ends and with the 
m>thological beings of legend and ritual. Some form of prinntive nu>no- 
theism not infrequently co-exists with animism. Polytheism is not ncx'cs- 
sarilv the forerunner of monotheism, but ma\. for certain cultures, be 
looked upon as a complex, systematized product o\ several regional 
ideas of God. 

The idea of "mana," or diffused, non-indi\ iduali/ed power, seems to 
be exceedingly widespread among primitive peoples. I he term has been 
borrowed from Melanesia, but it is as applicable to the .Mgonkian. Ir- 
oquois, Siouan, and numerous other tribes of aboriginal .America as to 
the Melanesians and Polynesians. Ihe whole world is believed lo be 
pervaded by a mysterious polcncv that mav be concentrated in particu- 
lar objects or. in many cases, possessed by spirits or animals or gtKls. 
Man needs to capture some o\^ this power in order to attain his dcsire^i. 
He is ever on the lookout for blessings from the unkiu>wn, which may 
be vouchsafed to him in unusual or uncannv experiences, m visions. 
and in dreams. The notion o^ immaterial power often takes curious 
forms. Thus the Ilupa Indians o\' Ni>rthwestern California believe in 
the presence of radiations which stream to earth from mvslerious realms 
beyond, inhabited by a supernatural and holy folk who once lived upon 
earth but vanished with the ct^mim; o{ the Indians. Tliese radiations 



142 /// Culture 

may give the medicine-woman her power or they may inspire one with 
the spirit of a ritual. 

I can hardly do more than mention some of the typical forms of 
religious behavior, as distinguished from belief, which are of universal 
distribution. Prayer is common, but it is only in the higher reaches of 
culture that it attains its typically pure and altruistic form. On lower 
levels it tends to be limited to the voicing of selfish wants, which may 
even bring harm to those who are not members of one's own household. 
It is significant that prayers are frequently addressed to specific beings 
who may grant power or withhold ill rather than to the Supreme Being, 
even when such a being is believed to exist. 

A second type of religious behavior is the pursuit of power or ''medi- 
cine." The forms which this pursuit takes are exceedingly varied. The 
individual "medicine" experience is perhaps illustrated in its greatest 
purity among the American aborigines, but it is of course plentifully 
illustrated in other parts of the world. Among some tribes the receipt 
of power, which generally takes place in the form of a dream or vision, 
establishes a very personal relation between the giver of the blessing 
and the suppliant. 

This relation is frequently known as individual totemism. The term 
totemism, indeed, is derived from the Ojibwa Indians, among whom 
there is a tendency for the individual to be "blessed" by the same super- 
natural beings as have already blessed his paternal ancestors. Such an 
example as this shows how the purely individual relation may gradually 
become socialized into the institution typically known as totemism, 
which may be defined as a specific relation, manifested in a great variety 
of ways, which exists between a clan or other social group and a super- 
natural being, generally, but by no means exclusively, identified with an 
animal. In spite of the somewhat shadowy borderland which connects 
individual totemism with group totemism, it is inadvisable to think of 
the one institution as necessarily derived from the other, though the 
possibility of such a development need not be denied outright. 

Closely connected with the pursuit of power is the handling of magi- 
cal objects or assemblages of such objects which contain or symbolize 
the power that has been bestowed. Among some of the North American 
Indian tribes, as we have seen, the "medicine bundle," with its associ- 
ated [78] ritual and taboos, owes its potency entirely to the supernatural 
experience which lies back of it. Classical fetishism, however, as we find 
it in West Africa, seems not to be necessarily based on an individual 
vision. A fetish is an object which possesses power in its own right and 



One: Cult lire. Society, ami the Indnuliutl i43 

which nia\ be used ic^ clVccl dcMicd clui^ b\ .ipproprialc handling. 
pra\cr, or olhcr means. In niaii> cases a siiperiialural being is bclicxcid 
lo be actuall) resiJeiil in ihe fetish, ihouuh this conception, ^^hlch mosl 
nearly corresponds lo the pt>pular notion of "idol." is probably nol as 
common as might be expected. Hie mam reliuu>us significance ol medi- 
cine bundles, tetishes and other tokens o\ the supernatural is the reas- 
suring power e.xerted on the primiti\e mind by a concrete s\mbol uhich 
is felt to be closely connected with the mysterious unknown and Us 
limitless power. It is of course the persistence i^f the suggcslibililv of 
\ isual s\nibols w hich makes even the highest forms o^ religion tend ti» 
cluster about such objects as temples, churches, shrines. crucillveN. and 
the like. 

The fourth and perhaps llie most imporlanl o'i the forms of religious 
behavior is the carrying out o\' rituals. Rituals are t\picall> symbolic 
actions which belong to the whole community, but among primitive 
peoples there is a tendency for many o\^ them to be looked upon as the 
special function of a limited group within the wlu>le tribe. Sometimes 
this group is a clan or gens or other division not based on reli 
concepts; at other times the group is a religious fraternity, a bri ;.... 
hood of priests, which exists for the sole purpose of seeing to the correct 
performance o{ rituals which are believed to be o\' the utmost conse- 
quence for the safety of the tribe as a whole, it is dilllcult to generalize 
about primitive ritual, so varied are the forms which it assumes. Nearly 
everywhere the communal ritual whips the whole tribe into a stale of 
great emotional tension, which is interpreted bv the folk as a visitation 
from the supernatural world. The most powerful means known t(^ bring 
about this feeling is the dance, which is nearlv always accomn .nw.! b\ 
singing. 

Some ethnologists have seen in primitive ritual little more than the 
counterpart of our own dramatic and pantomnmc performances His- 
torically there is undoubtedly much truth in this, but it would be very 
misleading to make of a psychology o\' primitive ritual a mere chapter 
in the psychology of aesthetic experience. The exaltation ot" the Sioux 
sun dancer or of a Northwest C\xist Indian who imperst>nales the Can- 
nibal Spirit is a very different thing from the excitement o\ the perform- 
ing artist. It seems very much more akin to the intense rcvcr>' of ihc 
mystic or ascetic. Externally, the rituals may be described as a s;icrcd 
drama; subjectively, it may bring the participant to a reali/alion of m\s- 
tery and power for which the fetish or other religious object is but an 
external token. The psychological interpretation of ritual naturally dif- 
fers with ihc temperament of the individual. 



144 /// Culture 

IV 

The sharp distinction between reHgious and other modes of conduct 
to which we are accustomed in modern Hfe is by no means possible on 
more primitive levels. Religion is neither ethics nor science nor art, but 
it tends to be inextricably bound up with all three. It also manifests 
itself in the social organization of the tribe, in ideas of higher or lower 
status, in the very form and technique of government itself. It is some- 
times said that it is impossible to disentangle religious behavior among 
primitive peoples from the setting in which it is found. For many primi- 
tives, however, it seems almost more correct to say that religion is the 
one structural reality in the whole of their culture and that what we call 
art and ethics and science and social organization are hardly more than 
the applications of the religious point of view to the functions of daily 
Hfe. 

In concluding, attention may be called [79] to the wide distribution 
of certain sentiments or feelings which are of a peculiarly religious na- 
ture and which tend to persist even among the most sophisticated in- 
dividuals, long after they have ceased to believe in the rationalized justi- 
fication for these sentiments and feelings. They are by no means to be 
identified with simple emotions, though they obviously feed on the soil 
of all emotions. A religious sentiment is typically unconscious, intense, 
and bound up with a compulsive sense of values. It is possible that 
modern psychology may analyze them all away as socialized compul- 
sion neuroses, but it is exceedingly doubtful if a healthy social life or a 
significant individual life is possible without these very sentiments. The 
first and most important of them is a "feeling of community with a 
necessary universe of values." In psychological terms, this feeling seem 
to be a blend of complete humility and a no less complete security. It 
is only when the fundamental serenity is as intense as fear and as neces- 
sary as any of the simpler sentiments that its possessor can be properly 
termed a mystic. 

A second sentiment, which often grows out of the first, is a feeling 
for sacredness or holiness or divinity. That certain experiences or ideas 
or objects or personalities must be set apart as symbols of ultimate 
value is an idea which is repellent to the critical modern mind. It is 
none the less a necessary sentiment to many, perhaps to most, human 
beings. The consciously justified infraction of sentiments of holiness, 
which cannot be recognized by the thinking mind, leads frequently to 
an inexplicable personal unhappiness. 



One: Culture. .Soiiciv. and i lie Imiivtdual 14^ 

The taboos o\^ priiniii\c peoples strike us as very bizarre and it is a 
commonplace o\^ psychoanalysis that many of them have a strange kin- 
ship with the apparently self-imposed taboos of neurotics. It is doubtful 
if many psychologists or students o\' culture reali/e the psschological 
significance o\' lahoo. which seems noihmg more ium less than an un- 
conscious striving for the strength that comes from any form of sacrifice 
or deferment of immediate fuifillments. Certainly all religions ha\e in- 
sisted on the importance (^f hinh lahoo. in its narrower sense of specific 
mlerdiclion. and sacrifice. It ma\ be thai the feeling of the necessity of 
sacrifice is no more than a iranslalion mlo action o\' the sentiment of 
the holy. 

Perhaps the most difficult o\' the religious sentiments to understand 
is that of sin, which is almost amusingl\ abhorrent to the nu>dern mind. 
Every constellation of sentiments holds within itself its own opposiies. 
The more intense a sentiment, the more certain is the potential presence 
of a feeling which results from the Houting or thwarting of it. The price 
for the reality and intensity of the positi\e sentiments that I ha\e men- 
tioned, any or all of which must of necessit\ be frequenth \iolated m 
the course of daily life, is the sentiment o{ sin, which is a necessar> 
shadow cast by all sincerely religious feeling. 

It is, of course, no accident that religion in its most authentic mo- 
ments has always been prepared to cancel a factual shortcoming in 
conduct if only it could assure itself that this shi^ricoming was accompa- 
nied by a lively sense of sin. Good works are not the ec|ui\alent of the 
sentiment o^ ultimate value which religion insists upon. The shadow 
cast by this sentiment, v\hich is a sense of sin. ma\ be intuitively fell as 
of more reassuring value than a bene\olence which proceeds from mere 
social habit or from personal indifference. Religion has alwa\s been the 
enemv o\^ self-satisfaction. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published m The AnuiUiin Mci\ur\ 1^ 12 7^) (1928) 



A. P. A. I (192cS, published 1929) 

Proivi'ilitii^s. First Colhu/iiinni an Pcrstnuilttv /nvvslii^nlion. lUlit umUr the \ -f 

the Anwrican Psychiatric Association. Coniinittcc on relations with the Sin u: 
December 1-2. 192S. New York Ciiv Baltiiiu>ic: Lord Baltimore Press 

Sapir's associate, psychiatrist Harry Slack Sullivan, was the organi/ing force behind 
a colloquiiini on pcrsonalii\ investigation sponsored by the American Psychiatric Asso- 
ciation through lis coniniillee on the relations of psychiatry to the siKia! science>. Tlic 
committee's chair. William Alanson White, was a close colleague of Sulli\an Held in 
December 1928, the colloquium brought together a group of some 24 stKial scicnlisis. 
psychologists, psychiatrists, and physicians (21 invited participants and 3 representa- 
tives of the committee). Some of the participants were alread> acquainted with each 
other from earlier conferences, including ihe 1^)2(> Hani)\er Conference, where Sapir 
had presented a paper. 

Interdisciplinary collaboration prtned elusive al the A. I* A. Colloquium's discus- 
sions, with some participants emphasizing the dilTerences between approaches rather 
than their potential connections. The widest gulf was that which separated proponents 
of qualitative approaches from proponents of quantitative methods and non-symbolic 
perspecti\es. Sapir. Sullivan, and their conference allies (including ("hicagi* s.kioIolmsI 
Robert Park) emphasized conceptual patterns and sNstems i>f ideas, as agamsi p.iitn.i- 
panls representing such disciplines as beha\ iorist psychology and psychonietrics. Sapir's 
most substantial comments - remarks anticipating his I9.'^4 encNclopcdia article on 
"Personality," and chapter 7 of The Psychoh)^} of Culture attempted to hridre the 
di\ide. 

In this meeting Sapir was seen not just as a representative of anthropolog) >•! mij. un- 
ties, but - at least by some participants - as leading the way to interdisciplinary 
cooperation. The colloquium organizers evidently thought the prospects for prinluciivc 
interaction sufllcientK promising to organize a second A P A c<»M«H|uiuni the 
following year. 

A complete transcript of the colloquium was published in 1^J2W Wc icprvnlucc here 
only those portions of the discussion in which Sapir p.uiiv miiiii mp II 12 '2 
77-80), and summarize the rest. 

Besides Sapir, participants quoted or mentioned herein iikIuJc 

Allport, Floyd (Professor of Social and Political Psycholog>. S\i.t.>... I iHNcrsily) 
Burgess, Ernest W. (Professor of Sociology. I'nnersitN of Chicago) 
Dickinson, Z. Clark (Professor of Economics. I'niversitN of NtkhiLMn) 
Draper, George (practicing physician. Columbia-Presbytcrian .Mcdual Center) 
Frank. Lawrence (educational psychologist; stalT member. Laura Spelman RiKkefel- 

ler Memorial) 
Glueck, Sheldon (crinunologisi; Instructor in ( iiminology and Penolopy. Dcpnn- 

ment of Social Ethics, Harvard I'niversity) 



148 /// Culture 

Healy. William (physician and child psychologist; Director, Judge Baker Foundation, 

Boston) 
Knight. Frank H. (Professor of Economics, University of Chicago) 
May. Mark (Professor of Educational Psychology, Yale University) 
Outhwaitc, Leonard (Berkeley-trained anthropologist; staff member, Laura Spelman 

Rockefeller Memorial) 
Park. Robert (Professor of Sociology. University of Chicago) 
Shaw. ClilTord (sociologist. Institute for Juvenile Research, Chicago) 
Sullivan, Harry Stack (psychiatrist; Director of Clinical Research, Sheppard and 

Enoch Pratt Hospital. Baltimore) 
Thomas, William L (sociologist; Lecturer, New School for Social Research) 
Thurstone, Louis L. (Professor of Psychology, University of Chicago) 
Wells. Frederic Lyman (psychologist; Chief of Psychology Laboratory, Boston Psy- 
chiatric Hospital) 
White, William Alanson (neurologist and psychiatrist; Superintendent, St. Elizabeth's 

Hospital. Washington, D. C.) 
Young, Kimball (Professor of Social Psychology, University of Wisconsin) 

Other participants included Gordon W. Allport (social psychologist, then at Dart- 
mouth College). E. R. Groves (sociologist. University of North Carolina), Ehon Mayo 
(industrial psychologist. Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard Univer- 
sity), G. E. Partridge (psychologist, Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital), and - repre- 
senting the A. P. A., along with Sullivan and White - psychiatrists George M. Kline, 
Edward J. Kempf, and Arthur Ruggles. 



Chairman William A. White introduced the conference as "informal conversazione" 
in which psychiatrists and social scientists could discuss questions of overlapping and 
joint interest. The principal problem concerned the relationship between the individual 
and society - between part and whole. 

William L Thomas, a sociologist, opened with a presentation of "Proposals for the 
Joint Application of Technique as between Psychiatry and the Social Sciences." The 
presentation mentioned several areas of relevant ongoing research, such as studies of 
the effects of adoption on intelligence, delinquency and psychopathology; studies of 
dominance and subordination among children; studies of mental disturbance among 
different races and nationalities; and studies on the relationships among crime, psycho- 
pathology, and occupations. Thomas argued for sociological approaches rather than 
biological ones (a point tacitly agreed on by all conference participants), and called for 
better life histories and records. The discussion then proceeded as follows: 

EDWARD SAPIR. - I was very much interested in Professor Thomas' proposal 
that we take up the question of behavior monographs. It has always seemed to me 
that was one of the prime needs of all personality studies. I, myself, am only an 
amateur and dabbler in the question of personality but I have always wished that 
there were some place where one could go in order to get acquainted with life person- 
ality. I should like to see someone found a series of behavior monographs in which 
the cases, after revealing themselves as far as possible, are minutely discussed by a 
number of people interested in personality from different points of view, [so] that we 



One: Culture. Smuiv. ami i In- hulivuhuil 149 

would all get acquainted more or less with a few do/cn typical persons, as it were. 

in our community, and be able to talk of Case A, H, or ('. and be familiar with ihc 
interpretations of the various reactions (to) those cases. It seems it) me il \^c cul.! 
have a series of monographs of behavior of personalities and a careful anah 
what seems to be relevant in these various cases, we might discover how wuicu 
dilTerent could be our conception of what might be a dilference m pcrsonalils. 

FREDERIC 1 \\ ELLS. - What sorts of persons would be the subjects of the beha- 
vior monographs which are under ciMisideration here, and lu>w W(^uld the factual 
material be gathered? It is possible to gather material of this kind in a \cr> close 
way through psychological settings. What Dr. Sapir has in mind is normal indi\id- 
uals. How, under the conditions of our present culture, is material of the sort he has 
in mind to be gathered? 

SAPIR. - I can't sa\ thai I had in mind cniircl\ iu>rmal personalities. I had in mind 
both normal and abnormal. There are \arious methods of obtaining case histt>rics 
Dr. Kimball "ibung and Dr. Shaw can probably illuminate us, and Dr. Thomas him- 
self. I am not at all clear in my own mind as to in w hat form case histories of this 
kind should be presented. It might be belter to experiment \sith dilTerent kinds of 
presentations and subject those to criticisms, as well as the analyses of them, but it 
seems to me that my own personal dilllculty in considering the question of personal- 
ity was that I was never quite sure whether my private definition of "personalits" 
corresponds to the other person's definition of "personalii>." I think \^e can't get 
very far by discussing these concepts of ours in the abstract, but that we must work 
through, experimentally, the usual definitions and concepts \ia the actual handling 
of the material. 

We have to be, as it were, driven to the wall to accept fairly elaborate working 
patterns of personality from the case material itself, and that is a very elaborate but 
I think decidedly worth while idea. I would like to see someone develop techniques 
for presenting and citliccting cases, both norma! and abnormal. 

Comments by William Healy, Kimball Young, and Frank H Knight then explored 
the question of what is meant by "abnormal personality." Ideational content, the 
psychology of symbolism, and cultural background should be emphasized. thc> sug- 
gested, and subjects should not come only from hospital or penal institutions. l^\%rcncc 
Frank proposed that the social history and ecology of psychiatric patients was a place 
for immediate interdisciplinary cooperation. Arthur Ruggles and Robert Park notcil 
the difllculties of translating analytical vocabularies across disciplines. "A fact is a fact 
only in a universe of discourse," commented Park. 

Chairman White then called for each participant to state his pt^sition on the problem 
of interdisciplinary cooperation. 

Lawrence Frank suggested some central questions: the relationship between indiM- 
dual and aggregate (or institutional) behavior, and the relationship between conven- 
tional (or modal) behavior and deviance. All the disciplines present share > 
problems, such as developing a conception of human nature, and in\ •'• 
individuals adjust to norms, sanctions, and material conditions 

ClitTord Shaw reported on sociological research on delinquciK> in < 
sponse to questions, Shaw emphasized "culture" as a factor in the It. 
linquency in certain areas of the city. Sapir enquired: 



150 /// Culture 

SAPIR. - I have just one ditTieulty, Mr. Shaw, with your conception of the cultural 

nature of these areas. I think I follow you in the main sympathetically, but there is 

just one question in my mind. Do you mean essentially that the populations in 

these zones value delinquent conduct as such, and that the intensity of the valuation 

diminishes as you proceed away from the Loop," or do you mean that the cultural 

conditions of conflict are such as to bring about in decreasing proportions those 

deviations of conduct? 

SHAW. - I should say the latter was true. 

SAPIR. - If that is so, it isn't so much the case of cultural mapping as the mapping 

of lack of functioning of a culture. 

SHAW. - Yes. or the disintegration of a given culture. 

SAPIR. - If I felt, for instance, that the people right on the inside of the Loop 
made a kind of heroic code of certain types of shoplifting or homosexual misdemea- 
nor, that would give me an entirely different point of view. 

SHAW. - That may be true. 

SAPIR. - For instance, horse stealing is the result of delinquent conduct, but if you 
are studying the life of the Black[foot] Indians, it is a sort of delinquent conduct 
looped up with all sorts of supernatural ideas. You would therefore have to know 
how to interpret that delinquent conduct. 

Other participants then reported on their research. Ernest W. Burgess and Sheldon 
Glueck discussed research on parole violators and reformatory inmates, respectively. 
George Draper, a physician, raised the problem of how clinical manifestations of dis- 
ease relate to a patient's personality. Lewis L. Thurstone and Floyd Allport discussed 
psychometric measurements and analysis, a topic also taken up by Frederic Wells. Mark 
May mentioned his research on children's honesty and deceptiveness. Z. Clark Dickin- 
son pointed out several intersections between psychology and economics, suggesting 
that some important theoretical connections had yet to be very well developed. 

Discussion on the following day tended to focus on the disciplines' differences: differ- 
ences in object of interest (groups and generalizations vs. individuals and differences), 
and differences in technique (quantitative vs. qualitative). Harry Stack Sullivan started 
this discussion off, arguing that the participants might merely end up raiding each 
other's vocabulary without actually understanding each other's conceptions. How was 
something practical to be achieved, rather than just extending the range of one's ineffi- 
ciency? 

The comments of some participants (such as L. L. Thurstone and Mark May) be- 
came quite critical, interpreting methodological differences as deficiencies. Other parti- 
cipants attempted to bring about a rapprochement by re-focusing the interdisciplinary 
objectives of the conference. Among these was Sapir: 

EDWARD SAPIR. - I have been disturbed by the obvious unwillingness or hesita- 
tion of most of us to throw bridges across the chasms which separate our respective 
disciplines. We have hesitated to integrate our interests but it is the very purpose of 
a conference of this kind that we throw away all modesty and hesitation, and hazard 
the difficult task of seeing our various interests from a common viewpoint. 

Thinking over this caution which we all share, I seem to find that the sticking 
point is that we will not admit what we tacitly accept at every stage, and that is this: 



One: Citllurc. Society, and l he InJivu/iutl 151 

Whether we talk ahmit an iiulividiial as a physiolojiical organism or abtnil sivicly. 
at the other end o\' tlie heha\ior gamut, what we are really talking about is swiims 
of ideas. 1 hese ideas iiia\ he re-interpreted in terms of emotion or any other physio- 
logieal or psychologieal terms ue please. lAen if we ilescribe a human being fr»>m 
what seems to be a physiological standpoint, pure ami simple, we arc not really 
especially interested in the iiiere process ol thus analyzing him into his lowest biologi> 
cal terms. If he lifts his arm. that means that he is going to strike somebody or throw 
a stone, and he does that because he wants to break the window ol some person 
whom he dislikes, or he wants to strike him directly. We get down, in other words, 
to a specific motive, say. of revenge. So that even if we study perst)nality from the 
very coldest and most objective point of view, we are more i>r less laculv ailmitiing 
that we are interested in some system of ideas. 

Now let us take society, at the other end. As social students, we have ixcn m ttic 
habit of stressing the idea that, when all is said and done, an mduidual is helpless. 
as an individual, in the llu.x of cultural history. At the beginning o{ the course that 
I am in the habit of giving, for example 1 try to destroy all confidence in the meaning 
of the "individual," only to find that 1 must let the individual in by the back door. 
as it were, toward the end of the course. But society, whatever we may say ab<.>ut it 
in our books, is actually nothing more nor less than a system of ideas, or se\cral 
intercrossing systems. We may talk our head otT about marriage, for instance, but if 
we do not see marriage as somehow connected with the process of earning a li\ing. 
being born and dying, having children, living in peace with our neighbors, btvoming 
personally significant in some little circle that we can call our enlarged ego. if we 
cannot see marriage in such a complex of meanings, it is not anything real So that. 
whether we like it or not, we are really always dealing with systems of ideas, not 
with mere reactions, or institutions as such. Here is where the psychiatrist comes in. 
He is the intuitive scientist who is more keenly interested in these systems oi human 
ideas than any other student of behavior. Therefore. 1 would say that while the 
psychiatrist probably commits more sins against common .sense and fact than any 
other known scientist, he has the most \aluable hunch o\' any o\' them, and that 
many a sociologist and anthropologist, while he has at his disposal the most \aluablc 
facts of all facts, frequently commits the most unpardonable sin of all sin.s. whK'h is 
not to see those facts as constitutive of a real "personality"' or "personalities " 

We are all dealing, in some fashion or other, with the concept o\ personality But 
we were careful at the start not to define personality, and perhaps it would have 
been a good thing if we had defined it. One may give at least \'\\c distinct defmitu^ns 
of personality, which are so dilferenl from each other that any one o\ them would 
have given a distinct slant to our proceedings It is our job as a group to find out 
what is the working definition of persi>naiity that the psychiatrist brings us Whether 
that is the same dcfinilion o\' personality as the sociologist finds most usclul lor his 
own purposes is quite another question It is perfectly pi>ssible and useful to have 
diflerent conceptions of personality. Let the sociologist's "personality." for instance. 
be what certain psychiatrists call a "persona." an indi\idual conccixcd of as the iiKre 
carrier of social institutions. That is a perfectly good concept, abstracted Irom the 
whole of behavior, but it has little to do with what the psychiatrist is interested in 
He is thinking of a connected system oi ideas which is carried by an individual 
organism and which is somehow being interpreted in divers ways by other individ- 



152 /// Culture 

uals, each swayed by a system of ideas which both resembles and differs from the 
first. 

From the standpoint of the psychiatrist, society as such is not of paramount im- 
portance. Society is simply that e.xternal human force that cramps the individual. If 
you read Freud's work, you are always being told that society is the "censor," in 
other words, the thing that you have got to resist in order to realize yourself. That 
may be an unscientific, even an irrational, point of view, but it is a significant one 
for all that. In any case it shows the psychiatrist's bias, which we have to recognize. 
On the other hand, the sociologist and the anthropologist, and I confess I sympathize 
with them in many ways, look upon the individual as nothing. "Who are you?" they 
conceive society to say to the unformed individual. "You are just a set of muscular, 
endocrine, and other physiological possibilities, and I, society, possess all possible 
meanings and values. I am going to make you into some kind of representative of 
the total system of ideas which constitutes my being." Obviously enough, neither 
point of view expresses more than a useful fiction. There is. therefore, it seems to 
me. a common ground of discussion in "personality," and whether we call personal- 
ity that part of the individual's functioning which has meaning, or, on the other 
hand, we call personality that in society's behavior patterns which can some day be 
translated into terms of meaning for the individual, is essentially indifferent. We 
arrive, therefore, at this somewhat curious, yet really necessary, conception that in 
the last analysis there is no conflict between the concept of "culture" and the concept 
of "personality," if only we make our abstractions correctly. I would say that what 
really happens is that every individual acquires and develops his own "culture" and 
that "culture," as ordinarily handled by the student of society, is really an environ- 
mental fact that has no psychological meaning until it is interpreted by being referred 
to personalities or, at the least, a generalized personality conceived as typical of a 
given society. 

"Why do people resemble each other so much?" asks the psychiatrist. "Because 
they have all been formed out of common terms in the common matrix of socialized 
behavior," answers the sociologist. Why does the psychiatrist always feel dissatisfied 
with the sociologist when he is given this information? Because he wants to brush 
away all of those factors of human behavior that make the human beings of a society 
measurably alike, in order to find out to what extent the given individual is "integ- 
ral," true to a certain something - he does not quite know what - that is himself. 
If the psychiatrist is a behaviorist, he believes that he can prove all of his theories 
of personahty in terms of behaviorism; if, like Jung, he is a philosopher, he may read 
in types of personality all manner of uncanny revelation; if he is a sociologist, he 
has a sociological slant. But whatever he is, I think the psychiatrist deals with an 
unformulated conception of personality which is something like this: Here is a person 
who, in ways to be defined by the geneticist, by the physiologist, by the psychologist, 
and by the sociologist, has a definite "form." We do not really see him, we see him 
only as society declares him to be. We see the mask that he wears. The psychiatrist 
would like to take that mask off and discover what he really "is." 

Obviously, we cannot get hold of the individual immediately on the fertilization 
of the egg. We must assume as given all the genetic determinants of personality; we 
will also assume all the prenatal factors; and we will assume, further, all the condi- 
tioning factors of, say, the first year or year and a half or two years of life which we 



One: Culture. Sociciy, ami the Individual 15*^ 

cannot put our fingers on at present but which wc feel arc of the uiniost c. 

In other words, as psychiatrists, we are deahng with a human being uho i .ily 

"formed"' at the moment that society first gets hold of him. Let us. ul ihis stage, call 
him the "sub-cuhural personahty. " That is the personahty. it seems lo me. that the 
psychiatrist is essentially interested in. all later aspects of ■personality" being seen 
as socially determined modifications of a beha\ior configuration which persists m 
maintaining itself as best it can. The psychiatrist and the scK-ial scientist, therefore. 
can best get together not by scolding each other, but by telling each other what 
aspects of behavior lo consider as eliminated in their respective views. Haeh must 
teach the other what to avoid as irrele\ant. and what to call the "essential personal- 
ity." We must get together, whether we like it ox not, because we are already eliminat- 
ing, well or badly, in ways which seem to be demanded for our particular purposes. 
Why not frankly recognize this dilTering process of elimination in the field of beha- 
vior, in order that we may steer clear o^ each other, recognizing the distinctiveness 
and the legitimacy of each other's problems? 

I think that if the psychiatrist will admit that he is ni>t so much interested, so far 
as his nuclear concept of personality is concerned, in w hat people do as in what thcv 
are. in their early-formed latencies of behavior rather than in their socially interpre- 
ted conduct, and if furthermore, the psychiatrist will admit in speaking lo the sih.ioI- 
ogist that what the sociologist is interested in is a dilTerent conception of personalitv. 
there ought to be no special difficulty of mutual understanding. I would plead for 
the study of actual case histories from the standpoint o^ an analysis from every 
possible point of view, ranging from the purely organismal type of interpretation up 
to the impersonal and abstract formulations of the theoretical sociologist and the 
philosopher. 

Frederic Wells remarked that "Sapir has just crystallized the wide range of topics cov- 
ered in the conference." He then returned to the problems of psychometrics. however. 
and the discussion returned to methodological debates. Finally Leonard Outhwaite. 
referring to Sapir's 1926 Hanover Conference presentation as an example o{ the inter- 
disciplinary middle-ground, argued that the A. P. A. participants had "created unreal 
difficulties." Chairman White suggested that there was "alreadv a situati-*" •>•' '■>!>' 
prochemeni, whether we want it or not." 



Note 

1. "The Loop" is the downtown district of Chicago. 



The Unconscious Patterning o( Bcha\ lor 
in Society (1928) 

Editorial Introduction 

Sapir's ideas about the unconscious nature ot culiuidl paiicnung were 
elaborated for a conference on the concept of the unconscious in various 
social science disciplines. Held April 29 - May 1, 1927. under the aus- 
pices of the Illinois Society for Mental Hygiene, the conference was 
organized by W. I. Thomas, the preeminent theoretician of the first gen- 
eration of Chicago sociologists,' and financed by Chicago socialite 
Ethel Dummer. The proceedings were published the following year, un- 
der Dummer's editorship. 

Distinguished participants in this interdisciplinary critique o\' the 
Freudian concept of the unconscious included Kurt Koffka. a founder 
of gestalt psychology whose work Sapir discovered in 1924. ulio dis- 
cussed the psychological reformulation. Beha\iorisi experimental 
psychology was represented by its primary American propi>ncni. John 
B. Watson. 

Thomas was intrigued by personality configuration as understood b\ 
the social sciences. Sapir's interest in testing the psychological ct>ncept 
against social science data was directly in line v\ith Thomas's program. 
Language, representafive of culture more generally, provided Sapir with 
evidence for the "unconscious patterning o\^ beha\ior."' a priKcss he 
clearly distinguished from the Freudian unconscious as a distinct mech- 
anism of the human mind. Sapir sought a concept ol the unconscious 
which would strengthen his anthropological theor\ ol culture. 

Participation in this symposium brought Sapir's formulation ot the 
individual in culture and society to the wide attention ot colleagues in 
other social sciences for the first time. The s\niposiuni. and the resuliing 
publication, involved a high-powered collection o\' indi\iduals and 
ideas. The intellectual prestige of W. I. Thomas solidified Sapir's role as 
a spokesman for the emerging interdisciplinary audience. Indeed. Sapir 
was the only anthropologist who participated actively in the interdisci- 
plinary efforts of the twenties and thirties. In those elTorts he functioned 



156 /// Culture 

as a mediator between the group emphasis of the sociologists and the 
individual emphasis of the psychologists, and in that mediating capacity 
he played a more significant role than he might have done solely as a 
representative of anthropology as such. 

Both in the study of culture and in the study of the individual person- 
ality. Sapir emphasized meaning contextualized in symbolic systems, as 
against the broad current toward behaviorism in the social sciences. 
The latter was to dominate in the post-war period after Sapir's death; 
Sapir's semantic and symbolic approach has, however, had considerable 
resurgence in recent disciplines almost as diverse as those of the interdis- 
ciplinarians of the interwar period. 



The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society 

We may seem to be guilty of a paradox when we speak of the uncon- 
scious in reference to social activity. Doubtful as is the usefulness of this 
concept when we confine ourselves to the behavior of the individual, it 
may seem to be worse than doubtful when we leave the kinds of beha- 
vior that are strictly individual and deal with those more complex kinds 
of activity which, rightly or wrongly, are supposed to be carried on, not 
by individuals as such, but by the associations of human beings that 
constitute society. It may be argued that society has no more of an 
unconscious than it has hands or legs. 

I propose to show, however, that the paradox is a real one only if the 
term "social behavior" is understood in the very Hteral sense of behavior 
referred to groups of human beings which act as such, regardless of the 
mentalities of the individuals which compose the groups. To such a 
mystical group alone can a mysterious "social unconsciousness" be as- 
cribed. But as we are very far from believing that such groups [115] 
really exist, we may be able to persuade ourselves that no more especial 
kind of unconsciousness need be imputed to social behavior than is 
needed to understand the behavior of the individual himself. We shall 
be on much safer ground if we take it for granted that all human beha- 
vior involves essentially the same types of mental functioning, as well 
conscious as unconscious, and that the term "social" is no more exclu- 
sive of the concept "unconscious" than is the term "individual," for the 
very simple reason that the terms "social" and "individual" are con- 
trastive in only a limited sense. We will assume that any kind of psychol- 
ogy that explains the behavior of the individual also explains the beha- 



One: Culture. Society, ami the Iminuhuil 157 

vior of society, in so far as the psychological point of vicvs is applicable 
to and sufficient for the study of social behavior. It is true thai tor 
certain purposes it is very useful to look away entirely from the nidivi- 
dual and to think of socialized behavior as though it were carried on 
by certain larger entities which transcend the psycho-physical organism. 
But this viewpoint implicitly demands the abandonment of the psycho- 
logical approach to the explanation of human conduct in society. 

It will be clear from what we have said that we do not find the essen- 
tial difference between individual and social behavior to lie in ihe 
psychology of the behavior itself. Strictly speaking, each kind of beha- 
vior is individual, the difference in terminology being entirely due to a 
ditTerence in the point of view. If our attention is focussed on the aciUiil. 
theoretically [116] measurable behavior of a given individual ai a gi\en 
time and place, we call it "individual behavior." no mailer uluii ihe 
physiological or psychological nature of that behavior may be. It, on 
the other hand, we prefer to eliminate certain aspects of such indi\idual 
behavior from our consideration and to hold on only to those respects 
in which it corresponds to certain norms of conduct which ha\e been 
developed by human beings in association with one another and uhich 
tend to perpetuate themselves by tradition, we speak o{ "social beha- 
vior." In other words, social behavior is merely the sum or, belter, ar- 
rangement of such aspects of individual behavior as are referred to 
culture patterns that have their proper context, not in the spatial and 
temporal continuities of biological behavior, but in historical sequences 
that are imputed to actual behavior by a principle o^ selection. 

We have thus defined the difference between individual and social 
behavior, not in terms of kind or essence, but in lerms of organization. 
To say that the human being behaves individually at one moment and 
socially at another is as absurd as to declare that mailer follows ihc 
laws of chemistry at a certain time and succumbs to the supposedly 
different laws of atomic physics at another, for mailer is alua>s obeymg 
certain mechanical laws which are at one and the same lime boih ph\si- 
cal and chemical according to the manner in which ue choose to define 
its organization. In dealing with human beings, we simpls find ii more 
convenient for certain purposes to refer a gi\en act ti> [ 1 1 ^) ihe psycho- 
physical organism itself. In other cases the interest hap|KMis to he m 
continuities that go beyond the individual organism and its funclionmg, 
so that a bit of conduct that is ob|ecli\el\ no more and no less indivi- 
dual than the first is interpreted in lerms of the noii-indi\ idual patterns 
that consfitute social behavior or cultural beha\ior. 



158 /// Culture 

It would be a useful exercise to force ourselves to see any given hu- 
man act from both of these points of view and to try to convince our- 
selves in this way that it is futile to classify human acts as such as having 
an inherently individual or social significance. It is true that there are a 
great many organismal functions that it is difficult to think of in social 
terms, but I think that even here the social point of view may often be 
applied with success. Few social students are interested, for instance, in 
the exact manner in which a given individual breathes. Yet it is not to 
be doubted that our breathing habits are largely conditioned by factors 
conventionally classified as social. There are polite and impohte ways of 
breathing. There are special attitudes which seem to characterize whole 
societies that undoubtedly condition the breathing habits of the individ- 
uals who make up these societies. Ordinarily the characteristic rhythm 
of breathing of a given individual is looked upon as a matter for strictly 
individual definition. But if, for one reason or another, the emphasis 
shifts to the consideration of a certain manner of breathing as due to 
good form or social tradition or some other principle that is usually 
[118] given a social context, then the whole subject of breathing at once 
ceases to be a merely individual concern and takes on the appearance 
of a social pattern. Thus, the regularized breathing of the Hindu Yogi, 
the subdued breathing of those who are in the presence of a recently 
deceased companion laid away in a coffin and surrounded by all the 
ritual of funeral observances, the style of breathing which one learns 
from an operatic singer who gives lessons on the proper control of the 
voice, are, each and every one of them, capable of isolation as socialized 
modes of conduct that have a definite place in the history of human 
culture, though they are obviously not a whit less facts of individual 
behavior than the most casual and normal style of breathing, such as 
one rarely imagines to have other than purely individual applications. 
Strange as it may seem at first blush, there is no hard and fast line of 
division as to class of behavior between a given style of breathing, pro- 
vided that it be socially interpreted, and a religious doctrine or a form 
of political administration. This is not to say that it may not be infinitely 
more useful to apply the social mode of analysis of human conduct to 
certain cases and the individual mode of analysis to others. But we do 
maintain that such differences of analysis are merely imposed by the 
nature of the interest of the observer and are not inherent in the phe- 
nomena themselves. 

All cultural behavior is patterned. This is merely a way of saying that 
many things that an individual [119] does and thinks and feels may be 



One: Culture. Society, urn/ i/u- huinuiuul 159 

looked upon ncn merely IVoiii ihc siiiiulpoiiii ot ihc iDrms otbchavior 
that are proper to himself as a biological organism but from ihc stand- 
point of a generalized mode of conduct that is imputed ti) society rather 
than to the individual, though the personal genesis of conduct is ot" 
precisely the same nature, whether ue cluH)se to call the conduct indivi- 
dual or social. It is impossible to say what an individual is doing unless 
we have tacitly accepted the essentially arbitrary modes o\' interpreta- 
tion that social tradition is constantly suggesting to us from the vcrv 
moment of our birth. Let anyone who doubts this try the expenmeni 
of making a painstaking report o\^ the actions o\' a group o{ natives 
engaged in some form of activity, say religious, to which he has not the 
cultural key. If he is a skilful writer, he may succeed in gi\ ing a pictur- 
esque account of what he sees and hears, or thinks he sees and hears, 
but the chances of his being able to give a relation o{ what happens in 
terms that would be intelligible and acceptable to the natives themselves 
are practically nil. He will be guilty of all manner o{ distortii>n. His 
emphasis will be constantly askew. He will find interesting what the 
natives take for granted as a casual kind of beha\KM worih\ o{ no 
particular comment, and he will utterly fail to observe the crucial turn- 
ing points in the course of action that give formal significance to the 
whole in the minds of those who do possess the key to its understand- 
ing. This patterning or formal analysis of behasior is to a surprising 
degree [120] dependent on the mode of apprehension which has been 
established by the tradition of the group. Forms and significances which 
seem obvious to an outsider will be denied outright by those who carr> 
out the patterns; outlines and implications that are perfectly clear to 
these may be absent to the eye of the onkmker. Ii is the failure to 
understand the necessity of grasping the native patterning which is re- 
sponsible for so much unimaginative and misconceiving description ol 
procedures that we have not been brought up with. It becomes aciualK 
possible to interpret as base what is inspired b\ the noblest and c\en 
holiest of motives, and to see altruism or beaut\ where luMhing ol the 
kind is either telt or intended. 

Ordinarily a cultural pattern is to be defined both in terms of function 
and of form, the two concepts being inseparably intertwined in praclicc 
however convenient it may be to dissociate them m theor\ Mans Junc- 
tions of behavior are primary in the sense that an mdi\idual organic 
need, such as the satisfaction of hunger, is being fulfilled, but ollcn the 
functional side of behavior is either cntireK transformed or. al the least. 
takes on a new increment o\' sigmficaiice. In this wa\ new lunclional 



160 /// Culture 

interpretations are constantly being developed for forms set by tradi- 
tion. Often the true functions of behavior are unknown and a merely 
rationalized function may be imputed to it. Because of the readiness 
with which forms of human conduct lose or modify their original func- 
tions and take on entirely new ones, it becomes necessary [121] to see 
social behavior from a formal as well as from a functional point of view, 
and we shall not consider any kind of human behavior as understood if 
we can merely give, or think we can give, an answer to the question 
"For what purpose is this being done?" We shall have also to know 
what is the precise manner and articulation of the doing. 

Now it is a commonplace of observation that the reasoning intelli- 
gence seeks to attach itself rather to the functions than to the forms of 
conduct. For every thousand individuals who can tell with some show 
of reason why they sing or use words in connected speech or handle 
money, there is barely one who can adequately define the essential out- 
lines of these modes of behavior. No doubt certain forms will be im- 
puted to such behavior if attention is drawn to it, but experience shows 
that the forms discovered may be very seriously at variance with those 
actually followed and discoverable on closer study. In other words, the 
patterns of social behavior are not necessarily discovered by simple ob- 
servation, though they may be adhered to with tyrannical consistency 
in the actual conduct of life. If we can show that normal human beings, 
both in confessedly social behavior and often in supposedly individual 
behavior, are reacting in accordance with deep-seated cultural patterns, 
and if, further, we can show that these patterns are not so much known 
as felt, not so much capable of conscious description as of naive prac- 
tice, then we have the right to speak of the "unconscious patterning of 
[122] behavior in society." The unconscious nature of this patterning 
consists not in some mysterious function of a racial or social mind 
reflected in the minds of the individual members of society, but merely 
in a typical unawareness on the part of the individual of outlines and 
demarcations and significances of conduct which he is all the time im- 
plicitly following. Jung's "racial unconscious" is neither an intelligible 
nor a necessary concept. It introduces more difficulties than it solves, 
while we have all we need for the psychological understanding of social 
behavior in the facts of individual psychology. 

Why are the forms of social behavior not adequately known by the 
normal individual? How is it that we can speak, if only metaphorically, 
of a social unconscious? I believe that the answer to this question rests 
in the fact that the relations between the elements of experience which 



One Culture. Society, urn/ the huJiviJual 161 

serve to give them their torm aiui siiLiiitlcanee are move po\\crtuIly 
"felt" or "intuited" than eonseiously pereeived. It is a matter of com- 
mon knowledge that it is relatively easy to fix the attention on some 
arbitrarily seleeted element o\' experience, such as a sensation or an 
emotion, but that it is far from easy to become conscious of the exact 
place which such an element holds in the total constellations o\ beha- 
vior. It is easy for an Australian nati\e, for instance, to say b\ what 
kinship term he calls so and so or whether or not he may undertake such 
and such relations with a given indi\idual. It is exceedingly difficult for 
him to give a general rule [123] oi' which these specific examples ol 
behavior are but illustrations, though all the while he acts as though 
the rule were pertectly well known to him. In a .sense it is well kn(n\n to 
him. But this knowledge is not capable of conscious manipulation in 
terms of word symbols. It is, rather, a very delicately nuanced feeling 
of subtle relations, both experienced and possible. To this kind of 
knowledge may be applied the term "intuition," which, when so de- 
fined, need have no mystic connotations whatever. It is strange hou 
frequently one has the illusion of free knowledge, in ilic light o\' which 
one may manipulate conduct at will, only to discover in the lest that 
one is being impelled by strict loyalty to tbrms of behavior that one can 
feel with the utmost nicety but can state only in the \aguest and most 
approximate fashion. It would seem that we act all the more securely 
for our unawareness of the patterns that conirc^l us. It ma\ well be that, 
owing to the limitations of the conscious life, any attempt to subject 
even the higher tbrms of social behavior to purely conscious control 
must result in disaster. Perhaps there is a far-reaching moral in the fact 
that even a child may speak the most difficult language with idiomatic 
ease but that it takes an unusually analytical t\ pe o\' mind to define the 
mere elements of that incredibly subtle linguistic mechanism which is 
but a plaything of the child's unconscious. Is it not possible that the 
contemporary mind, in its restless attempt to drag all the forms of beha- 
vior into consciousness and to apply the results of (124) its fragmentary 
or experimental analysis to the guidance of conduct, is realK throwing 
away a greater wealth for the sake o\' a lesser and more dazzling one? 
It is almost as though a misguided enthusiast exchanged his lhous;inds 
of dollars of accumulated credit at the bank lor a few glillenng coins 
of manifest, though little, worth. 

We shall now give a number of examples o\' patterns o\' social beha- 
vior and show that they are very incompleteh. if at all. known b> the 
normal, naive individual. We shall see that the penumbra o( uncon- 



162 /// Culture 

scious patterning of social behavior is an extraordinarily complex realm, 
in which one and the same type of overt behavior may have altogether 
distinct significances in accordance with its relation to other types of 
behavior. Owing to the compelling, but mainly unconscious, nature of 
the forms of social behavior, it becomes almost impossible for the nor- 
mal individual to observe or to conceive of functionally similar types 
of behavior in other societies than his own, or in other cultural contexts 
than those he has experienced, without projecting into them the forms 
that he is familiar with. In other words, one is always unconsciously 
finding what one is in unconscious subjection to. 

Our first example will be taken from the field of language. Language 
has the somewhat exceptional property that its forms are, for the most 
part, indirect rather than direct in their functional significance. The 
sounds, words, grammatical forms, syntactic constructions, and other 
linguistic forms that we assimilate in [125] childhood have only value 
in so far as society has tacitly agreed to see them as symbols of refer- 
ence. For this reason language is an unusually favorable domain for the 
study of the general tendency of cultural behavior to work out all sorts 
of formal elaborations that have only a secondary, and, as it were, "after 
the event" relevance to functional needs. Purely functional explanations 
of language, if valid, would lead us to expect either a far greater unifor- 
mity in linguistic expression than we actually find, or should lead us to 
discover strict relations of a functional nature between a particular form 
of language and the culture of the people using it. Neither of these 
expectations is fulfilled by the facts. Whatever may be true of other 
types of cultural behavior, we can safely say that the forms of speech 
developed in the different parts of the world are at once free and neces- 
sary, in the sense in which all artistic productions are free and necessary. 
Linguistic forms as we find them bear only the loosest relation to the 
cultural needs of a given society, but they have the very tightest consis- 
tency as aesthetic products. 

A very simple example of the justice of these remarks is afforded by 
the English plural. To most of us who speak English the tangible expres- 
sion of the plural idea in the noun seems to be a self-evident necessity. 
Careful observation of English usage, however, leads to the conviction 
that this self-evident necessity of expression is more of an illusion than 
a reality. If the plural were to be understood [126] functionally alone, 
we should find it difficult to explain why we use plural forms with 
numerals and other words that in themselves imply plurality. "Five 
man" or "several house" would be just as adequate as "five men" or 



One: Cu/lurc. Sucictv. ami the liulnutiuil 163 

"several houses." Cleaiis. what has happened is ihai I iiglish. hkc all o\ 
the other Indo-European languages, has developed a feeling for ihe 
classification of all expressions which have a nominal form mio singu- 
lars and plurals. So much is this ihc case that in the earl> per U)d i)f ihe 
history of our linguistic famil\ c\cn ihc adjective, which is nominal in 
form, is unusable except in conjimcliDn with ihc categt>ry o{ number. 
In many of the languages of the group tins habii still persists. Such 
notions as "white" or "long" are incapable o'( expressit)n in Irench or 
Russian without formal commitments on the score of whether the qual- 
ity is predicated of one or several persons or objects. Now it is not 
denied that the expression of the concept of plurality is useful. Indeed, 
a language that is forever incapable of making the difference betucen 
the one and the many is obviously to that extent hampered in its tech- 
nique of expression. But we must emphatically deny that this particular 
kind of expression need ever develop into the complex formal system 
of number definition that we are familiar with. In many other linguistic 
groups the concept of number belongs to the group o^ optionally ex- 
pressible notions. In Chinese, for instance, the word "man" ma> be 
interpreted as the English equivalent of either "man" o\- "men.'" accord- 
ing to the [127] particular context in which the word is used. It is to be 
carefully noted, however, that this formal ambiguity is never a func- 
tional one. Terms of inherent plurality, such as "five," "all," or "sev- 
eral," or of inherent singularity, such as "one" or "m\" in the phrase 
"my wife," can always be counted upon to render factually clear what 
is formally left to the imagination. If the ambiguity persists, it is a useful 
one or one that does not matter. How little the expression o\' mir con- 
cept of number is left to the practical exigencies o\' a particular case, 
how much it is a matter of consistency of aesthetic treatment, will be 
obvious from such examples as the editorial "we are in favor of prohibi- 
tion," when what is really meant is "I, John Smith, am m fa\i>r of 
prohibition." 

A complete survey of the methods o\' handling the category ol 
number in the languages of the world would reveal an astonishing vari- 
ety of treatment. In some languages number is a necessary and well- 
developed category. In others it is an accessory or optional one. In Mill 
others, it can hardly be considered as a granunatical category at all bul 
is left entirely to the implications o\' vocabulary and syntax, Nmv ihc 
interesting thing psychologically about this variety of forms is this, thai 
while everyone may learn to see the need of distinguishing the one from 
the many and has some sort o^ notion that Ins language more or less 



164 /// Culture 

adequately provides for this necessity, only a very competent philologist 
has any notion of the true formal outlines of the expression of plurality, 
of [128] whether, for instance, it constitutes a category comparable to 
that of gender or case, whether or not it is separable from the expression 
of gender, whether it is a strictly nominal category or a verbal one or 
both, whether it is used as a level for syntactic expression, and so on. 
Here are found determinations of a bewildering variety, concerning 
which few even among the sophisticated have any clarity, though the 
lowliest peasant or savage head-hunter may have control of them in his 
intuitive repertoire. 

So great are the possibilities of linguistic patterning that the lan- 
guages actually known seem to present the whole gamut of possible 
forms. We have extremely analytic types of speech, such as Chinese, in 
which the formal unit of discourse, the word, expresses nothing in itself 
but a single notion of thing or quality or activity or else some relational 
nuance. At the other extreme are the incredibly complex languages of 
many American Indian tribes, languages of the so-called polysynthetic 
type, in which the same formal unit, the word, is a sentence microcosm 
full of delicate formal elaborations of the most specialized type. Let one 
example do for many. Anyone who is brought up in English, even if he 
has had the benefit of some familiarity with the classical languages, will 
take it for granted that in such a sentence as "Shall I have the people 
move across the river to the east?" there is rather little elbow room for 
varieties of formal expression. It would not easily occur to us, for in- 
stance, that the notion of "to the east" might be [129] conveyed not by 
an independent word or phrase but by a mere suffix in a complex verb. 

There is a rather obscure Indian language in northern California, 
Yana, which not only can express this thought in a single word, but 
would find it difficult to express it in any other way. The form of expres- 
sion which is peculiar to Yana may be roughly analyzed as follows. The 
first element in the verb complex indicates the notion of several people 
living together or moving as a group from place to place. This element, 
which we may call the "verb stem," can only occur at the beginning of 
the verb, never in any other position. The second element in the com- 
plete word indicates the notion of crossing a stream or of moving from 
one side of an area to the other. It is in no sense an independent word, 
but can only be used as an element attached to a verb stem or to other 
elements which have themselves been attached to the verb stem. The 
third element in the word is similarly suffixed and conveys the notion 
of movement toward the east. It is one of a set of eight elements which 



One Culture. Society, und the liulnuluitl iO> 

convey the respective noiit)ns of nu)\ciiicnl toward the east, south, west. 
and north. None o{ these elements is an nilelhyible word \\\ iisell but 
receives meaning only in so far as it falls into iis proper place in the 
complexly organized verb. The foLirlh element is a siitllx thai indicates 
the relation of causalit\. thai is, of causing o\\\: lo i\o or be something, 
bringing it about that one does or is in a certain way, treating one in 
such [130] and such an indicated manner. At this point the language 
indulges in a rather pretty piece o^ formal play. The vowel o{ the verb 
stem which we spoke of as occupying the fust position in the verb 
symbolized the intransitive or static mode of apprehension o\' the act. 
As soon as the causative notion is introduced, however, the \erb stem 
is compelled to pass to the category of transitivized or active noiu>ns. 
which means that the causative sulTix, in spite of the parenthetical inclu- 
sion of certain notions of direction of movement, has ihe retroactive 
effect of changing the vowel of the stem. Up to this point, therefore, we 
get a perfectly unified complex of notions which may be rendered "'to 
cause a group to move across a stream in an easterly direction." 

But this is not yet a word, at least not a word in the finished sense 
of the term, tor the elements that are still to follow have just as liiile 
independent existence as those we have aliead\ referred to. Of the more 
formal elements that are needed to complete the word, the first is a 
tense sutTix referring to the future. This is followed by a pronominal 
element which refers to the first person singular, and is ditferenl in form 
from the suffixed pronoun used in other tenses and nuulalilies. FinalK. 
there is an element consisting of a single consonant which indicates 
that the whole word, which is a complete proposition in itself, is to be 
understood in the interrogative sense. Here again the language il- 
lustrates an interesting kind of specialization of form. Nearly all words 
of the language [131] differ slightly in form according to whether ihc 
speaker is a man speaking to a man or, on the other hand, is a wi>man 
or is a man speaking to a woman, the interrogative form that we have 
just discussed can only be used by a man speaking to a man. In the 
other three cases the suffix in question is not used, but the last vowel 
of the word, which in this particular case happens to be the final Nowel 
of the pronominal suffix, is lengthened in order to express the interroga- 
tive modality. 

We are not in the least interested in the details o\ this .uminms. «'ui 
some of its implications should interest us. In the first place, it is neces- 
sary to bear in mind that there is nothing arbitrary or atxidcntal or 
even curious about the slruclurc o\' (his word f-\er\ element tails into 



166 /// Culture 

its proper place in accordance with definitely formulable rules which 
can be discovered by the investigator but of which the speakers them- 
selves have no more conscious knowledge than of the inhabitants of the 
moon. It is possible to say, for instance, that the verb stem is a particu- 
lar example of a large number of elements which belong to the same 
general class, such as "to sit," "to walk," "to run," "to jump," and so 
on; or that the element which expresses the idea of crossing from one 
side to another is a particular example of a large class of local elements 
of parallel function, such as "to the next house," "up the hill," "into a 
hollow," "over the crest," "down hill," "under," "over," "in the middle 
of," "off," "hither," and so on. We may quite [132] safely assume that 
no Yana Indian ever had the slightest knowledge of classifications such 
as these or ever possessed even an inkling of the fact that his language 
neatly symbolized classifications of this sort by means of its phonetic 
apparatus and by rigid rules of sequence and cohesion or formal ele- 
ments. Yet all the while we may be perfectly certain that the relations 
which give the elements of the language their significance were some- 
how felt and adhered to. A mistake in the vowel of the first syllable, 
for instance, would undoubtedly feel to a native speaker like a self- 
contradictory form in Enghsh, for instance "five house" instead of "five 
houses" or "they runs" instead of "they run." Mistakes of this sort 
are resisted as any aesthetic transgression might be resisted - as being 
somehow incongruous, out of the picture, or, if one chooses to rational- 
ize the resistance, as inherently illogical. 

The unconscious patterning of linguistic conduct is discoverable not 
only in the significant forms of language but, just as surely, in the sev- 
eral materials out of which language is built, namely the vowels and 
consonants, the changes of stress and quantity, and the fleeting inton- 
ations of speech. It is quite an illusion to believe that the sounds and 
the sound dynamics of language can be sufficiently defined by more or 
less detailed statements of how the speech articulations are managed in 
a neurological or muscular sense. Every language has a phonetic scheme 
in which a given sound or a given dynamic treatment of a [133] sound 
has a definite configured place in reference to all the other sounds recog- 
nized by the language. The single sound, in other words, is in no sense 
identical with an articulation or with the perception of an articulation. 
It is, rather, a point in a pattern, precisely as a tone in a given musical 
tradition is a point in a pattern which includes the whole range of aes- 
thetically possible tones. Two given tones may be physically distin- 
guished but aesthetically identical because each is heard or understood 



One: Culture. Society. <///</ //;c Indnulunl 167 

as occupying the same formal position in the total set o\' rccogni/cd 
tones. In a musical tradition which does not recognize chromatic m- 
tervals "C sharp" would have to be identitled with "c" and would he- 
considered as a mere deviation, pleasant or unpleasant, from '*C"." In 
our own musical tradition the dirrcrencc between "C"" and "C sharp" is 
crucial to an understanding of all oiii music, and, b\ unconscious pro- 
jection, to a certain way o'i misunderstanding all other music buih on 
different principles. In still other musical traditions there are recognized 
still finer intervalic differences, none of which quite corresponds to our 
semitone interval. In these three cases it is obvious that ni>ihing can be 
said as to the cultural and aesthetic status of a gi\en tone in a song 
unless we know or feel against what sort o\^ general tonal background 
it is to be interpreted. 

It is precisely so with the sounds of speech. From a purely objective 
standpoint the difference between the A' of "kill" and the k of "skill" is 
as easily [134] definable as the, to us, major difference between the k of 
"kill" and the g of "gill" (of a fish). In some languages the i: smmd of 
"gill" would be looked upon, or rather would be iiuuitnely interpreted, 
as a comparatively unimportant or individual divergence from a sound 
typically represented by the k of "skill." while the k o\' "kill." with Ms 
greater strength of articulation and its audible breath release, would 
constitute an utterly distinct phonetic entity. Obviously the two disiuici 
k sounds of such a language and the two wa\s o\' pronouncing the k m 
English, while objectively comparable and even identical phenomena, 
are from the point of view of patterning utterly dilTerent. Hundreds of 
interesting and, at first blush, strangely paradoxical examples o\ this 
sort could be given, but the subject is perhaps too lechmcal for treat- 
ment in this paper. 

It is needless to say that no normal speaker has an adequate kni>\sl- 
edge of these submerged sound configurations. He is the unconscious 
and magnificently loyal adherent of thoroughly socialized phonetic pal- 
terns, which are simple and self-evident in daiiv practice, but subtly 
involved and historically determined in actual fact. Owing to the ncvcs- 
sity of thinking of speech habits not merely in overt terms but as involv- 
ing the setting up of intuitively mastered relations in suitable contexts. 
we need not be surprised that an articulatorv habit which is perfectly 
feasible in one set of relations becomes subjectivelv impi>ssiblc when the 
pattern in which it is to be fitted is changed. (I.V>| Ihus. an l.nghsh- 
speaking person who is utterly unable to pronounce a I-rench nas«ilizcd 
vowel may nevertheless be quite able to execute the necessar>' articula- 



168 /// Culture 

tion in another context, such as the imitation of snoring or of the sound 
of some wild animal. Again, the Frenchman or German who cannot 
pronounce the "wh" of our American-English "why" can easily produce 
the same sound when he gently blows out a candle. It is obviously 
correct to say that the acts illustrated in these cases can only be under- 
stood as they are fitted into definite cultural patterns concerning the 
form and mechanics of which the normal individual has no adequate 
knowledge. 

We may summarize our interpretation of these, and thousands of 
other, examples of language behavior by saying that in each case an 
unconscious control of very complicated configurations or formal sets 
is individually acquired by processes which it is the business of the 
psychologist to try to understand but that, in spite of the enormously 
varied psychological predispositions and types of conditioning which 
characterize different personalities, these patterns in their completed 
form differ only infinitesimally from individual to individual, in many 
cases from generation to generation. And yet these forms lie entirely 
outside the inherited biological tendencies of the race and can be ex- 
plained only in strictly social terms. In the simple facts of language we 
have an excellent example of an important network of patterns of beha- 
vior, each of them exceedingly complex and, [136] to a large extent, only 
vaguely definable functions, which is preserved and transmitted with a 
minimum of consciousness. The forms of speech so transmitted seem as 
necessary as the simplest reflexes of the organism. So powerfully, in- 
deed, are we in the grip of our phonetic habits that it becomes one of 
the most delicate and difficult tasks of the linguistic student to discover 
what is the true configuration of sounds in languages alien to his own. 
This means that the average person unconsciously interprets the pho- 
netic material of other languages in terms imposed upon him by the 
habits of his own language. Thus, the naive Frenchman confounds the 
two sounds "s" of "sick" and "th" of "thick" in a single pattern point 
— not because he is really unable to hear the difference, but because the 
setting up of such a difference disturbs his feeling for the necessary 
configuration of Hnguistic sounds. It is as though an observer from 
Mars, knowing nothing of the custom we call war, were intuitively led 
to confound a punishable murder with a thoroughly legal and noble act 
of killing in the course of battle. The mechanism of projection of pat- 
terns is as evident in the one case as in the other. 

Not all forms of cultural behavior so well illustrate the mechanics of 
unconscious patterning as does Hnguistic behavior, but there are few, if 



One: Culture. Soiiciv. ciml ilu Individual 16V 

any, types of cultural behavior which do not illusirale it. Functional 
considerations o^ all kinds, leading \o a greater degree of conscious 
control, or apparent control, o{ the patterns o\' behavior, lend to ob- 
scure the unconscious [137] nature o\' ihc patterns themselves, bul ihc 
more carefully we study cultural behavior, the mtue thoroughly we be- 
come convinced that the ditTerences are but differences of degree. A 
very good example of another Held for the de\elopmenl of unconscious 
cultural patterns is that of gesture. Gestures are hard to classify and it 
is ditficult to make a conscious separation between that in gesture which 
is o^ merely individual origin and that which is referable to the habils 
of the group as a whole. In spite of these difficulties of conscious analy- 
sis, we respond to gestures with an extreme alertness and, one might 
almost say. in accordance with an elaborate and secret code that is 
written nowhere, known by none, and understood by all. Hut this code 
is by no means referable to simple organic responses. On the contrary, 
it is as finely certain and artificial, as definitel> a creation o{ social 
tradition, as language or religion or industrial technology. Like every- 
thing else in human conduct, gesture roots in the reactive necessities of 
the organism, but the laws of gesture, the unw ritten ^o^\c o\' gestured 
messages and responses, is the anonymous work of an elaborate social 
tradition. Whoever doubts this may soon become convinced when he 
penetrates into the significance of gesture patterns o'i other societies 
than his own. A Jewish or Italian shrug of the shoulders is no more the 
same pattern of behavior as the shrug o'i a typical .American th.in the 
forms and significant evocations of the \'iddish or Italian sentence are 
identical with those of any thinkable English [I3S| sentence. Ihe ditTer- 
ences are not to be referred to supposedly deep-seated racial ditlerences 
of a biological sort. They lie in the unconsciousls apprehended builds 
of the respective social patterns which include ihem and out ol which 
they have been abstracted for an essentially artificial comparison. .A 
certain immobility o\^ countenance in New ^'ork or Chicago may be 
interpreted as a masterly example o\' the art o{ wearing a poker face. 
but when worn by a perfectly average inhabitant o\ Iok>o. ii ma> be 
explainable as nothing more interesting or important than the simplest 
and most obvious of good manners. It is the failure to understand the 
relativity of gesture and posture, the degree to which these classes ol 
behavior are referable to social patterns which transcend merel> indiM- 
dual psychological significances, which makes it so easy for us lo find 
individual indices of personality where ii is onl\ the alien culture that 
speaks. 



170 /// Culture 

In the economic life of a people, too, we are constantly forced to 
recognize the pervasive influence of patterns which stand in no immedi- 
ate relation to the needs of the organism and which are by no means to 
be taken for granted in a general philosophy of economic conduct but 
which must be fitted into the framework of social forms characteristic 
of a given society. There is not only an unconscious patterning of the 
types of endeavor that are classed as economic, there is even such a 
thing as a characteristic patterning of economic motive. Thus, the 
acquirement of [139] wealth is not to be lightly taken for granted as one 
of the basic drives of human beings. One accumulates property, one 
defers the immediate enjoyment of wealth, only in so far as society sets 
the pace for these activities and inhibitions. Many primitive societies 
are quite innocent of an understanding of the accumulation of wealth 
in our sense of the phrase. Even where there is a definite feeling that 
wealth should be accumulated, the motives which are responsible for 
the practice and which give definite form to the methods of acquiring 
wealth are often signally different from such as we can readily under- 
stand. 

The West Coast Indians of British Columbia have often been quoted 
as a primitive society that has developed a philosophy of wealth which 
is somewhat comparable to our own, with its emphasis on "conspicuous 
waste" and on the sacrosanct character of property. The comparison is 
not essentially sound. The West Coast Indian does not handle wealth 
in a manner which we can recognize as our own. We can find plenty of 
analogies, to be sure, but they are more likely to be misleading than 
helpful. No West Coast Indian, so far as we know, ever amassed wealth 
as an individual pure and simple, with the expectation of disposing of 
it in the fullness of time at his own sweet will. This is a dream of the 
modern European and American individualist, and it is a dream which 
not only brings no thrill to the heart of the West Coast Indian but is 
probably almost meaningless to him. The concepts of wealth and the 
display of honorific [140] privileges, such as crests and dances and songs 
and names, which have been inherited from legendary ancestors, are 
inseparable among these Indians. One cannot publicly exhibit such a 
privilege without expending wealth in connection with it. Nor is there 
much object in accumulating wealth except to reaffirm privileges al- 
ready possessed, or, in the spirit of a parvenu, to imply the possession 
of privileges none too clearly recognized as legitimate by one's fellow 
tribesmen. In other words, wealth, beyond a certain point, is with these 
people much more a token of status than it is a tool for the fulfillment 



One Ciiliuir. Socii'tv. ami the huliviJiuil 17 1 

of personal desires. We may go so far :is to sa\ thai among ihc W'csi 
Coast Indians it is not the individual at all who possesses \seallh. It is 
priniaril) the ceremonial patrimon\ of which he is the lemporarN custo- 
dian that demands the symbolism ol wealth. Arrived al a certain age. 
the West Coast Indian turns his privileges over to those who are bv km 
or marriage connection entitled to manipulate them. Hencelorth he may 
be as poor as a church mouse, without loss o\' prestige. I should not 
like to go so far as to say that the concepts o\' wealth among ourselves 
and among the West Coast Indians are utlcrlv ditlerent things. Obvi- 
ously they are nothing of the kind, but thev are measurably distinct and 
the nature of the difference must be sought in the tcnal pattermng ol 
life in the two communities from which the particular pattern of wealth 
and its acquirement has been extracted. It slunild be fairlv clear that 
where the patterns of manipulation [141] ol' wealth avc as dilTerent as 
they are in these two cases, it would be a mere exercise o\' the academic 
imagination to interpret the economic activities of one society in terms 
oC the general economy which has been abstracted from the mode of 
life of the other. 

No matter where we turn in the field of social behavior, men and 
women do what they do, and cannot help but do. not merel> because 
they are built thus and so, or possess such and such differences o\' per- 
sonality, or must needs adapt to their immediate environment in such 
and such a way in order to survive at all, but very largely because they 
have found it easiest and aesthetically most satisfactory to pattern their 
conduct in accordance with more or less clearlv orgam/ed forms ot 
behavior which no one is individually responsible for, which arc not 
clearly grasped in their true nature, and which one might almost say 
are as self-evidently imputed to the nature ol' things as the three dimen- 
sions are imputed to space. It is sometimes necessarv to become con- 
scious of the forms of social behavior in order to bring about a more 
serviceable adaptation to changed conditic>ns. but 1 believe it can be 
laid down as a principle of far-reaching applicaiuMi that m the normal 
business of life it is useless and even nnschievous for the individual to 
carry the conscious analysis o\' his cultural patterns around with him. 
That should be left to the student whose business it is to understand 
these patterns. A healthy unconsciousness of the forms ol v d 

behavior to which we are subject is as necessary to (142) stKki; ..^ is 
the mind's ignorance, or better unawareness. o\' the workings o( the 
viscera to the health o\' the bod v. In great works o\ the imagination 
form is significant onl> in so far as we feel i>urselves to be in Us gnp. 



172 /// Culture 

It is unimpressive when divulged in the expHcit terms of this or that 
simple or complex arrangement of known elements. So, too, in social 
behavior, it is not the overt forms that rise readily to the surface of 
attention that are most worth our while. We must learn to take joy in 
the larger freedom of loyalty to thousands of subtle patterns of behavior 
that we can never hope to understand in explicit terms. Complete analy- 
sis and the conscious control that comes with a complete analysis are 
at best but the medicine of society, not its food. We must never allow 
ourselves to substitute the starveling calories of knowledge for the meat 
and bread of historical experience. This historic experience may be theo- 
retically knowable, but it dare never be fully known in the conduct of 
daily life. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in Ethel Dummer (ed.). The Unconscious: A 
Symposium (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1928), 114-142. 



Note 

1. His influence persisted even after he left the University of Chicago in 1918. 



American Psychiatric Associalioii II 
(1929, published 1930) 

ProcccJini^s. Second Colloijuiwu on Personality InvcMiiiuiion. Held under the Jmni Aus- 
pices of the American Psychiatric Association Commit tee on the Relations oj Psyihiulry 
and the Social Sciences, and oj the Social Science Research Council, November 29-30. 
1929, New York City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 

The second A. P. A. colloquium on personality investigation, held in November 1^2^. 
was sponsored jointly with the Social Science Research Council. Seven of the partici- 
pants had been present at the first colloquium. Prior to the meeting, the organi/ers had 
asked each participant to submit a statement explaining his conception of'pcrsonahty." 
so that the statements could be mimeographed and distributed to all. Participants were 
also requested to prepare presentations on studies the\ uere now conducting that re- 
lated to personality, and to mention the kinds of information they believed other in\es- 
tigations might supply for them. In addition, they provided bibliographies of their own 
publications and lists of recommended readings in their particular fields. 

Unlike the colloquium of the previous year, this A. P. A. meeting was dominated 
by qualitative, meaning-based approaches to personality. Although representaiivcs of 
quantitative, nonsymbolic approaches in psychology were present, including some who 
(in 1928) had criticized the qualitative perspective, they did not participate on an equal 
footing. The table of contents for the colloquium's Proceedint^s rellects this dispanl). 
showing distinctive entries for presentations by Sulli\an. Sapir. and Lasswcll. while 
other participants are not specially singled out. 

After the initial discussion of participants" current projects. Sulli\an preNcntcd a 
statement on schizophrenic individuals as a source of data for comparali\c invc>liga- 
tion of personality. Later in the meeting Sullivan, Sapir, and Lasswcll olTercd propos,ils 
for future interdisciplinary research. Sullivan again led otT. with his brief "'Propovil lor 
research in personality investigation by the personality document (life history) mcihixl." 
This was followed immediately by Sapir's contribution, "A proposal for thrcc-lold in- 
quiry into personality." Finally, Lasswcll spoke on the training o\ research personnel. 
a theme Sapir was later to take up in committee meetings o( the StKial .Science Revrarch 
Council. 

At first, the colloquium participants seem to ha\e looked to Sapir \o pro\idc cxolic 
examples from "primitive cultures" as "marginal situations" comparable to the commu- 
nities formed by psychiatric patients and (heir aticiuiants (p AS). Althi>ugh Sapir did 
offer several examples of cultural settings illustrating dillerenl en\ironmcnls lot |KrM»n- 
ality adjustment, his research proposal argued that culture as such was ouJmJc the 
purview of the colloquium's concerns. To studs |XMsiMialil> w.in to studs n ' ' 'v 
culture was but the background against which the indnidual apfvarcd I!.. h 

he advocated emphasized life histories of specific indniduals. starting wHh conlcmpi>- 



174 /// Culture 

rary urban America and "normal" cases, then comparing these with a study of Ameri- 
can schizophrenics, on the one hand, and studies of individuals in other societies, on 
the other. 

This research proposal is sketched only in very general terms. Sapir himself never 
actually undertook serious research of this type. Although he had experimented with 
the life history as a genre for presenting ethnography to a popular audience (1918i, 
1922y). its possible role as the focus of research did not crystallize for him until after 
he had met Sullivan. By the 1930's, he was encouraging students to work along these 
lines. Walter Dyk's Son of Old Man Hat, to which Sapir contributed a Foreword 
{1938a). became an anthropological classic of the genre. 

A full transcript of the A. P. A. meeting was published in 1930. We reproduce here 
only those portions of the discussion that include substantive comments by Sapir 
(pp. 37-39, 48-54. 60-61, 64, 67, 84-87, 96-97, 122-27, 153), with a digest of the 
remainder to provide context. A few queries and minor comments Sapir addressed to 
other participants are omitted. 

Appended to the transcript of the colloquium (as Appendix A) are the participants' 
formulations of their conceptions of personality, submitted before the meeting. Sapir's 
contribution recalls his brief comments at the A. P. A. meeting of the previous year. It 
was later to be further developed in his encyclopedia article on "Personality" and in 
chapter 7 of Vie Psychology of Culture. In a second Appendix, colloquium participants 
provided bibliographies of their own writings, with asterisks indicating those works 
they considered to be most relevant to the problem of personality investigation. Sapir's 
bibliography includes most of his substantive academic publications in anthropology 
and linguistics through 1929 (brief contributions, administrative reports, writings on 
contemporary literature, and reviews are omitted). Our summary lists the marked items 
by date, within the headings Sapir provided. Finally, a third Appendix presented a set 
of annotated bibliographies (a "reading list") prepared by the colloquium participants. 
Sapir contributed most of the bibliographic entries in anthropology and linguistics. A 
few other entries in those categories, such as the entries for Sapir's own "Time Perspec- 
tive" essay and his book Language, were offered by Sullivan and Thomas, but we repro- 
duce only the ones Sapir himself annotated. 

Colloquium participants quoted or mentioned herein, besides Sapir, include: 

Anderson, John E. (Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute of Child 
Welfare, University of Minnesota) 

Blatz, William A. (psychologist. University of Toronto; member, National Commit- 
tee for Mental Hygiene, Canada) 

Blumer, Herbert (Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago) 

Burgess, Ernest W. (Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago) 

Casamajor, Louis (physician and psychiatrist, Columbia University) 

Field, Henry E. (anthropologist. University of New Zealand) 

Frank, Lawrence K. (educational psychologist; staff member, Laura Spelman Rocke- 
feller Memorial) 

Gesell, Arnold (clinical psychologist; Yale Psycho-Clinic, Yale University) 

Healy, William (physician and psychologist; Director, Judge Baker Foundation, Bos- 
ton) 

Kelley, Truman L. (Professor of Education and Psychology, Stanford University) 

Lasswell, Harold (political scientist, University of Chicago) 



One Culture. Society, mul flw InJi\iihuil 1"*; 

Levy, David (psychiatrist. Institute lor Child Ciuidancc) 
Lowrcy, Lawson G. (psychiatrist. Institute lor Child Cjuidancc) 
May, Mark (Professor of Educational Psychology, >i'ale l'nivcrsit\) 
l^lant, James S. (psychiatrist, Lssex County .lu\enile Clinic) 
Slavvson, John S. (social psychologist, Jewish Welfare foundation of Detroit) 
Sullivan, Harry Stack (psychiatrist, Sheppard and f-noch Pratt Hospiial. Baltimore) 
Thomas, Dorothy S. (sociologist. Columbia and ^ale Universities) 
Thomas, William I. (sociologist, ex-lecturer. New School for Social Research. New 
York City) 

As in the previous year, the A. P. A. was represented by psychiatrists White. Sullivan. 
George M.Kline, Arthur H. Rugglcs. and CIKnd Il;i\ihiiui (replacing lidward 
J. KempO- 



William A. White being absent, the collocjuium was opened by another A. P A com- 
mittee member, George M. Kline, who read an introductory statement nniling interdis- 
ciplinary cooperation, disparaging disciplinary "imperialism," and highlighting ihc im- 
portance of investigations of childhood personality dexelopment and socialization I"hc 
remainder of the meeting was jointly chaired b\ the psychiatrist JI.uia Si.ick Siilln.m 
and the political scientist Harold D. Lasswell. 

The first part of the meeting focused on reports of work in progress, prcsciucd h\ 
each participant. The majority of the projects concerned personality de\elopmenl in 
children or adolescents. John E. Anderson. Dorothy Thomas, and Lawrence K. Frank 
each reported on observations of children's play acti\ ities. mainly in nurser> sch«>ols. 
Frank's report also emphasized relationships between social functioning and ph\ steal 
growth. Louis Casamajor, Arnold Gesell, and Lawson G. Lowrey described research 
in clinical settings, while William Healy reported on European work, especially from 
researchers he had visited in Germany and Switzerland. Lowrey. Heal\. and John 
S. Slawson were particularly concerned with deviant or pathological personalilics, as 
was James S. Plant, who discussed cultural and social-situational factors in a slud> ol 
psychiatric case-histories. David M. Levy described studies of mothers" inlliicncc on 
children, using a combination of methods. Emphasizing quantitative melhinls were Tru- 
man L. Kelley, who reported on the development of testing measures for various cogni- 
tive abilities, and Mark May, who discussed questionnaire studies of students in profes- 
sional graduate schools. 

Projects not specially focused on developmental issues included those reported by 
Ernest W. Burgess (a sociologist describing criminology research in Chicago). Harold 
D. Lasswell (reporting on community studies). William I. 'nu>mas (dis^;. 
logical study comparing behavior problems among S\sedes and Itali.n - ^ 

Stack Sullivan (describing his experiences with adult schizophrenics). Sapir s npon Icll 
in this group: 

SAPIR. - I am rather an outsider in many respects in this conference The partK-ubr 
problems that I have been interested in. and which I hope to continue to be inlerotcd 
in, are in the field of speech. The experiments, which are onl\ in an i • ' ■'.' 

at present, are of two sorts. One of them has grown out of some woi • f 

the Institute of Juvenile Research in C hicago; another is one that has not yet been 



176 /// Culture 

started and which I wish to say a word about a Httle later. As to the first of these, I 
may describe it as constituting a study of individual symbolism in the domain of 
speech. 

The gist of this type of work is reported on in a paper entitled "The Study of 
Symbolism," in the June, 1929 number of the Journal of Experimental Psychology.^ 
I do not need to enlarge upon that here, but I should like to read a few extracts 
from the paper. Before doing so let me briefly explain the sort of thoughts that I 
had in mind when I instituted this somewhat peculiar experiment. 

I have wanted to find some sort of evidence for the existence of preferential re- 
sponses in individuals in the domain of word investigation aside from actual social 
experience. "Word investigation'' sounds somewhat paradoxical; it is, in a sense, and 
yet it has, I think, a certain significance in practice. We know from experience that 
words have a meaning or a modicum of meaning that is over and above the official 
meaning that attaches to the word in actual social usage and that comes out in slight 
variations of emphasis or feeling-tone or what not. It seemed to me that the person- 
ality was expressing itself in all individuals in these increments of meaning to a 
certain varying extent ditTicult to detect. In this particular set-up I tried to eliminate 
as well as I could the social determinants of speech and to remove the whole problem 
to an artificial context. 

"In this experiment," as I proceed to explain in the paper, "an artificial word was 
taken as a starting point and assigned an arbitrary meaning by either the investigator 
or the subject. The subject was asked to hold on to this arbitrary meaning and to 
try to establish as firm an association as possible between the imaginary word and 
its given meaning. Some phonetic element in the word, a vowel or a consonant, was 
then changed and the subject asked to say what difference of meaning seemed natu- 
rally to result. The answer was to be spontaneous, unintellectualized. 

"The process was kept on for as long a period as seemed worth while, the satura- 
tion point of meaningful and interested responses being reached very soon in some 
cases, very late in others. In the case of certain individuals, more than fifty distinct 
words were found to build up a constellated system in which the meanings were 
rather obviously the results of certain intuitively felt symbolic relations between the 
varied sounds. In the case of other individuals, actual word associations tended to 
creep in, but on the whole there was surprisingly little evidence of this factor. The 
subjects were found to differ a great deal in their ability to hold on without effort 
to a constellation once formed and to fit new meanings into it consistently with the 
symbolisms expressed in previous responses. Some would give identically the same 
responses for a stimulus word that had been - so it was claimed - forgotten as 
such. In its imaginary, constellated context it evoked a consistent response. Others 
lost their moorings very rapidly. 

"It is hoped to discuss these interesting variations of sensitivity to sound symbolism, 
/. e., to the potential meaningfulness of relations in sound sets, in the final report of 
these investigations." 

These response groups have, I am convinced, a very real significance from the stand- 
point of personality. We can probably show that there are symbolic sets in any type 
of behavior, say auditory, visual, or kinaesthetic. We may find that there are very 
striking differences in individuals. In the case of some individuals, for instance, we 
will probably find that self-developed symbolism sets can be broken up very rapidly 



One: Cull lire. Socicly. and the Iminidiuil 177 

and adjusted to the functional needs of the social environment. In the case of other 

individuals we might have what may be termed personal constellati ig 

that can be eliminated by the indi\idual onl\ uiih some dillicult>. ih nj 

unconscious before he adjusts socially. 1 may refer to a particular case that interested 
me. One of the subjects from whom 1 got a set of responses had the reputation of 
being rather unreasonable. She said herself that the reasons for things olicn seemed 
perfectly clear to her but that there were not understood by others. The intcreMing 
thing about her responses was that they were, as a matter of fact, cxtraordinarih 
"logical" in then given setting. It will be well to go into a little detail m regard to 
them. We were investigating a set of imaginary words beginning with a certain wurd 
for which she gave the meaning "eucalyptus tree." As 1 changed certain vowels and 
consonants in this word, she kept on to the idea of some kind of tree, but as the 
sound changed, the tree changed. She would come to certain points m the scries 
where she would say, "1 don't know enough about botany to tell you what this 
particular tree is, but I can see it. It is short and shady." for instance, and her 
response would fit in nicely with the terms and meanings which preceded and fol- 
lowed. The point of all this is that she was carrying around uiih her a tendency to 
systematization of symbols regardless of overt experience, or. at least, the experience 
was deeply hidden and very indirectly related to its symboli/ation. lliere were plenty 
of other subjects, however, that did not react in this way at all. Some o\ them could 
keep the symbol sequence up for only two or three responses. It seemed to me that 
here was illustrated a very interesting dilTcrencc in indi\iduals in what might be 
called the tendency to constellate symbolisms. 

This is a type of experiment that we might carry over into many dilTercnt realms 
of sensory behavior. I am hoping, with the help of some of our graduate studentN. 
to go on with this type of work. 

The second type of research in which I shall he interested, and of which I know Intlc 
and have everything to learn, is the personality \alue o\' the \oice itself I esvised a 
couple of years ago to write a little preliminary statement in the Atmriiun Journal 
of Sociology on this matter in a paper entitled "Speech as a Personality Trait." In 
this I attempted to show that there were four or \'\\x relatively distinct "layers of 
expression" in speech, starting from the physiological or the lar\ngeal basis up to a 
highly socialized strata, such as facts o\' form and diction in the actual sentence, and 
that in these different layers one expresses certain nune or less s\mptomaiic pcrv>n- 
ality tendencies. 

We are hoping, at the University of Chicago, in the set-up which Dr Lasswcll 
referred to this morning, to install a device for the exact recording of speech, v^hich 
can then be studied at leisure in order that we may work out some oi the more 
obvious traits of personality which are revealed in speech Ilie only way lo do ihts 
is to study the voice apart from other behavior studies and then later lo ir> lo check 
up with the case records or other types o'( personalil> studies of the subiecls t\s a 
matter of fact, we react to speech keenly in ordinary life It is pertcciK . ■ «i 

our judgments of people and of situations are. to a large extent, due to su^' , '>• 

ena as tone of voice, chronic hesitation in speech, and all the rest of the vokx and 
speech characters, only these impressions are never tornuilalcd in ^ ^ 

Indeed our vocabulary for peculiarities o^ voice and for ways i>l h.u »» 

strangely limited. One of the things we should like to do is develop such a vtKabulary 



178 /// Culture 

on the basis of almost microscopic study of actual speech records. As I say, I have 
no results at all; I have everything to learn. 

After the reports. Chairman Lasswell called for discussion, asking Sapir to comment 
as a representative of anthropology: 

CHAIRMAN LASSWELL. - So far this discussion has summarized the projects 
on which everyone is engaged. I take it that one of the most unique and valuable 
things that could happen in a conference of specialists would be the stimulation of 
creative fantasy. What are the opportunities for personality study which are left 
ungrasped? What, in particular, are the situations which offer the greatest contrast 
to those with which we are most famihar? 

Dr. Sullivan has used the instance of the community formed by psychiatrist, atten- 
dant, and schizophrenic patient tor the purpose of suggesting that a somewhat ex- 
traordinary social situation might reveal factors about every social situation which 
we have failed to see. I wonder whether it would be possible for those present to 
detach themselves in some measure from their preoccupations with the details of 
their own research enterprises, as was suggested in the President's opening discus- 
sion, and think somewhat at large about the kinds of marginal situations which we 
would like to be able to study or to have studied in the modern world. One sees, in 
this group Dr. Sapir, representing those who study primitive cultures, and it might 
be advisable (as a follow-up to Dr. Sullivan's suggestion) to ask Dr. Sapir to impro- 
vise at some length about the situations which one finds in certain types of primitive 
societies, and which would seem to offer special possibilities for the exposure of 
some neglected aspects of social relationships. 

I wonder if Dr. Sapir is in a position to indicate some of these possibilities, placing 
them side by side with the suggestions which Dr. Sullivan made for the study of 
another group which lives in a world of unusual presuppositions. 

SAPIR. - You mean, I presume, with reference to our basic interest. The first thing 
that occurs to me in connection with a study of primitive society - the major interest 
being personality - is simply this: that every society presents the individual with 
well-developed patterns of behavior, entirely conditioned in character, that either 
favor or do not favor certain of his innate tendencies. To rephrase this somewhat 
awkward statement, I do not think that it is quite as correct as it is often assumed 
to be that an individual, taken at random, has quite the same chance of success or 
failure in all societies. I think that there are certain preferential differences owing to 
the fact that characteristic behavior patterns get socialized in different ways in dif- 
ferent societies. 

To give an example of the sort of thing I have in mind. In our modern American 
community there is little tendency to indulge in visions. To prophesy out of a spirit 
of conviction not based on hard facts is to be considered pretty much of a loss on 
the whole. One would have to indulge in one's prophetic fancies in some very indirect 
ways, via all kinds of academic techniques, via the use of an accredited jargon and 
all that sort of thing. This social cramping, necessary in our society, would deprive 
the expression of the "visionary tendency" of much of its value to the individual 
possessed of it. But there are a good many primitive societies that are somewhat 
favorably disposed to individuals of that kind. Such individuals could more easily 
be made to fit into a social groove, because their society encourages, rather than 



One: Culture. Siniclv. and ilic Imliviihuil 179 

discourages a man possessed dI" "ihe spinl." otie ulio cm look mlo ihc future and 

lead others on to important t\pes ot activity. lo that extent the ehanees ol ■ 

ing v\ilh his society and developing what our society wi>uld call a ps\. c 

somewhat less than they would be among ourselves. We might say that the potcnlial 

psychosis is capitalized by his society and given an evaluated name, which mak.cs 

such an individual less abnormal in his social environment tlKiii he would K- sMih 

us. 

A good actual example ol" this sort oi thing would be the incidence i>r tiNslcrta 
among the Eskimo and some of the peoples o\' Siberia. The calling of the medicine- 
man is, as a matter of fact, one that requires the abilit\ to put one's self into a 
hysterical trance. Those who are by nature pre-disposed to that kind of conduct have 
a better chance of being significant as medicine-men than others. In other words, it 
would seem that it is not altogether a question of an individual's adjustment to 
society as such; it is not altogether a matter of society's standing for a generalized 
act of human values which either make or break the individual. That is looking at 
the question of adjustment too broadly. It is a question of one's preferential pattern 
of expression or behavior fitting in or not fitting in so well into the socialh transmit- 
ted patterns of behavior. 

I feel very strongly that the type of work that Professor Tliomas has m mind is 
eminently worthy of prosecution and I hope that he will have a great measure i»f 
success in working out the social ditTerentials in their relation to the development of 
behavior problems in the individual. I believe that the proper adjustment of an indi- 
vidual to society is not a single problem, but a multiple one. depending on the s«Kiety 
that the individual is brought up in. 

LASSWELL. - Is it true. Dr. Sapir. that in certain societies vcni find that individuals 
are able to contribute a long account of their own inner experience or inner life, an 
autobiography; while in other societies it is highly improbable that the individual 
can contribute an introspective account of his experience'.' 

SAPIR. - Yes, I think that is true. We find that there are some societies that do not 
value the purely individual experience in fantasy or speculation, while other societies 
value them most highly. I should think that the Pueblo group, for instance, would 
have very little interest in the private, non-sociali/ed dreams or mystic re\elaiu>ns i^( 
an individual. Public rituals would carry the burden of mystic meaning for the group 
An individual who interpolated meanings not thcMoughly in conformitv with the 
tribal ones would have small chance of being a significant individual But with an 
individualistic and autistic type of society, such as we have among the Plains Indians. 
I think an entirely dilTerent mode of social reaction is to be expected. 

You may examine the history of certain new pn^phetic .American Indian religion* 
- the Ghost Dance and the Peyote cult. Both failed to interest the Puchli> Indian* 
but spread like wildfire among the Plains Indians. In the case of the Pueblo Indian*. 
a purely individual expression could not readily Kvome spcciali/cd because there 
was no special formula of value attaching to individual nnsiic evpi-- 
in the latter case such experience, if properly presented in accordance ^ d 

patterns of symbolism and enn)iion, could infiuence the fellowman m the tribe. Dixr* 
that answer your question? 

LASSWELL. - The point, here, seems of such importance that, if >ou pcmiit. I will 
reformulate my questions: It seems that those of us who arc engaged in eliciting life 



180 /// Culture 

stories from individuals are employing a technique of investigation which presup- 
poses certain cultural sets; the investigator is unaware of these cultural sets and so, 
of their etTects on the results that he obtains; is that the implication of what you are 
saying? 

SAPIR. - I think your answer will depend very largely on the kind of values that 
are peculiar to various societies. If you ask the successful American business man to 
give an account of his life, the chances are he will tell you a good deal about his 
ambitions, his overt failures and successes, but he is not likely to bother very much 
about certain uneasy spells that he may have had from time to time, though they 
are psychologically significant, because he would consider them too private and irrel- 
evant for mention. 

ANDERSON. - If you took the unsuccessful individual, those very things would 
become the prominent part of the story. 

SAPIR. - Yes. 

THOMAS. - Dr. Sapir referred to the Arctic sickness. There is too, a similar one 
among the Malays. One is of the arctic and one is of the tropics. Would one find in 
the two situations any common element other than the rigor of the climates? 

I was asking whether there is a predisposition - perhaps climatic - in those 
regions, or is it a behavior pattern developed by some incident in connection with 
which individuals became conspicuous in both countries, not necessarily on the basis 
of the same behavior; whether it is a socialization of an occasional form of behavior 
which assumes considerable magnitude. 

SAPIR. - I take it rather for granted that we have a socialized form of behavior in 
both cases. I should always consider it highly probable that the socialization is im- 
portant in fixing a pattern of that sort. 

THOMAS. - Those reactions are quite different from the one Dr. Sullivan was 
elaborating, that is, running amuck and killing somebody. Do we have to assume 
some constitutional base? 

SAPIR. - I don't imagine for one minute that it is the purely constitutional factor 
that keeps a pattern of this sort going; once it becomes socialized, it may be perpetu- 
ated quite aside from the distribution of personality traits. I shouldn't imagine that 
a statistical psychiatric survey would show very many more hysterics among the 
Eskimos, for instance, than among ourselves. There may be more, but the real point 
is that our society has relatively little use for hysterics. 

THOMAS.- Take the Crazy Dog society; what can you say about the severity of 
exaction of conformity among these ethnological groups in comparison with modern 
life? Is the strain greater among the groups that you worked with? 

SAPIR. - That is rather a large order. I don't quite see how we are going to measure 
the strain that society imposes upon us. We may feel ourselves living a rather soft 
and contented and passive life and yet the actual strains will be much greater than 
we realize. On the other hand, I am not at all sure that even these excessive demands, 
as we would call them, are felt as severe by the Crazy Dogs of the Plains Indians. 
Much depends, of course, on the social background. You can project your own esti- 
mate of strain of course. 

THOMAS. - If it is not felt as strain, it is not strain. 



One Culnirc. Sociclv. uml ilic ImliMdiuil 181 

SAPIR. '- On the other hand. I dtin't think it is quite as simple as that either. 
because undoubtedly there is a vers definite tendency to preserve one's life ai all 
costs. There must be a strain caused by the threat ol death under set siKial condi- 
tions; otherwise we wouldn't have the neurotic and psychotic breakdown, wc do 
have in our own wars, for instance. I think, by the way. that it would be a very 
interesting thing to study just such crisis situations among primitive peoples from 
the psychiatric viewpoint. 

fOWFRY. - Do I understand correctly that in those social gri>ups in \*,\\w\\ there 
is this seeking of death, there is a strong belief that in that way the individual chiefs 
have them without further diUlculty, so to speak'.' Is there another complex system 
that is easily submerged completely in a desire to drive for self-preservalion? 

SAPIR. - It may be in particular cases. 

In the case of the Crazy Dogs of the Plains, I am sure there is no belief in happi- 
ness in heaven beyond the happiness accorded to any individual, but simpK the 
feeling of loyalty to one's comrade. Perhaps I ought to explain that in the C'ra/y 
Dogs fraternity two or three individuals go out on the warpath, risk the utmost and 
vow to come back as a group or to stay behind dead as a group; if one dies, the 
other one or two have to die as well. It seems to me that before you can estimate 
custom of that kind psychologically, you have to know how strong is the underKing 
sentiment. 

LOWERY. - In both instances however, you have to do with \ery stnmg emotional 
conditions, which easily have greater value than the single \alue oi hie itself 

SAPIR. - Certainly. There would have to be some great \alue to overcome the mere 
value of self-preservation. 

SULLIVAN. — Dr. Sapir. you speak of this formation among these particular Indi- 
ans, of groups of two and three who are sulTiciently close knit that a sur\i\or would 
prefer death. That seems to me significant indeed for the understanding of many 
phenomena \\ith which I deal. As it has appeared to me. so also it seems from some 
of Dr. Shaw's studies that the magnitude o'( intimate social groups is distinctly lim- 
ited. I wonder if it would not be valuable to ha\e your \ iews as to just what consti- 
tutes these groups: by that I mean the forces, how can we talk about that which 
constitutes these groups in which sur\i\al oi the remaining one is not \\ox\\\ the 
trouble. What binds them together? How do they happen? What has been done to 
investigate that? 

SAPIR. - In the case of the Plains Indians. I think the social background is compar- 
atively easy to understand. The man becomes a man o{ real impitrtancc insofar as 
he distinguishes himself in war. Tlie greatest \alue that the Blackfoot or the Sioux 
Indians recognized was the value of being a distinguished warrior. particularU frv>m 
the point of view of having been caught in danger, whether actually escaping from 
it or not. It is rather important that the taking of a scalp isn't realK the important 
thing that it is supposed to be. among these Indians at least. It is rather ha\ing been 
in contact with a live enemy, risking a very great danger. The so-called touching of 
the enemy with a coupstick is really a sign oi greater honor than the getting o\ the 
scalp. The getting of the scalp might mean that you simply scalped a slam encnn 
There is no particular credit in that as compared with the other. That is. these Indians 



182 III Culture 

have constructed for themselves a real value in the courting of danger, regardless of 
whether they individually survive or not in the pursuit of war. 

With that as a sort of obsessive background, and with constant horse raids and 
other military expeditions undertaken, often, by just a handful of people for the sake 
of going through this dangerous process, it isn't so difficult to go further and develop 
the extreme form of military prowess which the Crazy Dogs illustrate. Of course 
there is much more than that to it. 

I am afraid we don't know enough about the social psychology of these patterns 
of behavior. The meaning of friendship among males, for instance, is a thing that 
suggests itself as highly important in this society, just as it undoubtedly was in the 
society of the Spartans and among some of the feudal classes of Japanese. It seems 
to me this would be well worth looking into. 

As to the question to what extent the primary psychology has gone out of the 
fixed behavior and to what extent it is being revalidated all the time in the lives of 
particular individuals, I suspect you would find very great differences as you went 
from individual to individual. Some would follow the pattern very blindly, in a sense 
unemotionally and unintending, others would realize themselves much more fully in 
these patterns. It is the same story that we find illustrated among ourselves in reli- 
gion, for instance. We are all given the opportunity, as it were, for certain typical 
kinds of religious expression, but few avail themselves significantly of these opportu- 
nities. 

SULLIVAN. - Now you touch upon a problem which seems to be identical, except 
in matter of approach, with one of the conspicuous situations in the psychiatry of 
schizophrenia. The sort of rebuff which most of my patients seem to have suffered 
is in that very field of affection among males. They have not been able to establish 
the little group that they felt, for a reason that someone might tell us, they should 
establish. What is the anthropologist's approach to the understanding of that situa- 
tion in American culture, let us say? How can we arrange any experiment for eluci- 
dating that matter? 

SAPIR. - Possibly the psychiatrist could contribute much to the enrichment of the 
anthropologist's study. It looks almost as though there were certain types of human 
association which crave certain tokens of personal intimacy, and as though there 
were some societies that granted these tokens more freely than others. One of the 
very distinctive things about modem American culture is the relative difficulty of 
establishing highly emotional friendships between males, and between females for 
that matter. The emphasis is rather on the disruption of too great intimacies of these 
types. But where society, with a complete distinction of the roles of male and female, 
rather favors that type of expression, certain individuals at least are provided with 
an outlet that perhaps saves them from the schizophrenic debauch, it is perfectly 
possible. 

SULLIVAN. - In turn the parallelism increases because that is precisely what we 
do in the mental hospital. We lead to complete distinction of the roles of the male 
and female and try to set up groupings between intelligent and sensitive employees 
and psychotic and sensitive patients of the same sex, and it seems to be remarkably 
successful in reducing the stress and strain of living, and thus in reducing the neces- 
sity for psychotic behavior. 



One: Ciihwc. Soviet v. mui ihc Imlivulual 1X3 

SAPIR. - I may mention another detail in reyanl to the military expeditions of ihc 
Plains Indians. It was necessary lor those wht) entered on an expedition to confers 
all sexual irregularities. Hone o'( the lollowers had committed adultery with the xMfc 
of the leader, he would have to admit that publicly, and no redress could be taken 
SULLIVAN. - In the mental hospitals we again parallel these more or less primiinc 
people in that while there is not any public confession, one ol the most helpful things 
about treatment is the acceptance as having occurred of the sort of ihmg thai your 
Indians might be confessing. In other words, in my particular group it K-cdmics 
common property by tradition that presumably these irregularities happen, and vOiat 
of it? That situation certainly facilitates the thing that the Indian is required to do. 
to-wit; more or less direct confession; and in psychiatric material it seems to relic\c 
a vast amount of tension, with marked improvement of the patient's adaptability 

THOMAS. - May I ask whether this confession is made in order to assure group 
solidarity, or as a device for efficiency in the spiritual sense; in a sense, perhaps that 
if one carried a load of guilt one might not have spiritual cooperation Dr persDn.i! 
confidence in oneself? 

SAPIR. - I am afraid that isn't very easy to answer. The ethnologist is glad to get 
enough facts together to establish some sort of a case. You can't always get behind 
the facts and find out the ultimate motivations. Very often questions which are in- 
tended to elicit such information are not answered cooperatively, or are not fully 
understood. Then again you have to deal with the question of tribal rationalization. 
I think you have a number of problems there that need to be looked into. 

THOMAS. - How widespread is confession? 

SAPIR. - I couldn't say offhand; it is pretty common among a great many primitive 
peoples. The Eskimo have it in another form. I think the point is worth looking into. 
It may have escaped us in many cases. The opportunities for public confession oi 
transgressions, whether sexual or otherwise, is a real ethnological problem. It might 
very well be worked on in connection with these problems of psychiatr> that we are 
interested in here. We don't know the full extent of the confession pattern, but I 
think it is widespread in one form or other. 

The discussion then shifted toward child psychology. Anderson described observa- 
tions of a particular young child who, among other characteristics, had habits ol tidi- 
ness that contrasted with the behavior o'l the rest o^ her family. Sapir inquired: 

SAPIR. - What of the girl's habit o^ neatness; putting her shcK-s away, and all that 

Are there other kinds of behavior that seem to link up with that'.' /\re il ' f 

things linked up with it in such a way that it nught Ix- considered a s>mi 

an isolated fact? 

ANDERSON. - One of the most interesting reports we obtained eon. 

general manner in which she handled objects about the house, lor instaiu. 1 

not attempt to tear books or papers. On being given an object she would run her 
fingers over it very gently. Her general attitude was one of care and delicac) in the 
handling of objects and toys. 

SAPIR. - How does she react if she is thuaried in any of these soothing silualions"^ 
Suppose someone messes up her nicely arranged shoes' 



184 ill Culiure 

ANDERSON. - It doesn't bother her particularly. She just rearranges them. 
SAPIR. Suppose she had the attitude toward society of considering them as play- 
thmgs. which she would be handling caressingly and soothingly, and somebody "dis- 
arranged" them and society wouldn't let her "rearrange" them. If you took the whole 
thmg as a subtle kind o( syniboli/ation, wouldn't that perhaps help? 

Vou spoke before of social adjustment. It occurred to me that perhaps the term 
"social adjustment" was ambiguous. I imagine from what I have been able to see of 
people thai one kind of social adjustment consists in feeling with the other person, 
that is. putting your own claims on the attention of others in abeyance for a while. 
Another type is one that seems unconscious of the fact that your environment is 
distincl from yourself; you handle your environment as though it were your property, 
as though it were yours to play with. I am not at all sure whether these two kinds 
of social adjustment would look identical or different. 

ANDERSON. - I remember talking with a very successful man about the traits 
which led to success. He characterized a degree of ruthlessness in situations as one 
of these traits. This may be a description of what Dr. Sapir means by his second 
type. It is characterized by a lack of social sensitivity and the maintenance of a 
relatively aggressive attitude toward the environment. 

S.APIR. - Some measure of symbolic consistency, as it were. It would seem very 
strange that in one social situation an individual adjusted in a perfectly normal way, 
but in another situation that did not seem to be of a very different nature did exactly 
the reverse. I would like another formula to iron out the difference. 
ANDERSON. - This child may be an extraordinarily sensitive youngster. 

A little later. William Healy described a woman patient who was angry at her mother 
for gi\ ing her an enema as a child. Sapir commented: 

SAPIR. - Isn't there another point involved in this situation? Retrospectively events 
that have happened to us take on new meaning with the growth of our vocabulary. 
It is conceivable that when the enema was administered the shock was not as great 
as it is later represented to be, as a result of reorganization of past experiences. 

Discussion for the rest of the day ranged over many of the research reports, espe- 
cially those concerning children. Slawson's report on a study of delinquency led to 
debate on the relationship between social and "constitutional" factors in personality 
formation: 

THOMAS. - I would like to ask this question of Dr. Slawson and in general: There 
is such a thing as a reading disability or a mathematical disability or a memory span 
disability. You would assume that these are not invariably wholly social, wouldn't 
you? 

SLAWSON. - Yes. 

THOMAS. - This judgment as to what is important and unimportant, what is 
moral and not moral - for instance, a man murders a woman and then feeds the 
canary before he leaves; or, when Wainwright killed a lady he was asked why he did 
it and he said, "For the life of me I don't know, unless it was because she had thick 
legs," and the story of the man who murdered his father and then spoke of him as 
"my late father," always with great equanimity. Couldn't there be a disability in the 



One: C'ulnav. Soiuiv. ii/ul [In liuh\i,/uiil |S^ 

region of such discriniiiKiiioiis.' I luis. ,i Imlc (.iciiiuin gul pu^; 
window in order lo get a bracelet that she had, and thcrcaltcr n: . :. h 

except to complain that they gave her dry bread withoul any dripping). Her cyc» 
blazed at that. Isn't it pt>ssible that we have something fundamental, constitutional. 
in such cases? 

SAPIR. I would suggest that we are oversimplifying when we think that wc c;in 

dellne a certain bit of beha\ior in purely objectiNe terms If one first c«m' 

important factor of symbolic meaning of the behavior, one must in each .. .». 

whether or not a gi\en bit o\' behavior can be the same thing for all indiMduals. 
Murdering one's father under certain circumstances and in certain contexts, whether 
in actual life or a fantasy, might be no more than kicking a cat out of a window On 
the other hand, depriving one's canary bird of a morsel ol cake might be extraordi- 
narily tragic. We must learn to see each bit of behavior as not onI\ what it is m 
measurable terms or as roughh estimated by society at large, but alst> as. in the 
individual case, something distinctly other than what it seems to be. There is the 
necessity of evaluating any type symbolically. I think we should get into the habit of 
thinking of this as a step in our procedure. 

The following morning. Chairman Lasswell turned the discussion toward proposals for 
future research: 

LASSWELL. - As was said in the opening statement, it is hoped that this group 
will be fertile in the invention of lines of research which promise to proMde usciul 
controls upon the type of work which is already under way. Yesterday aftcrniH>n 
several types of in\estigations were hinted at. as rather crucial for the issues which 
were discussed, but relatively few specific proposals actually went into the record, 
so I am wondering whether we might not retrace our steps, and ask Dr. Sapir lo 
indicate rather more specifically what might be studied in primitive culture which 
would sccni to have some pertinence to the matter in hand. 

SAPIR. - I haven't outlined in my mind any program at all that would be intended 
to integrate what we know about primitive culture for personality studies, but it 
seems fairly obvious that something might be devised. 

Have you any particular direction in mind. Dr. Lasswell' 

LASSWELL. - Yes. For example. >ou lui\c somcuhcrc said that in certain cultures 

there is relatively little introversion; if you approached indi\iduals : " ' . 

asking them for life histories, the document umild be \ery thin, and . 

Does this relatively non-introverted culture sur\i\e sulTicienils intact lo make ; 

sible a study which would indicate how it happens that such a state o\ aflTauN can 

come to pass? 

SAPIR. It seems lo mc thai the sort o\ uork sou have in mind would combine 

all the dilTiculties and expense of a normal ethnological field trip • 

dilTiculties which we are all aware of, of getting reliable first-hand : 

individuals in our own culture. That type of investigation would be vcr> dinkult 

You would have to work with interpreters \ery largeK. or, i' 

acquainted with the language to work with direct native U: 

you would have to content yourself with the labor oi taking down lc*ts. which would 

then have to be translated. 



Ig5 /// Culture 

1 don't sa\ thai the task is impossible at ail, but if you want to undertake anything 
hkc a scrums studv oi the actual significance of an alien culture, you have an enor- 
mous problem. You have the problem of selection of adequate cultures, and you 
have technical problems in the field, which transcend very definitely the difficulties 
iu>rmallv recogm/cd. 

Personally I think it is worth while meeting these difficulties. It simply means that 
work o( this'typc. which is a rather new thing, would have to be generously provided 
lor if It is to be a success at all. We might make a few exploratory researches here 
and there. I find that a great many anthropologists are interested in just these prob- 
lems, but they don't as a rule get very tar, because it takes so very long to get 
acquainted with the native in other than a superficial sense. There is a very definite 
wall between you and the average primitive, even if you have got to the state of 
normal friendliness with them. They are not in the habit, perhaps, of being any too 
free with each other: there is jealousy from house to house, and it would be none 
too easy to get life histories that would be of interest to psychiatrists. 
LEVY. - I was talking to one of your students, who told me of a certain Indian 
tribe, which she was acquainted with, the children of which differ from the children 
observed about the University of Chicago in not being at all shy in the presence of 
adults. She tried to explain that on the basis that children in this tribe enter into 
communal dancing from the very early ages and were quite used to dancing with 
adults. 

S.APIR. - How many children had she known? 

LEVY. - This was a general observation. She had made that interesting suggestion 
for the possibility of studying children and the influence of such customs upon them. 
If the observation is correct, it is interesting. We observe among our children that in 
the case of those who associate with adults there is a different vocabulary and type 
of behavior from the others, the difference being due to this association with adults. 

SAPIR. - I don't know what particular tribe was referred to; I don't know how 
many children there were - perhaps there were only one or two children that she 
had an impression of; I don't know whether they were truly representative of their 
own tribal culture or had become pretty well assimilated to the white man's culture. 
There are a number of questions that one would have to ask in order to be clear 
about her point. I should think that the study of the children of primitives would be 
very interesting but, as a matter of fact, I think most primitive groups, as they 
actually are today, would present even greater difficulties than adults, because it is 
precisely the children that are in the very ticklish and difficult and interesting twilight 
zone between the old culture and the new, so that new problems come up in dealing 
with them. 

This whole type of work is difficult wherever you touch it. And, by the way, in 
speaking of primitive cultures we must be clearer as to the realities of the facts. 
Much of what is presented in ethnological books is a reconstruction based on the 
statements of a few old men and women; much, on the other hand, is suggested by 
traits that one actually does see, for integration of the old with the new has taken 
place at varying rates. Some things are absolutely gone, others are kept intact. 

I suppose that if you went to the Blackfoot Indians today in Montana you would 
find that a great deal of the old mythology might be recovered for the asking; and 



One C'lilittiv. Soiii'iv. and ihc liulnulunl 187 

if you selected your inrorinaiUs troni the conser\;iti\c element in the iribc. you would 
find them wearing moeeasms decorated with good old tribal paKcrns. On ihc olhcr 
hand, if you wanted to learn about the old military stKicties. you would find that 
the whole thing has gone absiilutcK ti> pot and sou Nsould ha\c to fish up a lew old 
men who still remember the lacts, though hardK m all their complclcnciks. Such 
information as this you would piece together uith what you actually obM:r\c. and 
in this way you get what looks like a unified account on the printed page bul it \s 
an account that has to be weighted dilVerently at dilVerenl points so lar as the realities 
oi life ar concerned. So that for this type of work you have gol lo gel back of ihe 
ethnologists" field accounts and weigh every single fact with reference to its pcrvinal. 
not merely tribal, reality. That is a big job. 

FRANK. - I uiMider if we ccnild broaden that and ask if there would be any panic* 
ular virtue in considering a program ol personalit\ research which ci>ntemplatcd the 
stud\ in a \ariety o\' contemporary cultures, Irench. Iiiglish. Cjeniian. and so on. 
either in the nati\e countries or to a certain extent for preliminary reconnaissance 
by approach through the representatives here. 

SAPIR. - That doesn't contradict the other in any way. 

FRANK. - Could we broaden the original proposal so we would be discussing not 
only primitive peoples but those that might be more immediately accessible to this 
group? 

SAPIR. — I think the selected primiti\e groups would be all right, but the prelimi- 
nary work is very considerable. But then I don't think that even a fragmentary study 
of the personal problem in primiti\e groups is without value I think that a careful 
record of the life experiences ol the older men and wnmen would be decided!) worth 
while, provided you had enough know ledge and imagination to reconstruct the back- 
ground. 

I don't think it is possible lo sail into an ethnological field with a few generalities 
in one's mind, ask a few questions and expect to get anything that is worthy of 
serious consideration. The work will require years of careful approach. 

FRANK. - What I am trying lo bring out is a rather explicit question as to how 
far this group considers it necessary to make what might be called a cultural study 
as either a preliminary to or as contemporary with the personality stud> of other 
groups. In other words, are we facing the pn^blem here i>f what such a sludv wi>uld 
involve in terms of either a clinical approach to a lew selected individuals or/and a 
careful investigation of the whole cultural contrast as we see it in the larger studies 
which the social scientists are concerned with. 

That is a very real question that inight to be considered explicitlv. because in 
suggesting new types of approach, we ought to decide whether we consider that t>pc 
of investigation really important and necessary to personahtv I take it >ou agree 
that it is. 

SAPIR. - I certainly do. I think it is decidedl> wv^rth while to gei into n.miu- h-i.i- 
tively intact culture, such as that of the Hopi. or into a culture that has ap|\ircntl> 
gone lo seed, like that, say, of the Tlingit in .Southern .Maska. but which is ali\c 
psychologically because it still forms a large part oi the mental content of the men 
and women. I think it is decidedly worth while getting perM>nal data from such 
cultures before it is too late. Now is tlie time to ^\o the work if it is lo be done at 



IJ^S III Culture 

all I ihink that such work should be undertaken as a joint enterprise of well trained 
field ethnologists, primitive linguists, psychologists, psychiatrists, economists, and 
other social scientists. 

f RANK. - Would you be willing to go further and say if we were to approach a 
contemporary culture such as the European, the same thing would obtain? 
SAPIR. I think we ought to have a three-step program; we should study individual 
variations, as we are doing within our own culture, remembering that we cannot 
easily define our own culture objectively because we are immersed in it. We should 
then no on to the alien but not too distant cultures, such as the Italian, Swedish, 
and Russian cultures. We should then use the experience of field ethnologists and 
integrate with their work for the study of personality in primitive cultures. I consider 
that the most important and likely to lead the most thankless results here and there, 
but 1 am sure that wc should get very illuminating results by such parallel studies of 
the individual in diJTering cultures. 

FRANK. - Haven't we at our very doorstep certain opportunities in the sense that 
we have the French Canadian culture just across the border, the Spanish Latin cul- 
ture iust across the border on the other side, so that if we were disposed to start 
something along these lines in this country, we might by some preliminary work 
bring out some of the difficulties and some of the relevant factors, before launching 
a more ambitious program. 

SAPIR. - There is a good deal that could be done in a preliminary way at compara- 
tively little expense. For instance, there are a great many Indians drifting around in 
our cities here that are none too well adjusted to modern life and who know quite 
a little about the old life. If you could make it clear to them that you wanted frank 
autobiographic statements, going into as much detail as possible as to their difficul- 
ties of adjustment, at so much per page, I think one could get a great deal of very 
valuable material. 

Later, after a discussion of urban problems and children's need for intimacy, Lass- 
well again called on Sapir: 

LASSWELL. - I wonder. Dr. Sapir. if one is well advised to say that all primitive 
children have greater opportunities for intimacy than children reared in Western 
European culture? 

SAPIR. - I think that is true to a very large extent. The whole quesfion of intimacy 
in various groups of human beings seems to me to be a very involved one. I was 
thinking a good deal about what Mr. Plant said as he spoke. I envisage the problem 
which he implies to be something like this: Assuming that all normal human beings, 
whether primitive or civilized, whether living in congested districts or in scattered 
rural districts, have certain basic needs of a psychological nature, what particular 
means does their culture possess for the fulfillment of these needs? Some intimacy 
must be found, either actual or symbolic; the ego must be maintained; and so forth. 
What form does the yearning for intimate relations take in a given culture? What 
constitutes for it a healthy maintenance of the ego? 

What surprises Mr. Plant, apparently, starting, as he does, with the presumption 
of our traditional culture, is that, as conditions change rapidly in the economic or- 
dering of our lives, human beings turn out to be more plastic than he had any idea 



One: Culiiiir. Society, ami ilic InJividual 189 

they might be. I should say his error, in so far as it was an error of expectation. wa» 
due to the fact that he was taken in. as we all are. by the overt character of ttu 
materials of culture. One should lr> to see these malerials symbolicall> It diK i, ; 
seem to make so very much diOerence. so far as psychi>logical mtmiac\ is ti»nccrncd. 
whether you Uve in an immensely scattered community, like that of the Na^aju Indi- 
ans, where you ha\e to travel miles in order to meet your neighbor, or li\*e in a 
pueblo, where you are massed even more lightly than we are in the apartments of 
New York City, in an American rural district or in a small town or in a congealed 
district like New York. There are certain dilTerenccs. of course; conditions will aflfcct 
the forms that intimacs will take, but they are not likeK to alVcct materially the 
psychological tact of intiniac\. 

It seems to me ouv prt^blcm is one o{' the adjustment by people to an almost 
infinite \ariet\ of social forms. I^ilTercnt t>pes of neurotics and psschotics arc pro- 
duced on the basis of dilTering social determinations, but the essentially normal per- 
son will accommodate himseli' to practicalK any kind of condition that has the war- 
rant of sociel\. That is about as much as we need to know, as normal people It imi'i 
for us, as individuals, to ask whether this or that social feature conslitutes a go.Hj 
condition or a bad condition, whether it is a possible or an impossible condition 
We know, as members of our society, that it is a potentially good condition if onl> 
because people say it is. 

The subsequent discussion included a lengthy report by William A Blal/, who had 
just joined the group, on field observations of children's interactions in Toronto. After 
lunch, the conversation centered on Sulli\an"s work with schizophrenics, and the ; 
of patients" cultural background and social environment. Sulh\an called for comni. 
tary from Sapir: 

S.APIR. - I am rather impressed, Mr. Chairman, by the small amount of dissent 
that is aroused in my own mind as I hear these various proposals, some of ihcin 
apparently proceeding from very difTerent horizons. It seems to me that the essential 
problem we have before us is not so much one of hospitalit> to all sorts of i* 

suggestions and possibilities as one of concentration. 1 am trying to think re... : 

from two points of view: first, from the point of view of general scientific actiMl> in 

human behavior, and secondly, from the point of \iew of the constiiuli' 

particular group as a partly psychiatric and a partly social science group i 

we bear these two external factors in mind it will help us to cr\stali/e our program 

somewhat. 

First, as to the former, we must not lose sight of the fact that there arc a good 
many agencies at present that are prosecuting valuable work of many difTcrcnl iorti 
in the general field of social science, ranging all the way H 
behavior or collective human behavior or statistically control 

impersonally conceived social aclivhy. that is. cultural studies I1»erc i» $o miKh oi 
that kind of work going on that if we are merel> going lo dabble h. 
within this tremendous terrain we are not likely to constitute l>u(scl^c^ 
tive body. We all hope, more or less, to do just that. howe>er. 

I should therefore suggest in a surgical, but not hostile, spirit th.u 
not coming within the purview of this particular griuip the siud> ol ci. 
Secondlv. that we do not consider as ciMiiing within the purview of ihw giuup ihe 



190 ill Culture 

siudy of" social processes as such, although we shall have plenty of opportunity, of 
course, to illustrate many social processes as they aflect individuals. Thirdly, that we 
take no very special interest in statistical methods as such, though it goes without 
saying that \se are not to be so foolish as to scorn them where they are helpful to 

us. 

Irom the second point o^ view, as regards the participation of psychiatrists and 
social scientists in a common endeavor, it seems to me that we are driven by the 
very terms o^ our association to the problem of personality. The psychiatrist starts 
Uo\\\ the deranged individual and, whatever he may think about the existence or 
non-existence o^ personality, he has to deal with individuals who are either getting 
along pretty uell in life or who are not getting along. The psychiatrist starts, then, 
from the individual and is rather curious, sometimes hopefully and sometimes skepti- 
cally, about where society comes in. The social scientist, on the other hand, has 
worked out certain official patterns of behavior and is inclined to wonder whether 
there is any "individual" to speak of. There is, then, a common terrain carved out 
by implication for us all here, that of personality in society. 

We have had many skeptical remarks made about what constitutes personality, 
but 1 think no one every really loses sight of the concept. I suppose it is the only 
thing we really know anything about, inasmuch as we have a conception of ourselves 
and project that conception into all other bodies that we see about us. Practically, 
then, we are not going to succeed in getting away from the concept of personality. I 
would suggest, therefore, that we take the bull by the horns and admit that the one 
thing we are really interested in and yet tend to neglect is precisely personality, what 
the individual is. how he appears against various backgrounds, what kind of trouble 
he may get into in the terms of a given background, how he may get out of that 
trouble and reintegrate himself in the terms of that background, and so on. That is 
the psychiatric point of view, I take it, and it is not one which is in the least inimical 
or unfavorable to the standpoint of the social scientists. I think we have that much 
in common. 

I would say, then, that the guiding point of view that clearly differentiates us from 
other groups and institutions is that we are only secondarily interested in social 
phenomena or in group behavior or in physiological processes as such, that we are 
primarily interested, as our starting point, in given individuals and in where they 
belong, from the somatic to the cultural, but always with a frank emphasis on the 
individual. If we bear this clearly in mind it seems to me that we cannot take very 
much interest in mass data or in statistical data as such, however much we value 
them for purposes of preliminary differentiation. We must hold fast to individual 
differentials as our main interest; that is, whether we admit it or not, we are inter- 
ested in what, for want of a better term, we call types. Whether there are innumerable 
types of individuals or only a few fundamental types is a secondary question. 

The life history must be the document par excellence which interests us, not be- 
cause it is an interesting document, but because we hope by its means to get together 
in order that we may clarify the concept of personality. As far as an actual program 
is concerned, one might suggest dozens and dozens of interesting ones, but in view 
of the constitution of this group, I would suggest that we proceed in some such way 
as this: being interested, first of all, in individuals and in the problem of personality 
but feeling in the light of everything that has been said that these personalities cannot 



One: Culture. Sociciv. mul ihc hulivuJucil |9| 

be conceived as isolated entities hut nuist he tlioui:hi of against given backgrounds. 
we frame our pri>grani uilli primary reference lo ivjx-s of ciilliiral ha*. • 

Roughly speaking, we ha\e three kinds o\ background thai uc .iic .. i lci» 
famihar with. The background ot daily experience here in New York Ciiy, for in- 
stance, which we ha\e an intimate inluitne knowledge o\ but which wc 
unable lo delimit in properly scientific terms, we may ci>nsidcr .is kn»)wii 
less. We, as a personality group, need not encourage studies oi the Middleio<*-n lypc 
but we cannot but use studies o\' this sort and whate\er others mas be prepared by 
other agencies. 

Secondly, there are backgrounds for which we have a kind o\ friendly fechng and 
of which we have a good measure o\' understanding but which we do not know or 
"intuit" in any detail. Such, for instance, is the life of the Scandinasians or the 
Sicilians referred to by Dr. Thomas. In some cases there is a considerable amount i»f 
literature on these cultures, which can be digested as a preparation for persi>nalii\ 
studies; in other cases there is much to be done as a preliminary lo such studies, but 
these cultural explorations should be left to other agencies. 

Thirdly, there is the remote but extremely \aluable type of background which has 
been often referred to in these meetings, that of primitive man. I would not at all 
suggest, though I am personally much interested in ethnological studies, that wc. as 
a group, engage in cultural studies of primiti\e folk in the Held, but rather that wc 
try, through certain spokesmen that we might select, to acquaint ourselves with what 
has been done on the culture of selected primiti\e grt>ups, say two or three selected 
primitive groups, in order that we may then set about the work i)f siiid\ine ivrs.>ii.d- 
ity in these given environments. 

As to just exactly what a personality study slunild consist ol m these iliiee i..iscs. 
that is a matter for further thought. It seems to me that the interest that has been 
brought to light in this conference suggests that there are two rather distinct types 
of approach. First, the discovery of signitlcanl personahtN types and corre^ 
personality adaptations to dilTerent backgrounds. That is a large problem ^ 
the special problems of maladjustment, leading to mental disorders of vanous sorts. 
It seems to me that we would be well advised to capitalize both of these 
interest, and - not because I wish to force a program in any sense but f 
should like to have something tangible put before us for discu.ssion - I would sug- 
gest that these various programs be envisaged in the following terms: First, ihal a 
very careful study be made of a rather small number of selected casc^ in our own 
culture, which would throw light on personality diflerentials. these cases to he nor- 
mal or not very far from the normal. Ihat this study be made from c\cr> pi^sMhk 
point of view, ranging from the somatic to the cultural. b\ a scientific group that 
has enough interest, each and e\ery one of the group, m intimate problem* ol per- 
sonality to follow in more or less detail and participation the \arious types of pcr>*'n- 
alily study made of these selected indi\iduals. Ihis is \ery much the kind ol stud> 
that was suggested before for schizophrenics. That we i.\o that particularK with mem- 
bers of our own culture. Secondly, that we carry on the same l\pe of study with a 
selected group of schizophrenics, the two stuilies more or Icvs eontrolhng each other 
And. further, 1 would suggest that we extend the schizophrenic v' 
of the near cultures, such as that of the Sicilians and of the Scan^ 
the primitive cultures. It seems to me that one of the crying needs in the whole field 



192 in Culture 

of human behavior is to discover what maladjustment means in the remoter cultures. 
We have raised that particular point over and over again. There isn't a man alive 
who has much o\' real value to say about that. We are not familiar with mental 
disorders as distinct entities in any other levels than our own, but I think that a 
really profound attack on the problem of neurosis and psychosis in two or three 
selected primiti\e cultures is by no means hopeless. How to go about it is a question 
of tactics. I would suggest that a psychiatrist acquaint himself very fully with all the 
pertinent cultural material, which should be brought to his attention before he begins 
work, and that he then go to the field himself and reinterpret what he has learned 
in the light o\' his own experience with other subjects. That will at least give us a 
pi>nil of departure. 

Tliese three studies - and I might include Professor Thomas', but Professor 
Thomas. I understand, is planning for his work another type of support - are the 
ones I would plead for. To summarize briefly: first, the very careful study of a rather 
small number of selected normal types, illustrative, one hopes, of several distinct 
types and studied exhaustively by a group of people interested in personality as such. 
Secondly, a similar study of a schizophrenic group. And thirdly, the extension of the 
second study to alien cultures, including the primitive. 

ANDERSON. - I have one question in which I am not quite clear in Dr. Sapir's 
presentation, that is his determination of these personality differentials. It seems to 
me that any study of personality differentials implies to some extent at least a study 
of trends, and that you immediately get over into at least some statistical considera- 
tions. 

SAPIR, - I agree fully with you. I don't want to be interpreted, or rather misinter- 
preted, as implying a lack of interested in, or theoretical hostility to, any other types 
of interest than those indicated. I think we are going to be driven inevitably to a 
certain amount of statistical work, to a certain amount of preoccupation with cul- 
tural problems and definitions, to a study of social processes as such, to somatic 
classification, and so on. I take that for granted, but we should never lose sight of 
the fact that the center of our interest is the actual individual studied. 

I think it is important to have a general objective in mind and to be swayed by 
that objective. 

BURGESS. - Might you take care of that interest by a phrase in these case studies 
that we hoped they would give criteria for studies? 

GESELL. - May I ask is this a cross sectional type of study of the normal group 
of individuals? 

SAPIR. - Cross sectional in what sense? 

GESELL. - Time sense or what is the individual chronologically? 

SAPIR. - That I should prefer to leave for further discussion. I wasn't thinking of 

crystallizing a program quite to that extent. 

LEVY. - Did you have an age group? 

SAPIR. - I didn't have a particular age group in mind. 

ANDERSON. - Personally I am tremendously in sympathy with the first part of 

Dr. Sapir's suggestion, because it seems to me that the place where we have fallen 

down most decidedly is in our study of adjusted individuals, that we really, with 



One: Culture. Sociav. und the liiilnulual |93 

reference to main o\' tlicse problems. ha\c iu> frame i>f reference, so lo speak, and 
that perhaps the most helpful thing we cmiltl ilt> ti> throw certain problems tnlo clear 
relief with reference to both sociological aspect and psychiatric aspect wtiuld be lo 
project some sort of study in which essentially the same complete mcthodolog> was 
applied to normal or successful or well adjusted indi\iduals as is now applied lo 
maladjusted or schi/ophrcnic or psychiatric cases. 

KELLEY. - If I might add a word about the statistical cases, 1 can follow directly 
in the thought that Dr. Anderson has advanced. It seems to me that the function of 
the statistical work is to provide a frame o{ reference. Personally I don't see an> 
interest in that frame as a frame; it is valuable only because it works in mterprctm^ 
individual cases. In this sense I agree completely with Dr. Sapir. I don't have any 
interest in a statistical study as such. In the use o\' that term by Dr Sapir, I was 
quite at a loss to know what that might be. 

The only thing I can see in the accumulation of statistical data is the value thai 
it gives in enabling the handling o\' the individual issue, so I do not believe there is 
any need for a great amount. 

SAPIR. - In self-defense I ought to clarifv mv statement a little, rheorclically. I 
dont suppose there is a single statistician living who would sav he was interested in 
statistics as such. He is always interested in whatever problems statistics are sup- 
posed to throw light on. but in the sad actuality oi experience we know that if one 
happens to have a specialist's interest in the statistical method he tends to select 
those particular problems which yield or seem to vield to statistical trc.iimcnt I 
think that is a matter of common observation. 

I was merely pleading for the guarding against that particular kind ol dancer, 
which I think is a very real danger in the social science world today. I sec a tremen- 
dous number of studies being made that are only mildly interesting to social science 
but what appeals to me as significant about them is that thcv are the kind of studies 
that can be handled statistically. 

When you turn around and suggest another problem which is of crucial impor- 
tance to the understanding of the individual in society, you are likelv to b 
the statistical social scientist that you can't do much with it because the 
method is the quantitative method and it seems not to be applicable in the suggested 
study. There is some kind of statistical magic circle that seems lo form 
point or other in the field of social science, and I think we ought lo K 
our minds that in spite of the obvious difllculties of understanding individuals. «rc 
are interested precisely in the individual and all the diO'iculties thai he presents and 
that in most cases statistics won't help us to any significant extent. 

We are not to idolize statistical techniques merely because Ihey give us clear, easily 
handled "results" of minor interest, if iiuiecil they have interest at all 
KELLEY. - If they do that, tlicy merely become measurements of unessential fea- 
tures. 

SAPIR. - Yes. but it seems to mc that a great deal o{ the slalislical sliKk in trade 
today gives us material that is of rather little essential interest W 
what it docs give us. but it does not help us very much in Us undi i 
a given individual or of society as a whole. 



194 /// Culture 

THOMAS. - Dr. Sullivan, what is the relation of Dr. Sapir's statement to your 
proposal o{ study? What would be the scope, in other words, of the study that you 
propose in the light o^ what Dr. Sapir has said? 

SULLIVAN. It strikes inc that it would require very little effort to bring the two 
into identity, much less agreement. Dr. Sapir has included everything of which 1 had 
thought and more, it seems to me that in Dr. Sapir's suggestions we have an actual 
basis for beginning something of very great importance. 

Some discussion of Sapir's and Sullivan's proposals followed. Chairman Sullivan 
then called upon Harold Lasswell, whose comments centered on the development of a 
training program for the study of personality along the lines proposed in the collo- 
quium. Other participants commented from the perspective of their disciplines and in- 
stitutions, linally. the two guests. Henry E. Field and Herbert Blumer, were called upon 
for remarks, and the meeting adjourned. 



Appendix A: Formulations of Personality 

S.XPIR. - "Personality" can be defined from various points of view: first, as a 
philosophical concept, the subjective awareness of the self as distinct from other 
objects of observation; second, as a purely physiological one, the individual human 
organism, u ith emphasis on those behavior aspects which differentiate it from other 
human organisms; third, as a descriptive psycho-physical one, the human being con- 
ceived as a given totality, at any one time, of physiological and psychological reac- 
tion systems; fourth, as a sociological or symbolic one, those aspects of behavior 
which give "meaning" to an individual in society and differentiate him from other 
members of the community, each of whom embodies countless cultural patterns in 
a unique configuration; fifth, as a psychiatric one, the individual abstracted from the 
actual psychophysical whole and conceived of as a comparatively stable system of 
reactivity - cognitive, affective and conative. The first concept treats "personality" 
as an invariant point of experience; the second and third, as an indefinitely variable 
reactive system, the relation between the sequence of states being one of continuity, 
not identity; the fourth, as a gradually cumulafive entity; the fifth, as an essentially 
invariable reactive system. 

It is the last concept which it seems most important to stress. The psychiatrist 
does not deny that the little child. Tommy, who rebels against his father is, in many 
significant ways, "different from" the middle-aged Prof. Thomas Jones who has a 
penchant for subversive theories, but he is primarily interested in noting that the 
same reactive ground-plan, physical and psychic, can be isolated from the behavior 
totalities known as Tommy and Prof. Jones. He establishes his "invariance of person- 
ality" by a complex system of concepts of behavior equivalences, such as sublima- 
tion, affective transfer, rationalizadon, libido and ego relations. 

The question arises at what stage in the history of a human organism is it most 
convenient to consider the "personality" as an achieved system, from which all sub- 
sequent cross-sections of the individual's psychophysical history may be measured 
as minor, or even irrelevant, variations. It is suggested that this stage be that of the 



Oiw Cult lire. Socictv. and the hulivulual |95 

"prc-cultuiar' child, the human organism as dclcrmincd. in many ways, by heredity. 
by pre-natal conditioning, and by post-natal ci>nditionmg up to ihc poini where 

culture patterns are consciously nuHiilyuig his bcha\ior. 

* * * 



Appendix B: Select Bibliographies Subiiiiiicci h> Members 
of the Second Colloquiiini 

In a list of his own publications, Sapir niaikcil the t'olUuMng items with aslcnsks 
(headings are his): 

General Liiii^tilsiics. Sapir 191 lb, 192 Id, 1925p. 19:7c. 192ym. 

American Indian Lini^uisiies. Sapir 1912h, 1921a. 1929a. 1929d. 

Ethnology and Social Psyelwloiiv. Sapir 1915g. 191.Sh. 19l6g. 19kih. lM:4b H.irJxMu 

and Sapir 1925. 1926i. 1927a. 1928a, i928j, 1928b, I921g. 



Appendix C: Annotated Reading List Prepared b\ Menibcrs 
of the Second Colloquium and Others 

Sapir's contributions are as follows: 

ANTHROPOLOGY 

Boas, Franz: 

The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: Macmillan; 1911. 

This book comes the nearest of all Boas' writings to expressing his general poinl of 

view in studying human culture. Important because it shakes us free lr> ■ 

Occidental values, shows the unimportance o\' race (as a biological cim;. , 

understanding of culture, and stresses the necessity o\' studying the historical m. Ibc 

psychological background of custom if we are to understand human behavior 

E. S. 

Golden weiser, A. A.: 

Early Civilization. New York: Knopf; 1922. 

A con\enient introduction to cultural anthropolog\. Cii\es biKl>v.^«. ..^.^^ .. .. .v- 

selected primitive cultures, outlines the essentials of various aspects of pnmitive culture 

in general, and gives a con\enient siunmars of ethnological theories 

E. S. 

Kroeber, A. L.: 

Anthropology. New York: Ilarcourt. Hr.ice: 1^'2V 

A very readable introduction to the wlu>le Held of anthiiM^^'l>\i:> lmprcNsmi:i> Mrcx*o 

the unity of the whole historical privcss o\' the de\elopmcnt ol culture 

E. S. 



196 III Culture 

Lcvy-Bruhl, L.: 

How Natives Think. (Tr. Lilian A. Clare, from "Les Fonctions Mentales Dans Les So- 
cietes Infeneures"). New ^ork: Knopf; 1925. 

An altempi to show that primitive man is controlled by a "prelogical mentality" that 
dilVers m character from the mentality of civilized man. Suggestive rather than convinc- 
ing. 
E. S. 

Lowie. R. H.: 

Are We Civilized? New York: Harcourt, Brace; 1929. 

A light but informative introduction to the vagaries and inconsequences of the develop- 
ment oi human culture. 
E.S. 

Primitive Society. New York: Boni & Liveright; 1920. 

.An excellent analytical study of the varieties of association and social differentiation 

among primitive peoples. Lays several evolutionary ghosts. 

E.S. 

Malinowski. Bronislaw: 

Crime and Custom in Savage Society. New York: Harcourt, Brace; 1926. 

A brilliant study of the clash in a primitive society (Trobriand Islanders) between incest 

custom and the surges of individual impulse and sentiment. A good antidote to the 

uniformitarianism of most anthropological writing. 

E.S. 

Se.x and Repression in Savage Society. New York: Harcourt, Brace; 1927. 
A valuable, if somewhat thinned out, contribution to the reinterpretation of psychoana- 
lytic doctrines in the light of data from a selected primitive community. 
E.S. 

Radin, Paul: 

Primitive Man as Philosopher. New York: Appleton; 1927. 

Stresses the higher life of the primitive. Contains a convenient anthology of primitive 

literature. 

E.S. 

Rivers, W. H. R.: 

Psychology and Ethnology. New York: Harcourt, Brace; 1926. 

A set of interesting contributions to the study of various phases of primitive culture. 

Rivers' work is important because, starting as a psychologist, he was led to evaluate 

the purely historical factors in the growth of custom. 

E.S. 

Tylor, E. B.: 

Primitive Culture. New York: Putnam; 1924 

Classical treatment continuing to have real importance. 

E.S. 

Wissler, Clark: 

Man and Culture. New York: Crowell; 1923. 



One Culture. Sociciv. ami i/w liulnuhuil |97 

An excellent and simple analysis o\' (he luitiirc of human culture and of its geographical 
spread. The treatment of the "universal pattern" of culture as an innate tendency at Ihc 

end o{' the book needs to be viewed skeptically. 
E. S. 

LANGUAGE 

Dominian, Leon: 

The Frontiers o^ Language and Nationality in Lurope. Neu ^ork: 1917. 

A splendid object lesson in the independence of linguistic, cultural, and racial llnc^ and 

in the importance of language as a symbol of nascent natiiMialism 

E. S. 

Jespersen, Otto: 

Language. New York: Hold; 1922. 

A readable treatment of fundamental problems o\ language, the emphasis being on the 
modern languages of Europe and the spirit of the book practical rather than penetrat- 
ingly analytical. 
E.S. 

Vendryes, J.: 

Language: A Linguistic Introduction to History. (Tr. Paul Radiii i New York: Knopf. 

1925. 

A good presentation of the dynamics of linguistic development from the standpoint of 

an Indo-Europeanist. 

E.S. 



Note 

1. Sapir 1929m. "A Study in Phonetic Symbolism." - LI). 



The Cultural Approach lo ihc SukK 
of PersonalilN ( 1^)30) 

Contents: 

1. Introduction: the Hanover Conference. August 2^^Septeniher 2. 
1930 ^ \'N 

2. Daytime sessions: excerpts troni discussion 202 

3. "The Cultural Approach to the Stud> o\' Personality" (lecture 
and discussion, evening of August 31. 1930) 207 

4. Other evening sessions: excerpts from discussion . . 235 

5. "Original Memorandum to the Social Science Research C ouncii 
from the Conterence on Acculturation and IVMsonaiil)." Hano- 
ver, September 2, 1930 243 

6. "A Project for the Study of Acculturation anuMig the American 
Indians, with Special Reference to the linestigation of Problems 
of Personality," ms. presented to the Social Science Research 
Council, September 2, 1930 246 

7. "The Proposed Work of the Committee on Personalit\ and Cul- 
ture" 249 

a. Outline, September 2, 1930 249 

b. Revised version, Februarv 18, 1932 250 



1. Introduction: the liaiuncr Conference. 
August 29 - Scplcnihcr 2. 1930 

The Social Science Research Council (SSRt ) continued lor scxcral yean lo hold 
annual conferences at Hanover, New Hampshire. Alter his 1^26 .iddrcs*. however. Sapir 

olTered only one other major presentatuMi: "'nie Cultural App 
Personality." a paper delivered at the Hano\er Conlerencc on T 
in 1930.' 

In this presenlalioii Sapir continued to de\eU>p his the 
linked it crucially with a psychiatric approach lo person.dii . i 
standpoint, psychiatric understandings about pcrsonalily dcvclopmeni and intcKmtKia 



200 III Culture 

were drawn into culture theory; from an interdisciplinary standpoint, he added a cul- 
tural dimension to personality. Characteristically, Sapir argued that personality and 
culture were distinguishable solely in the analyst's point of view. Rather than two sepa- 
rate orders of phenomena, each one if properly studied led inevitably toward a consider- 
ation of the other. It \sas the meeting-point of culture and personality, therefore, that 
most demanded attention. 

Psychiatric concepts. Sapir argued, required considerable broadening to incorporate 
cross-cultural variability. Even within our own society, nuclear personality was inacces- 
sible to the analyst except against the background of cultural (and subcultural) conven- 
tion and social personae. The psychiatrist should pay attention to the individual's un- 
conscious adjustment to that background, while the anthropologist should pay atten- 
tion to the variability of individuals' experiences and orientations even within a suppos- 
edly homogeneous group. Unlike some other anthropologists of his day, Sapir expected 
as much behavioral variation across individuals in so-called primitive societies as in 
American society. Looking ahead to interdisciplinary collaboration, he envisioned 
anthropologists focusing on culture and psychiatrists focusing on the individual as 
meeting in the middle, their insights merging. 

This was the first time Harry Stack Sullivan was at Hanover, and he echoed Sapir's 
version of the potential collaboration. Senior psychiatrist Adolf Meyer protested, how- 
ever, that his "common sense psychiatry" did not have to separate culture and indivi- 
dual. While Meyer seems to have felt sympathetic to some of Sapir's goals, he missed 
Sapir's problematic in relation to culture theory - and so, he also missed the way 
Sapir's proposed research program spoke to this two-pronged rationale. 

As with his 1926 Hanover presentation, Sapir never published the text of his lecture, 
although the ideas he developed in it are closely related to those in his publications on 
culture and personality in the early 1930's, as well as his course on TJie Psychology of 
Culture. The 1930 lecture was recorded by SSRC stenographers and the transcripts were 
circulated to the Conference participants, but no other written version has ever ap- 
peared until now. Published here for the first time, the text is taken from the conference 
transcripts. 

Sapir gave his lecture in the evening of August 31, 1930. The conference extended 
over several days, however (August 29 - September 3), and included several types of 
sessions. SSRC committees, each devoted to a particular subject area, met concurrently 
in the mornings; Sapir participated in the newly-formed Committee on Personality and 
Culture. In the evenings all conference participants gathered for a plenary lecture. 

The Committee on Personality and Culture had been organized because several pro- 
ject proposals recently presented to the SSRC seemed to have this interdisciplinary 
theme in common. The morning sessions of August 29 and 30 were taken up with the 
presentation and discussion of four such proposals; projects by William I. Thomas, 
Lawrence Frank, Edward Sapir, and Robert Redfield. Besides Sapir's own project (on 
American Indian acculturation), Frank's proposal is of particular interest since it con- 
cerned what became the Rockefeller Seminar on the Impact of Culture on Personality, 
held at Yale under Sapir's direction in 1932-33. (For more detail, see Darnell 1990 and 
the editorial introduction to Tlxe Psychology oj Culture, this volume.) 

For the remaining morning sessions, other members of the committee each made 
some presentation of issues relevant to their research. Finally, the committee members 
considered and adopted a report of their recommendations to the SSRC. This report. 



One Cullurc. Society, ami the InJiviJiuil 201 

reprinted here as the "Oriuinal Mcmi>raiuiuin lo the SiKial Science K 

cil...." was presented under Sapir's signature, ahhough ii <■»... ||..-. ,...^,. .,,.„,.,„ 

who read it aloud lo the cont'erenee participants. 

The program of evening lectures was as follows: 

Frederick P. Keppel (Carnegie l"oundalion). "F'oundatUMi I'roblcms and ihc Socul 
Sciences" (August 29) 

Isaiah Bowman (American Geographical Society, New York). "Gcogruphy a« a 
Social Science" (August 30) 

Edward Sapir (University of C'hicagt)). The Cuhural Approach to the Study of 
Personality" (August 31) 

C. M. Hincks (Canadian National Committee for Mental Hnlmciici, Mental H\- 
giene and Social Science" (September 1) 

Beardsley RumI (Rockefeller Foundation), "liach According to the Nature of his 
Experience" (September 2) 

Carlton J. H. Hays (Columbia), "Research Problems m the I leld of International 
Relations" (September 3). 

Except for the e\ening lecturers, most of the participants at the Hanover Confc- 
are identified in the transcripts only by surname. Nevertheless, from corresponds ;... 
and other sources we have reconstructed the following lists of conference attendees. 

with their affiliations in 1930: 

Committee on Personality and Culture: 

Allport, Gordon (social psychologist. Harvard University) 

Anderson, John (Professor of Psychology. University of Minnesota and Institute of 

Child Welfare) 
Frank, Lawrence (staff member. Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial) 
May. Mark (Professor of Educational Psychology. Yale University) 
Murphy (probably Gardner Murphy, Assistant Professor of Psychology. Columbij 

University) 
Redfield, Robert (Associate Professor of Anthropology. University of Chicago) 
Sapir, Edward (Professor of Anthropology. l'ni\ersity of Chicago) 
Sutherland (probably Edwin H. Sutherland, a criminologist at the Univcrsily of Chi- 
cago; but possibly Robert Lee Suthorlaiui, Professor of Sociology at Bucknell 
University) 
Tozzer. Alfred M. (Professor of Anthropology. Harvard University) 
Young (probably Kimball Young. Professor o\ Social Psychology. University of Wis- 
consin) 

Other participants, some of whom visited committee meetings as guests, included 
Anderson. William (Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota) 
Bott, Edward A. (Professor of Psychology. University of Toronto) 
Bowman, Isaiah (Director. American Geographical Siviets. New York) 
Chapin. F. Stuart (Professor of Sociology. Uni\erMt> o\ Minnesota) 
Cobb, Stanley (Professor of Neuropathology. American Academy of Art* and Sci- 
ences) 
Ford, Guy S. (Professor of History. University oi Minnesota) 
Hayes, Carleton J. H. (Professor of History, Columbia Univcnity) 



^02 /// Culture 

Hincks, C M. (Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene) 

Judd. Charles H. (Professor of Education, University of Chicago) 

kcp|x-l. Jrederick (President, Carnegie Foundation) 

Linton, Ralph (Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin) 

Lynd. Robert (Commonwealth Fund, New York; from 1931, Professor of Sociology, 

Columbia University) 
Mann. Albert R. (Dean. New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell Univer- 
sity; also Dean. New \brk State College of Home Economics, Cornell University) 
Meyer. Adolf (Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University; Director, Phipps 

Psychiatric Clinic) 
Rice. Stuart A. (Professor of Sociology and Statistics, University of Pennsylvania) 
Ruml. Beardsley (Executive Officer, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial) 
Schlesinger. Arthur M. (Professor of History, Harvard University) 

Among others present, but about whom we have no further information, were F. M. 
Anderson and two persons surnamed Hart and Wright. 



2. Daytime Sessions: Excerpts from Discussion 

From the unpublished minutes of the morning meetings of the Committee on Person- 
ality and Culture, we reproduce excerpts that include Sapir's substantive contributions, 
and we briefly summarize the rest of the discussion. 

August 29, 1930 

Mr. Sapir explained the circumstances that had led to the organization of the Com- 
mittee. Three projects (the Frank, W. L Thomas, and Sapir projects) seemed to have 
enough in common, in their consideration of the problem field marginal to both 
culture and personality, to suggest a conference on problems in this field. 

Mr. Sutherland [representing the Thomas project] stated the essential features of the 
proposed research on "Crime and Insanity in Scandinavia [and Sicily]". Mr. Sapir 
then recalled an objection made to the project when it had been brought before the 
Council, to the effect that it might not be justified to treat a study of crime and 
insanity as equivalent to a study of personality in a cultural setting. 

Mr. Sutherland replied that it was felt that these two aspects of behavior (crime and 
insanity) were foci of activity, a study of which would necessarily involve a wide 
range of factors (e. g., the family). 

... Mr. Sapir asked what hypothesis lay behind the proposal. Mr. Sutherland replied: 
"How does a variation in the culture affect the behavior of peoples?" 
Mr. Sapir: "Does Mr. Thomas think that perhaps certain types of solution of emo- 
tional strain are more likely in Scandinavia than in Sicily?" 
Mr. Sutherland assented. 

[Mr. Young asked about the role of the Mafia and other institutions in Sicily.] Mr. 
Sapir stated the hypothesis as follows: Where institutional controls (feud, Mafia, 
etc.) are lacking, there the ground is prepared for psychoses. 



One: Cii/tinr. Society, nnil l/ic liulnuhuil 203 

... [A methodological discussion ensued. Inlelligencc icsts were mentioned ) Mr. 
Sutherland said the plans of the Committee uicluded securmg such and other tc^t* 
Mr. Sapir suggested that the tests themselves nuulit he rcmin.iliK nu- ih,- tniponanl 
cultural factors. 

... [Discussion of the proposal's concern with Scandinavians and Sicilians as immi- 
grant groups.] ... Mr. Sapir pointed out that the double parallelism (North F.uropc 
vs. South Europe, old loved environment vs. immigrant community) added to ihc 

likelihoiHi o[' tVuilliil results. 



Mr. Frank then prosciilcd ihc projects lor a "Propo.scd Seminar tor foreign Students 
on the impact of Culture on Personality". The purpose is to find persi)ns from a 
variety o^ cultures interested \\\ problems o\' culture and personality, bring them 
together and organize a systematic endeavDr, usmg all specialists interested in thcMr 
problems, to formulate an iincnlory or schedule for the study of contemporary cul- 
tures in the countries represented. After this training they would be set to stud>ing 
the li\es of their nationals in America. A second period of association would bring 
about a further clarification o\' the siuiaiiori. Finally, these persons would be sent 
hack to their own countries for simultaneous study of their own cultures. The essen- 
tial desideratum is to de\elop a pattern of cultural research, 

Mr. Young asked if nati\e American [i. e., Anglo-American) students were to be in- 
cluded; the American student might thereby be helped. 

Mr. Sapir suggested the objectivity of the atmosphere might thereby be curbed by a 
feeling of sensitiveness or apology on the part o\' the foreign students. 

In response to questions, Mr. Frank staled thai although some foreign lecturers 
might be included, most would prohahK be Americans. Their function would be to 

act as critics, presenting an organized point of \iew. 

Mr. Sapir pointed out four aspects of the proposal: 

1) A possibility of seeing the morphology of culture. 

2) A possibility of seeing what are the fundamental needs o{ human K-n).'v 

3) Of seeing how these human needs get patterned, socialized. 

4) Tlie problem of what are the indi\idual variations (maladjustments, etc.) in the 
dilTerent cultures. 



August .^0, \'n^) 
The session opened with a brief discussion of a proposed symposium on accullura* 
tion between European and native peoples in the Pacific area. 

... Mr. Sapir then presented the project for the "Study of Acculturation and Ptrsoo- 

ality among the American Indians." In primitive life as in our own life, there i* a 

distinction between fundamental human beha\ior, expressed in |v 

■'olTicial" patterns of culture. The ethnographical account is olteii 

inventory of, to us, bizarre forms. One way of coming to understand what these old 

forms meant is to investigate what they mean toda\: Im ' 

terns often persist over changes in material culture In>; 

not simply a substitution o\' new customs for old. but rather adaptation ol the okl 



204 UI Cidtwc 

culture to now conditions. It is important to get some hint as to how much of this 
old culture may persist. It may be that many contemporary patterns go back to very 
early patterns that have merely been adjusted to new institutions. We have two types 
of problems; ( I ) what is it essential to retain under new conditions; (2) problems of 
acculturation, re-definition o^ old patterns. We might go further and study these 
problems of acculturation in the behavior of the individual. Probably the Indian is 
in\i>l\ed in a passionate attempt to reinterpret the old ways in terms of the new. 
Perhaps ciMillicts considered by psychiatrists can be more effectively understood 
when obser\ed in this acute form as they occur in this cultural margin. 
Mr. Sullivan suggested that if the Navajo still think of themselves as a people, while 
other Indians do not so think of themselves, it might be possible to get light on 
mental maladjustments, because of the likelihood that the incidence and character 
o\' such maladjustments [are] affected by the state of organization of the supporting 
group. ... Furthermore, we might here get some controls on our theories of personal- 
ity growth. In the disintegrating Indian community at least, parental inculcation of 
the old folkways is no doubt often ineffective. ... 

Mr. Sapir stated his impression that among contemporary Indians the individual 
problem is in a sense lost in the general problem, all members of the community 
being in the same situation; and further that conflict between individuals in the 
community appears to involve less emotional stress. Relations of affection between 
kin. for e.xample, appear to be relatively unshaken by the culture conflict situation. 
Why is this? 

Another fruitful aspect of the situation lies in the attitude of the Indians toward the 
whites. While respecting white instrumental values, Indians appear to judge more 
fundamental white values unfavorably. 

... Mr. Anderson asked about the technique to be used. 

Mr. Sapir mentioned careful case studies. 

Mr. Anderson suggested that old difficulties of finding suitable technique would be 
repeated in this Indian situation. Would essentially new situations for study be en- 
countered that are not already encountered in studying contemporary white society? 

Mr. Sapir replied that he thought it likely that the culture conflicts were more acute. 

... Mr. May asked if the study proposed was thought of as fundamentally different 
from the proposed Scandinavian study. 

Mr. Sapir replied that while they were theoretically much alike, the actual situations 
were so different that it was probable that different problems would be encountered. 
The Indian situation introduces such a new factor as a great sense of corporate 
inferiority. 

Mr. Sullivan felt that with the Thomas study the cultures involved were too much 
alike to make it probable much light would be thrown on personality problems; the 
Indian project was therefore welcome. 

Mr. Allport asked to what extent the inferiority feeling was thought to be a vital 
part of the problem. 

Mr. Sapir indicated special circumstances in the Indian situations, among them the 
preservation of old values in the old habitat under enormously changed conditions. 



One ( 'uliurc. Society, ami the Imlivuhuil 205 

There ensued a lengthy discussion ol Redfield's proposed exploratory »ludy of **lhc 
frontiers of acculturation in four communities in Yucatan chosen to rcprc ■ ' 

points on the scale from primiti\e Indian life to ci\ili/ed cil\ life " Ilu 
the day's session concludes uitli a summary by Sapir: 

Summing up these proposed studies of primiti\e-ciMli/ed culture contact ^' 
said he thought o\ these studies as in three stages; (a) a reconstruction • 
culture; (b) a siud\ iM acculiuraiRMi; (c) a more precise personality study. 

And in relating these proposed iinestigatums to studies of child beha\ior. Mcnntv 
Sapir and Anderson stated the question; To what extent are the parents and ncii 
kin the eflective representatives of the general culture? The presumption is that in 
the primitive communitN the\ mr elTectiNe representatives; the transition to adult life 

is therefore easy. 

August 31. 1930 

Young presented a survey of work on the psychology of immigrants in the l' S He 
included a discussion of work in intelligence testing, noting that "these studle^ ha\c 
assumed dilTerences resting in heredity, and tend to ignore early conditioning, espe- 
cially by cultural patterns." The transcript continues; 

... Mr. Sapir suggested a distinction between two sorts of cultural influences: (a) 
those bringing about technical ditTiculties of approach to the test; (h) those afTccling 
"inteHigence". e.g.. alertness. Culture must be thought of as a general ssnthctK; 
stimulus to etTort. for example. 

Mr. Anderson asked if this did not assume that the cultural factor was impf»rtant 
he would be willing to show that inherent dilTerences are substantialK identical He 
could not conceive of a cultural factor universally afl'ecting all negro groups unfavor- 
ably. Mr. Sapir suggested a well-patterned inferiority feeling. 

...Mr. Redfield and Mr. Sapir referred to the ditTerence between F*ueblo and Plain\ 
patterning with respect to personal competitive distinctii>n[s). and a probable expla- 
nation of Garth's results, wherein Plains Indians did better than Pueblo Indians on 
the test. 

[The discussion turned to studies o\' parental attitudes that compared statements by 
parents with what parents actualK did ] 

Mr. Murphy mentioned similar studies of political attitudes, as \crb 
actually made manifest, where high correspondence was found Mr, .\.., : , - ' 
out that both response to stereotype and response to actual situation uere invol\«d 
in these tests. Mr. Sapir suggested that furthermore there were possibU important 
individual diflerences in verbalization. 

[Finally, Young mentioned recent papers by I. una and \ygotsky attempting to mea- 
sure cultural influence in performance tests ] 

After the morning recess. Mr. Murphy reported on ".Attitudes aiui ' ' 
lion to Personal Backgrounds'. [Studies mentioned included .in i: 
single individual's religious experience; European studies i>r children » changing am- 

tudes toward the social order, especially in Russia, a stud> of dilTerences m .i -• 

ciation between Japanese and Occidentals; and his own several studies ol \ 
political attitudes.] 



206 111 Culfiirc 

... [Concerning the study of racial attitudes in the U. S..] Mr. Sapir suggested the 
wisdom o{' confining the investigation to an inquiry as to what the subject would do 
in crucial instances. 

September I. 1930 
Mr. Frank spoke on "the family as an agent lor the socialization of the individual". 
We distinguish first, the imposition on the child of patterns (taboos) with regard to 
persons and with regard to things. ... The family is probably the initial and most 
pervasive agency that imposes these patterns. ...The child learns to get along with 
persons before he encounters the most important institutional patterns (money, mar- 
riage, etc.). All these imposed patterns check naive behavior. ...These institutional 
patterns are subject to a secular change. The breakdown of an individual may be 
attributed to the failure of the individual to satisfy his wants through the institutional 
patterns. 

Mr. .Allpori asked if it might not be possible for breakdowns to come about by 
increased conformity to institutional patterns. 

Mr. Sapir replied that the locus of the thwarting need not be in the totality of culture 
patterns. 

Mr. Anderson remarked that in modern life the individual is presented with a com- 
plex and unintegrated cultural situation. There may be no real culture, as we have 
been using the term. 

Mr. Frank resumed, pointing out that there is great uncertainty and inconsistency in 
the instiiulional patterns presented to the individual. This makes value-behavior dif- 
ficult to pursue, and the individual tends to break down. 

Mr. Sapir asked if it did not follow that religion was a favorable kind of value- 
behavior. 

Mr. Frank replied it was conceivable that a religious renaissance might develop in 
the precarious and uncertain world. 

Mr. Allport pointed out a distinction between family as the mere persons living 
together, and family as a body of values and patterns. 

... Mr. Sapir suggested the importance of a comparative study of the actual func- 
tional significance of the family in various cultures. 

... A general discussion emphasized the importance of intensive studies of the family 
as function; of the actual intimate interaction of individuals objectively reported and 
recorded, detail by detail. 

After the morning recess Mr. Sullivan discussed "Personality Differentials as Ante- 
cedents and Consequents in Acculturation". [Sullivan termed the child's learning 
and adaptation to its environment "acculturation." Conflicts arise with advanced 
civilization, since cultural change outstrips cultural integration. Personality types 
dilTer in their ability to integrate situations.] 

September 2, 1930 
Mr. May presented his views on "Method in the Field of Personality and Culture." 
These remarks dealt with methods employed in the study of personality, and included 
suggestions for a plan of [research on] the impact of culture on personality. 



One C^ilturc. Society, uml thf ImliviJiuil 207 

... [Concerning May's discussu>n nt qucstiDnnaircs.) Mr Sapir here pointed out the 
frociucnt ditllculty of answering ihe questions presented by categoric ansv^er> 

[I urlher discussion of questionnaires ensued. May then turned to ^ludle^ c-' • 

personality ditTcrcnces in terms of inner mechanisms, as »>ppi>scd to the v: 
approach] 

A discussion here inter\ened as to the logical \alidii> o| this disiin 
approaches cinphasi/ing exterior and interior factors. Dr. Sapir p*>ii 
danger of coming to regard concepts as entities. (The discussion digressed lor a mo- 
ment onto the meaning of the term "common-sense," then returned to the il: * 
between inner and outer factors.] Mr. Murphy pointed out that it was oftci. 
terminological distinction between "inner mechanism" and "siiualu>n" Ilic previous 
situation becomes in elTect an inner mechanism. Mr. Sapir rephed that this vies* 
necessarily implied mechanisms for "building in" these previous situations 

... [The discussit>n emphasized] the importance o\' more careful analysis of situations. 
Mr. Sapir said the question realK was practical, is it useful .it this stage to formali/e 
the available materials conccplualK'.* 

After the nuMniiig recess, Mr. Sullivan read the "Memorandum from the Conferencx 
on Research in .Acculturation and F\Msonalitv to the Social Science Research Coun- 
cil" (appended to these minutes). Mr. Young moved the .idi>ption ol this nieinor.iu- 
dum as the report and recommendation of the conference. In the resulting discus* 
sion. minor amendments to the report were proposed and carried. Tlie report-memo- 
randum was then unanimously adopted. 

Mr. Sutherland presented his rcpi>rt on inelhods of study of crime and personality. 

and a discussion followed. 



3. "The CulUiral Approach to ihc Siud\ of I\Tsonahl>" 
(lecture and discussion, evening i^f .Aiiiiust '^1. I'-iM)) 

The evening session of August 31 was chaired by LawreiKc k I i.uik, >■; Uiv i .tw..4 
Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (i.e., the Rockefeller loundalion). ITic audience con- 
sisted of all the regular conference participants and may have also includc>' 
No guest list for that evening is available, however, apart from the tra:.--. 
session itself, which identifies (by surname only) persons who spt>ke in the i! 
following the lecture. 

From the stenographers transcript, we reproduce Sapir's Icxture in its entircu .i\ 
well as those portions of the subsequent discussion in which he responded to . 
from the audience. Other portions ol the discussion (in particular, lengthy staunwnU 
by Harry Stack Sullivan and Adolf Meyer) are summarized 

This paper is of particular interest for its arguments vihich foreshadou Sapir '% pub- 
lished essays from later in the \^)M)\. as well as his plan for Vu ' 

but the Hanover lecture is not identical with anv of these .\y H.i' 

between approaching his topic from the cultural pt>int of viev% and apprt-uching it Irom 



208 til Culture 

the perspective o^ the individual, without yet proposing any mediating level of analysis. 
In later works, however (such as Sapir 1937a, "The Contribution of Psychiatry to an 
I'nderstanduig oi Behavior in Society." and chapter 10 of The Psychology of Culture, 
both in this volume), he argued that an analysis of specific situated conversations is the 
crucial mediating step. That argument seems to have been the product of Sapir's in- 
teraction with Harry Stack Sullivan. Although the two men had become acquainted 
before 19.30, the Hanover meeting was probably an important moment in the crossfertil- 
ization oi their ideas. 

Although Sapir's lecture is not principally about language, he characteristically 
draws on language as the prime example of cultural patterning (here illustrated in rela- 
tion to individual conduct). The linguistic material is presented in a non-technical way, 
and some of it derives from the everyday experience of American speakers of English. 
Some o\' it, however, derives from Sapir's then-current research, such as his discussion 
of a Liberian language (Gweabo; see Sapir 1931i, CWES II). 

This lecture also includes a passage that is of interest with regard to Sapir's version 
oi what has come to be known as the "Sapir- Whorf hypothesis" of linguistic relativity 
and determinism. Following a discussion of conversation at a hypothetical party, Sapir 
concludes with a statement that suggests a strong version of the hypothesis: "So far, 
then, from your manipulating the cultural machine called 'language', you were to a 
certain very significant extent being manipulated by it." But unlike Whorfs examples, 
which focus on individual perception and cognition about the physical world, Sapir's 
example focuses on social interaction. In this passage, it is not the speaker's thought so 
much as his conduct that is "forced in certain channels" because of the fact of speaking 
English. The speaker may be aware that he has "not been able to express quite what 
he wanted to express," but his interlocutors have no other means of interpreting what 
that was. The particular language has an effect on the social outcome because social 
communication must take place through a symbolic system. Related arguments may be 
found in the discussions of symbolism in 77?^ Psychology of Culture (this volume). 



Chairman Frank introduced Sapir's lecture as follows: 
FR.'XNK: - The meeting will please come to order. 

This term "personality" is being met with frequent continuity and outlets in a 
form in which it was seldom found formerly. You are mostly all familiar with the 
clinical approach, and it will be therefore exceedingly interesting to hear Dr. Sapir 
talk on, "The Cultural Approach to the Study of PersonaHty." Dr. Sapir! 



The Cultural Approach to the Study of Personality 

Two of the outstanding tendencies in modern social scientific thought 
are of a somewhat contradictory nature. One of them is concerned with 
the concept "culture." The other is concerned with the concept "person- 



One: Culture. Soewtv. and the InJivuiual 209 

ality." They arc of a scimcuhal ciMilradiclor\ son because the two icrms 
are generally opposed lo each other; whether nuhtly or wrongly, is an- 
other matter. If ymi emphasi/e the culliiral aspect of hehavior. if \ou 
say, tor instance. "I he reason John goes to church is because cvcrvboil\ 
else in the community goes to church/' that he is merely lollovMng oui 
a '■cultural pattern," you feel that you arc not saying very much ahoul 
his personalilN. That is, whether consciously or unci>nsciously. you chm- 
inate the act of his going to church as comparati\el\ ummporlani m an 
estimate of his personality. 

if, on the other hand. \ou point to the fact that this same Ji>hn is 
peculiar because he goes lo church, you imply that you are saying some- 
thing more or less significant about his personality. You make the ci>r- 
relati\e tacit assumption that the kind o\' people he associates \Mth are 
not such as ordinarily go to church. Ihal the culture of this parlicuiar 
group does not include church-going, in other wurds, is ihe lacil as- 
sumption. Therefore his going to church seems b> contrast lo lake on 
the quality of an individual variation and seems to throw light on uh.ij 
is naively called "personality." 

Another example of exactly the same kind o\' preliminary conirasi is 
as follows: if a man associates with other men known as longshoremen, 
and it is a question of unloading a cargo, and somebody shouts to him 
with concomitant profanity, and he answers in kind, that is not ordinar- 
ily considered an evidence oi' his personality. He is merel> being "regu- 
lar." He is playing the game or acting out the culture pattern o\' his 
particular group. But if the same person, or an equi\alent person, were 
to raise his voice to the same extent and to the accompammenl o\ ihc 
same expletives in a drawing-room, \ou wcuild remark on the singular- 
ity of his conduct. You would be led [o the inference that there is some- 
thing peculiar about his character. In the latter case. \ou would imply 
that his group is not in the habit of acting as he then acted \ou would 
be implying the theory or tact that the culture of (7."^j his group is such 
as to have that particular conduct seem aberrant, and therefore illustra- 
tive of a peculiar individual variation. 

In these two very simple examples which 1 have gi\en. examples 
which could obviously be multiplied b\ the thousand without special 
ditTiculty, you have, I think, an important cntr\ into the whole tangled 
field of personality and culture. I am nol meaning to impK. what fvr- 
haps some would wish that 1 might imply, that there is i\o such thing 
as personality, on the one hand, or that there is no such thing as culture 
on the other. Both ihcones arc hold 1 am tar from subscribing to cither 



210 /// Culture 

of those negative theories. But the two illustrations which I have given 
and the thousands of others that might be supplied to supplement them 
certainly suggest some negative theory of that kind, because they sug- 
gest that It is a question o^ the relativity of judgment rather than of a 
ditTerence of essence in the reactions themselves. 

We are confronted by many contacts in ordinary life in which it be- 
comes difficult to say whether to ascribe a particular element in human 
beha\ior to culture or to personality, because we have not the key, the 
contextual key, to the situation. It is a commonplace that people who 
come from a foreign country are to a certain extent difficult in the sense 
that it is not easy to calculate their motives - by which we do not 
necessarily mean that they are queer people. They may be quite normal 
people. But we do not know what kind of a Hne of normality to assume 
from which we may measure their distinctive variations, if they have 
any worth speaking about. What we can do in such cases, and what we 
do do consciously - or more often unconsciously - is to assume that 
the line of normality is the same as the one that we unconsciously adopt 
for our own civilization. We project the variations from that approxi- 
mate line of normality into the foreign behavior and arrive at a person- 
ality judgment; for instance, we say, 'The Italian is a queer person, 
because he is demonstrative as compared with the normal or average 
American, who does not carry his heart on his sleeve." Of course, if we 
have any such premature notion in our minds, if we actually go to Italy 
and proceed on the assumption that the Italians are the kind of people 
that our preliminary analysis has made them out to be, we are doomed 
to disappointment. We find that they are quite hard-boiled and realistic 
in action, in spite of their seeming to be so demonstrative, so emotional, 
and so temperamental. We find, contrariwise, that a man who lives in 
a group that takes pride in hiding emotion and in being officially hard- 
boiled may actually have the tenderest sentiments, if only we catch him 
in those particular contexts in which it is possible for a member of his 
particular culture to exhibit an individual variation without being 
thought abnormal. 

All this suggests that the field of personality versus culture is exceed- 
ingly tangled, exceedingly difficult. It suggests that perhaps it requires 
a certain courage to undertake the carrying on of the two concepts at 
the same time. And so we are not surprised to find that so many have 
tried to construct simplicist theories which minimize the reality of cul- 
ture, of the social patterning of behavior, as much as possible, or theo- 
ries [74] which minimize the reality of personality. 



One: Cu/turc. Sociiiv. iiiul ilu lihtixuluiil 211 

rk'fcMc I ui) on Willi ihc aiuil\Ms. I shmiki like to point out that there 
has been a subtle shili of meaning in the term "personality" in ihc 
history of our modern languaiies. We siill have a feeling for an .'■ 
meaning of the \\o\\\ "personalii\'" when ue sas, "He is a great \ .. ., ., 
ality." He ma\ aeliiall\. in ihc mhrnale psychoU>gieal sense of the word. 
be a terrible nincompoop, lie ma\ be ihc knul ol man whose actions 
or senlimenls \ou can ecuml on m athance uilh unfailmg accuracy, if 
you ha\e had any experience with people ol his i\pe. But >ou might 
refer lo him as "a great pcisonalil\."" meaning that he iKcupies some 
kind o\' sociall\ accredited thuMic. is a key figure perhaps in certain 
cases, or. at any rate, a symbol standing for a group to \\hich \alue of 
some kind is attached - a superii>r class, for instance, or a nationality 
whose votes are important, or tlic uhole set o\ labor unions, or any 
entit\ of that kind that \ou can think o\\ 

Personality in that sense is really the old meaning of the word "per- 
sonality." It is the most paradoxical meaning o\' the word l\>r us of 
today, because the word "person" which lies back of "persi>nality" is in 
turn nothing but the old \A\\\n pcrsoiui, itself laken o\er from the Greek, 
and originally meaning "mask". The word was originalls used for the 
mask worn by actors in carrying out heroic parts in the (Jreek tragedies, 
and in the Roman plays modeled on the Greek. .A man in those days, 
acting such a heroic part. artificiallN increased his height; he wore a 
helmet; he did all sorts of things to disguise his irrele\ant human "per- 
sonality." in our sense, which did not in the Cireek sense exist at all. 
because it had no accredited social \alue as such. 

Our modern contrast, then, is a new thing, and >ei it is possible lo 
hold on lo the old notion of personalit\. if onl\ we deepen it b> deepen- 
ing the cultural concept itself. In the old days, only certain kinds of 
activity were considered important, as \ouched for b> svKiets. it you 
were a king, you reigned, and reigning consisted of certain s\niptomatic 
or symbolic acts, signing certain documents, making certain speeches. 
proceeding to battle, or what not. .\s lime went on. however, the actual 
behavior o[^ such marked individuals became more and rr ■ • - ■•tc- 
worthy, and there was a tendency \o carry over the original i ;• of 

"personality." which was thai of "role." ci>nduct following from slalus 
and assigned by convention. \o actu.il conduct, which one tried to read 
in terms of that role. 

So we get to the somewhat idealistic or sentimental phase in which 
one speaks o\' "the real mother." for instance, or of what "a true king" 
does, or o\' "the heart o\' a sister." it mav be. or of "a wife." or of 



212 /// Culture 

whatever you like. This is a stage that we have not entirely emerged 
from yet. It is the stage in which the old persona idea, the collectivity 
of behavior patterns ascribed to a status, is identified without criticism 
with actual bcha\ior. 

Naturally, under such a regime as that, all kinds of problems arise 
which we should consider more or less bogus, many of us today - all 
sorts o\' problems as to the difference between the supposed and the 
real. [75] between the essential conduct and the actual conduct, which 
is always looked upon in such cases as a falling short, as it were, as an 
unwarrantable deviation. 

We ha\e learned that the actual conduct of human beings in every 
case is inordinately complex; that the kind of first-approach psychology 
that we use to explain overt behavior in well defined situations in which 
roles are played is very far from interpreting the sum of human beha- 
vior, except by certain logical fictions, as in the case of the economic 
man, for instance. These fictions work very well for conceptually de- 
fined discipline, and we cannot get along without them. But no one is 
so blind today as to assume that the kind of conduct that flows from 
these conceptual systems is actual conduct in the psychological sense. 

The interest in psychology is really a new interest. The older writers, 
even as late, I should say, as the Elizabethan dramatists, were not so 
greatly interested in what we should call psychology. At any rate, their 
psychological outlines are of a very bold or "essential" type. They are 
not of an intimate type. 

1 suppose that Rousseau with his Confessions was a startling phenom- 
enon when he appeared. People had not been in the habit of displaying 
their weaknesses. At the moment that Rousseau (this is merely a histori- 
cal symbol; you need not take it as a historical fact) displayed his weak- 
nesses and stood before man as still a man, at that moment our modern 
conception of personality was born. The older conception would have 
bid him refrain from the exhibition of any part of himself that did not 
correspond to the earlier persona or mask or status conception. So that 
he effected very much of a revolution in the history of the Western 
human mind. And we are only now beginning to reap the harvest, as it 
were, of this subtle movement in thought that was initiated in the latter 
part of the eighteenth century. 

Much in Shakespeare, if one were entirely honest, which one is not 
in dealing with the literature of the past, is a little foreign to us - not 
because the situations are remote in a historical sense. That does not 
matter so much. One can always paint the local scene with historical 



One Culture. Socii'tv. uiul ilu- InJnuhuil 213 

color. But it is fcMcign to us because a knui of staiulardi/cd motivation 
is assumed that seems unreal to us. \Vh\ should a man who occupies 
the clown's position, tor instance, be necessaril) the kind of man he is'* 
Why should a kingly man be just the kind o\' man he is - and he is 
generally either very much of a \illam. ov \ery much of a king I think 
honesty would compel us to admit that the conception of the person as 
an actual carrier o( beha\ior that \se ha\e in those plays is difTcrcnt 
from the conception we have toda\. 

So this modern conception of personalits. uhen all is said and done. 
is not \er\ old. In fact, it ma\ be said not to have been thoroughly bom 
yet. It is possible e\en at this late date tor a winkle school of social 
scientists to maintain, and with some show o\' reason, that even the 
most subtle di\ergences of behavior, which we ascribe to an unanaly/ed 
nuclear entit\ called "personality." are ol" a cultural type. .And. as a 
matter oi' fact. I shall now. with \our lea\e, tr\ to show that there is 
much truth in that surmise. Later I shall return to the concept of pcr- 
sonalit>, and it will be my total task. I hope, to ha\e shown that (76) 
much of our trouble comes tVom not allowing a complex enough terrain 
of possibilities to tie the strictly and simply cultural point of \iew with 
the strictl) and simply psychological or elemental point o\' \iew; thai 
we allow these two points of view to meet too quickls. to fertilize each 
other too quickly, without patientK exploring into the vast realm of 
human behavior which lies between. 

Let us start with culture. Let us take beha\ior uhich is seemed cul- 
tural in the strictly overt sense oi' the word, and point to preliminary* 
indications of significant individual variation within it. I'or instance, in 
a drawing-room there are so-and-so many people sitting about, stand- 
ing, chatting, eating, drinking, joking, doing \arious things. Our first 
impression would be that the only cultural element in the fact o\ these 
people gathering and behaving as the\ are behaving is that it is a party 
of some kind. There is not very much more to sa\ than that. 

Well, it is a particular kind o\' party. Perhaps it is a birthdas party. 
Maybe it is a card party, maybe it is talk after a parlicularl> impiJrlanl 
dinner to which an ambassador has been nuiied Nbu can define the 
thing culturally as much as \ou like, but we would certainly have the 
illusion - for I think it is something i>t an illusion we wi>uld certainly 
have the impression that most ot the indi\idual facts of behavior within 
that party are tacts that bear on individual personalities, oncx the party 
has been defined as a eeneral background i>r setting. 



214 til Culture 

It lakes no very great powers of analysis for the sociologist or anthro- 
pologist to show' us that this is very much of an illusion: that at every 
turn in the course o'^ the events that mark the evening, cultural patterns 
manifest themselves. One o\^ the most obvious of these is, for instance, 
the fact that English is being spoken. English cannot be spoken out of 
whole cloth. English has to be learned. Speaking English means that 
your conduct is forced in certain channels. For instance, you might have 
a certain kind o^ feeling, but if you have not quite the word to express 
it, you use an approximate expression for your feeling; and the person 
with whom you are communicating interprets you as having such-and- 
such a feeling, which he then imputes to a mysterious something in your 
personality. At that moment, you were at the mercy of the techniques 
of your language. You may not have been able to express quite what 
you wanted to express. So far, then, from your manipulating the cul- 
tural machine called 'language," you were to a certain very significant 
extent being manipulated by it. 

The stereotype comes to mind as an obvious example of this type of 
conduct. Even witty remarks obey the same laws of analogy. They have 
implied references to very complex cycles of experience held by sophisti- 
cated people in common, so that even the bright, the sparkling, the 
epigrammatic remark which seems to stamp one as an unusual person 
is nevertheless, so far as its actual texture is concerned, nothing but a 
highly complex blend of cultural patterns. That is true. 

Furthermore, you will observe postures at this gathering. Some peo- 
ple have a somewhat stiff carriage. Others have a nonchalant, perhaps 
[77] too nonchalant, carriage. Here again, your first impression is that 
they are being themselves; they are not being merely participators in 
cultural patterns, they are manifesting their true nuclear selves. Yet how 
unreal is that simple picture, when you realize that these people come 
from different parts of the country; that they have participated in en- 
tirely different kinds of patterned or institutional experiences! These 
have necessarily left their mark upon them in the form of postural beha- 
vior, which is symbolic, to some extent, of their institutional experience. 
So while these slight variations in behavior are not in the most obvious 
sense of the word "cultural" in the given context, they are nevertheless 
cultural in the wide sense of the word. 

If for instance, you have been a polished diplomat and have been 
deferring to a sovereign a good part of the time, it is quite likely that 
you will have a certain manner of address, a certain method of inclining 
the head and the body, which is a symbol in the last analysis of your 



One: Culture. Society, mul the Itulivuiunl 215 

role in socicls. It nia\ he that ihe particular symbol docs not quite apply 
at this party. Well, that simply complicates the problem. It may be thai 
you unconsciously correct your general tendency to decorum b\ adopt- 
ing a somewhat more frivolous or io\ial tiMie .mil posture, m \shich 
case you ha\e the inlerpla\ o\' \\\o cultural patterns, blending inlo a 
more complicated one. Notice that the more complicated these patterns 
of an instituticMial or cultural sort become, the less eas\ does it bect>me 
to ascribe them lo an\ one given pattern. 

We need simplicit\ o\' C(Mile\t m order to understand a cultural 
pattern as a cultural paltcrn. If \ou are marching m a regiment, thai is 
simple. We know what this mode o{ beha\ior s\mboli/es. If you are 
answering a response in church, we know what that ssmboli/es. If uc 
hear an educator talking to the children in a particular tone of voice. 
we reckon with that as part of the symbolism of the particular situation. 
But these are very simple situations. Most situations in human life arc 
not so simple. As we extend our anahsis of actual beha\ior. we get lo 
reckon more and more with the concept o'i the blend o\' dilTercni cul- 
tural patterns in one behaxior act. 

That is a somewhat difficult concept for some to adopt, a very easy 
one for others - much depending, 1 suppose, on the nature o\' line's 
own experiences, for these give one the means wherewith to see still 
other experiences symbolically. There are people who llnd it very hard 
to understand how one person can he diMiig two things at the same 
time in the very same beha\ior act; that one can be sa\ing ">es" and 
"no." with a wrinkle o'i the mouth, perhaps, or with the spoken word 
"yes." But the skillful actor makes situations o\' that kind clear enough 
to us. though it needs no skill in acting lo illustrate facts oi this sort. 
We all blend patterns thousands o{ times e\er> da>. I\>r the mosl part, 
we are unconscious o\^ the fact. 

Now the net result o\^ this type o\' thinking is to lead lo a possible 
theor\ that there is no such thing as an eleinentar\ i>r nuclear personal- 
ity, except as a secondary concept. We are then brought back lo the old 
concept of the pcr.sona. the role, the dilTerence between the old and the 
new viewpoints being simply this: that in the old da\s. when lhe> talked 
of [78] the pcr.sofhi. they were mleresled onl\ m cerlain bold, heroic 
contours, which were symbolic of a class o\ human K-ings. whereas now 

that we have deepened our conception o\' what is sigmficanl in » " 

behavior, now that we care more about the una\owed l>|vs ol 
behavior and understand more clearK what symbolism is (or arc begin- 
ninu to l\o so), we can subsume under this concept of ihe /»<T,w»mi. ihc 



216 III Culture 

role, many more facets of activity than we could in the old days. Then, 
divergences of all kinds were unvalued and needed no special name; 
they were merely the accidents, the quips of fancy, of people, and had 
no special value attached to them, except in an unconscious or intuitive 
sense. This unconscious or intuitive sense, we maybe sure, has been 
characteristic of human perception and appreciation at all times, for we 
llnd it in primitive man as we find it among ourselves today. 

While these remarks that I have been making are either unacceptable 
or else commonplaces, they are certainly deepened by the data of 
anthropology, because in the study of cultural anthropology we are 
confronted to a very much greater degree than in our daily experience 
by the concept of relativity of general cultural backgrounds. In modern 
life, the important outlines in the cultural background do not vary so 
greatly, when all is said and done; for, while we are always talking about 
A's background being very different from B's, we really assume that 
there is a substantial unity in the institutional background of both. Both 
A and B, for instance, thoroughly understand the use of money. Both 
A and B understand that depositing money at the bank has such-and- 
such implications. Both A and B understand that services are exchange- 
able for commodities through the medium of money. No matter how 
ditlerent they seem to be in their overt behavior, and however different 
are their cultural backgrounds in detail, both A and B understand that 
it is possible for the market to break and that their bank savings may 
not be as secure as they had hoped. Both A and B understand that 
going to the theatre is recreation rather than duty. Both A and B under- 
stand that going to church is supposed to be a duty, but both feel that 
it is not as stringent a duty as the word implies. A and B, in short, 
understand literally thousands of things which are not set down in any 
list of tacit understandings, for they are so clear that we never bother 
to mention them. This being true, the concept of significant variation 
in behavior is somewhat narrowed or channeled in advance; and there- 
fore, the concept of the nature of the personality is not apt to take the 
same form as when we compare examples of behavior against entirely 
different backgrounds. 

What happens when we compare entirely different backgrounds? Two 
things. First, the notion of relativity that is comparatively weakly devel- 
oped if one's experience is taken from a society which is not too greatly 
varied in its understandings becomes infinitely deeper, more extended. 
It becomes more of a real thing. We see more of human life as possibly 
institutional in character than we might have seen before, when we 



One: Cullurc. Society. luhI tin InJiviJiuil 217 

had not thoroughly analyzed all the uiKonscious. social!) dcicrmined 
elements of the beha\ior situation. 

On the other hand, aiuuher t\pe olexpeiienee emerges \shich is vcr> 
baffling. This is the mtuiti\e eon\icHon. uhich is shared. I bclicsc. by 
all who ha\e had nuieli to i.\o unh prinntise people or foreign people, 
that m spite oi' these very significant dilTerences in cultural (79) back- 
ground, there are always present \ariations in indi\idual conduct that 
are roughly parallel to the kind o\' \ariations that \se consider signifi- 
caiil. in a nuclear sense, among tnirscKes. ^ou uill begin to sec ^^hal I 
meant b\ the deepening o\' our sense o\' the complexity of the terrain 
lying between official or inslilutional life, the culturali/ed part of con- 
duct, on the one hand, and the simpler somatic or psychological forms 
of behavior on the other, because this conviction both of the relaliMiy 
of CLilluicil background and of essential parallelism of human types in 
spite of these great differences of background squarely raises the ques- 
tion of where our intuitions as to personality begin and end, and up to 
what point our inferences as to culture ha\e a right to extend them- 
selves. 

It is an unfortunate thing that in arguments about the relatue place of 
cultural conditioning versus biological determinants and fundamental 
psychological conditioning, too little account is taken of the extremely 
complicated nnddle ground. It is as though one assumed that the sky 
met the trees of the landscape at a soon definable point, minimi/ing the 
reach o( the atmosphere in between. An unfortunate parallel. I admit 
-because it dooms our analysis to a kind of futility. I had meant a final 
meeting of sky and trees. But certainly the finding of that meeting point 
is indefiniteK delayed in our actual experience, and I imagine that the 
finality of our behavior-analyzing is similarly subject to indefinite dcLiN 
in the field of personality and culture. 

Let us take a particular cultural pattern and see at what point \se run 
across the thing called "personality." if at all; and then. re\ersel>. let us 
take the thing called "personality." and see at what point we meet cul- 
ture, if at all. riial will he an imagiiKiti\e reconstructive melhiHl which 
would justify both concepts, at least in theiu\ Notice that the current 
of these investigations, the direction in which the\ priKced. as ii weic. 
is different. In one case, we are starting from an msiiiulional pattern in 
behavior which all men ol' the group ha\e in common. In the other 
case, we are assuming that there are certain elemental contours of per- 
sonality which we are seeing maintained as this personalily gets more 



2 IS III Cull lire 

and more modified by contact with his tellow-men in society. Let us see 
if these two processes are real, or can be so considered. 

We shall take language as our example. Language is a somewhat 
peculiar, even paradoxical, thing, because on the face of it, it is one of 
the most patterned, one o\^ the most culturalized of habits - yet that 
one. above all others, which is supposed to be capable of articulating 
our inmost feelings. The very idea of going to the dictionary in order 
to find out what we ought to say is a paradox. What we "ought" to say 
is how we spontaneously react; and how can a dictionary - a store- 
house of prepared meanings - tell us how we are spontaneously react- 
ing'.' Fvervone senses the paradoxical about the situation, and of course 
the more of an individualist he is, the more he proclaims the fetish 
o^ "preservation of his personality," the less patience he has with the 
dictionary. The more conformist he is, the more he thinks that people 
should, by whatever ethical warrant you like, be what society wishes 
them to be, the more apt he is to consult the dictionary. [80] 

Language, then, suggests both individual reality and culture. To be 
sure, we shall not find individual reality in the word, not in the actual 
word. It is true that there are some bizarre writers who invent words. 
Suppose, however, you try to invent a word: what happens? Well, I 
imagine that in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand 
you would invent something that a careful analysis would show had 
dozens of cultural repercussions that you were entirely unaware of. Let 
me point out one very simple thing that is likely to happen. You would 
have a certain number of syllables in that word, and the number of 
syllables would be a function of the syllabic behavior of words in your 
language. If you had been brought up in China and tried the same 
experiment in your capacity of chairman, you would, no doubt, invent 
a monosyllabic word. It would never occur to you to have a word of 
two. three, or even four syllables. If you were talking certain American 
Indian languages, however, you might have a polysyllabic word of eight 
or nine syllables, and think nothing of it. Why is that? You are not 
making up an actual word, and yet you find yourself in the grip of 
culture. You are being manipulated by a machine that society has, in a 
sense, invented for you, and of which you have no explicit cognizance. 
If course, what you are doing there, as the psychologist would tell you, 
is following the force of habit. But the word "habit" does not suffi- 
ciently stress the part that culture plays in the process. You are accus- 
tomed to certain rhythms, to certain distributions of syllables, to certain 



One Culture. Society, uml the hiJiviJtiul 219 

Stresses, and c\cn when \ou "\n\cn\." \oii relapse inli) one or more of 
society's cultural paiicriis. 

That is \cr\ significam. because at ycuir Ireesl. at sour mosi bi/aiic 
- when you are so tree as [o seem crazy - you are slill ihe slave, as it 
were, ol'socici). Bui il is not nieiels a inaiier ot nnenling the word as 
a word. Let us suppose thai you know exactly what you are goiiii: t.' 
say, that you teel you can manilesi your personality by choosmi! \si>ids 
in a novel way. that you can. b\ juxtaposing words in a peculiar manner. 
gain new meanings, ^oii can lake words, for msiance. ih<it do not ordi- 
narily go together, and hil upon a new nuance o\' meaning. And. of 
course, man\ modernists do just ihal. hoping that in this way they mas 
adserlise lo the world their "true"* indisidualily. The sery fact, hosseser. 
thai we ha\e lo resort to such exlrenic devices shosss hosv ditllcult it is 
to be sure ihat we are nalinali/ing or s\niholi/ing ihis feeling of the 
reality of our personalities with society's tools. 

An analysis of the words used by particular writers leads lo somesshal 
disappointing results. We find something like this, if we lake a single 
writer who is removed from us in lime and place; we are struck by all 
kinds of interesting peculiarities, and we say. ".Aha! This man works 
with the same background that I possess, but he has so many diser- 
gences of expression that I must guess there is something peculiar abvnii 
him." But if we proceed to read his ci^nlemporaries. we find that much 
that we considered interestingly peculiar is quite commonplace after all 
And so those who are inclined to make much o\' the mere dicluMi. sas. 
of Shakespeare, should not read too much o\' the other Mi/abelhan 
writers. They will find thai nnicli ihai ihey attributed to Shakespeare is 
common Elizabethan stock: in faci. that some o\ ihe ihings that they 
thought most characteristic oi' Shakespeare are heller illustrated, per- 
haps, in Marlowe. And so it goes. [HI] 

We may proceed from invented words and from actual ssords juxta- 
posed in new positions to slill more subtle evidences of individiialns in 
speech, such as intonations. What can be more individual than intona- 
tion? Here again we are confronted b\ \er\ peculiar and tangled lads. 

If you were to go to Ijberia, where one of our research men at ihc 
University of Chicago is al ihe presenl moment investigating certain 
technical problems o\' music and language, drum signaling and horn 
signaling, you would discover some interesting facts, ^ou vsi>uld lind 
that these people have a very lively way of expressing themselves, that 
they trip up and down the musical scale in a |x*culiar way. \ou would. 
if you were not a crilical anihropologisl or sociologist, develop the feci- 



220 Hi Culture 

ing that these (aha!) are the real, temperamental Negroes from whom 
our American Negroes are descended, and whose volatility and tonal 
expressiveness they still have in modified form. 

As a matter of fact, you would not know how much of this speech 
was expressi\c until you knew the rules of the game. That is fairly 
obvious. You would have to know what the mechanics of such a lan- 
guage were betbre you could even venture to guess. And, indeed, the 
mechanics of this particular language happen to be extraordinary. 
Imagine a language in which it makes a difference whether you pro- 
nounce the word "damn" on the note C, on the note A, on the note F, 
or on the note D; and that in the first case "damn" means, say, "beauti- 
ful," in the second "ugly," in the third "hallelujah," and in the fourth 
really "damn!" 

That would be a bizarre situation, from our standpoint. It would 
simply mean that a technique that we had unconsciously appropriated 
for expressive purposes had invaded the realm of meaning symbolism. 
That is the sober fact in such a language. Moreover, you would find 
that, not content with these four distinct registers, the native can com- 
bine them into inflected patterns. Thus, you can say "Aha!" or anything 
of that kind, and expect to be understood in an intonational sense as 
we would be in English. But you have, first, to know the theory of 
possible combinations of the four registers in an upward and downward 
direction, all the mathematical possibilities of the case. If you will make 
a rapid calculation, you will find that with a four-register system, four 
notes taken as units, you can have six falling inflections and six rising 
inflections. Each one of those inflections is a distinct phonetic entity in 
the language. For instance, if in this language I want to say 'door', I 
use a certain syllable which starts on the highest register and ends on 
the lowest, a nasalized moo. You say, "Well, of course it might mean 
'door\ It is just like our own word door.'" But when a native happens 
to say moo with an incomplete downward inflection, does he mean 
'door'? Well, he does not mean that at all; he means 'I am closing 
something.' 

You can see that with a whole terrain of intonational possibilities 
thus preempted, as it were, by tone patterns, the meaning in an expres- 
sive sense, of this chattering speech that you hear when you land on the 
coast of Liberia becomes a fairly inexplicable thing until you have 
worked out the rules of that particular game; and you feel that there 
are no significant inferences that you could make as to purely personal 
revelations [82] except on the basis of a complete understanding of that 



One Culture. Sociciv. unJ the Individual 221 

framework. That is. ihc subtle \arialions thai you could not hear at all 
at first, so drowned out wore they in the general contused intonalional 

picture, and which \i>u now alter mans years" habit perhaps b- ^ 

disentangle from the mass, would be the only things thai ha\c 
sive xaluc. 

C oming back to cnir own Fnglish-speaking terrain, we have lo note 
two things. First, the field of intonation is not si> thoroughly socialized 
in the simple linguistic sense as in the case of this l.iberian language. !>o 
thai iiilonalioiial play seems to be of more value lor inferences as lo 
personality than in Liberia. The next point, however, is lo see thai even 
so, we are not done with our institutional problem. It is a commonplace 
that people have varying intonations according to the particular pari 
of the country from which they come. We have the speech habits called 
"drawls." We have the lively, melodious, rippling speech o^ the Hnglish 
gentleman or lady. We ha\e the peculiar type of speech o\ the Har- 
vardian, let us say, or of the Oxfordian. These all insi^Ke intonalional 
patterns. 

Now, it is a crude analysis, is it not. to assume that e\er\ individual 
who follows these intonalional patterns manifests a certain personality 
peculiarity in common with all others o\' the group'.' We do not really 
believe that. We tend to think so at first, before we have a sulTicienl 
social critique at our disposal \o apply to the situation. Bui as our 
acquaintanceship with the group becomes extended, we lend, more and 
more, to discount these intonalional peculiarities, until finalK we have 
to say, "Here, too, speech is standardized." 

It seems, then, that while the intonalional limitations in Mnglish arc 
of a very different nature technicall\ frcnii the intonalional limitations 
in this Liberian language, in the deeper psschological sense the> are not 
quite so different as seemed to be the case at first sight. It is merels that 
the cultural patterns to which these intonalional habits are referred arc 
of a greater or lesser order of comple\ii\. Wc are having dilTiculty. then. 
as we pass through this much traveled domain ot speech, in discovering 
indisputable indices o\' personalit\. 

If in spite of all these difficulties. \ou were ti> look back and deMrribc 
your impressions of a parlicular iiuli\idual whose speech you had thus 
analyzed and in which \xhi had found so much disappoinimcnt in the 
way of definite personality indices that you could put your fiiv"" -'v 
you would be quite sure (unless \ou were a certain kind ol psvc; 
or sociologist. I might add) that there nevertheless was something rather 
distinctive about the individual. Moreover, if you had hapjxrned lo 



222 It I Ciilfurc 

know him lucniy years ago, you might, very hkely, in spite of all the 
things that had liappencd to him. in spite of the fact that he had 
adopted an Oxford drawl, in spite of all kinds of other things of a 
similar sort, ha\e the feeling that there was enough in speech alone, not 
to speak of other indices of behavior, that was in common between his 
actual performance today and his performance as you remembered it 
in the old days, to justify your considering him the same person, with 
the same personality peculiarities. [83] 

And. quite frankly, we do not exactly know why we make these judg- 
ments. We are simply compelled to make them because we adjust to 
each other, not on laborious analytical grounds which have been ration- 
alized for us, but intuitively, because of our quick perception of signifi- 
cant relations in the totality of behavior. What exactly that process is, 
how it can be analyzed in its precise detail, it is of course for the 
psychologist of the future to tell us, and the realistic psychologist is the 
first one to admit that he has everything to learn. 

Mm will remember that I said that if we proceed to a primitive culture 
and work out all its different patterns of behavior, we are still left with 
a residuum oi" feeling that the purely individual variations are roughly 
parallel to those that we stubbornly feel exist in a society such as our 
own. At this point the psychiatrist, it seems to me, is of importance. 
His particular theories are often difficult to accredit, but his type of 
thought seems to me to be valuable, because he, of all individuals in the 
modern scientific world, tries to rationalize as best he can the stubborn 
intuition of normal human beings. He finds it difficult sometimes to 
quite convey his meaning to the sociologist, who can point out fallacies 
in his actual instances in many cases; but in spite of all that, he just 
knows, from dealing with human material, often over a long period of 
years, that his individual remains significantly the same in spite of all 
social modifications. And this belief of the psychiatrists comes to the 
aid of the simple, unanalyzed feeling of the persistence of personality 
that the culturist admits, though he says very little about it in the official 
literature of anthropology or sociology. This is the feeling that indivi- 
dual variations of a non-cultural character somehow obtain. 

It may be that the contrast is illusory and is entirely due to the very 
perspective that I pictured at the beginning. It may be that these resid- 
ual feelings are due to the last contrasts of contours that we only sense 
as individual variations in the total field of conformity which has been 
analyzed as culture, and that we have not wit enough to see these last 
stubborn outlines as themselves cultural in character. Much that is 



One C'ultwc. Soiicfv. uml tin- /niliviJuul 223 

called signitkaiit iiuliMcliial \aiiaiion m pcisonalil) is orcullural ongin. 
no doubt, bill 1 would not go so far as lo bclic\c ihal in llicsc "lasl 
stubborn outlines" we arc mn somehow approaching certain dilTcrciKcs 
in the human bemg that tianscend the inlerpla> ot cultural patterns 
I'or one ihin^. it is dirfieiih \o helie\e that \s here physical dilTcrciuc 
are as pronounced as the\ are. there should not be some correIali\c 
psychical ditTerences. C'ertainl\ one expects dilTerences iilsix-ed. for in- 
stance, in emotioiieil reaction. It is iiard to believe that there is not 
something in the pi^pular concejM o\' a naturally sluggish person con- 
trasted \Mlh a naluralls alert person. I he lallac) comes in allowing the 
intuition of the distinction between the two to rest uith too highls com- 
plex, socialized examples. To contrast the alert, intellectual behaMor ol 
a college graduate, for instance, wiili that of a sluggish, dull farmer 
means nothing. But when we find analogous dilTerences, often quite as 
pronounced as this simple one. in exactly the same cultural en\iron- 
ment, in persons who are earmarked by just such dilTerences as this, we 
begin to suspect that something more is invoked than the pla\ of cul- 
tural forces. [84] 

There are many psychiatrists who do not think that purely somatic 
determination is ol" the greatest consequence, it is true; but there are 
still other determinations, not cultural in character, which come upon 
the scene and which, for the psychiatrist, make the jx-rsonalits at an 
early period of life. Such are the attitudes of the infant toward its father. 
mother, brothers, sisters - attitudes which seem to gi\e a set lo his 
whole world, and while these are not innate in the sense in which so- 
matic factors are innate, still one ma\ belie\e that the> priKecd from 
somatic differentiations lo a certain extern. It ma\ be true that the nuxl- 
ifying forces are very much more important than the prepared b.ise. but 
the prepared base cannot be entirely eliminated. Otherwise, it would be 
very difficult to understand why negati\ism. for instance, is de\elopcd 
by one child, whereas the exact opposite is de\ eloped by another. It is 
very easy to say, as is always said in such cases, that the environmenis 
of the two children are not the same. Of course the\ are ne\er quite the 
same. But there should be enough similarit> m mans cases to preNcnl 
the very considerable variation o\' personality features that wc aclually 
find. 

I think any honest parent who examines his owu children tr^ '*'^ 

standpoint, whatever may be his olTicial theors. is left alnu^st iiu 

with the feeling that there is si^mething stubbornly nuclear >%hich cannot 

be explained by an> iheiHies of conditioning with which wc arc familiar. 



2'>4 /// Culture 

However thai nia\ be. the psychiatrist does develop the notion of a 
personahty - partly innate, we will say, partly modified by very early 
conditionings - that tends to persist, in some sensible meaning of the 
word "persist;" throughout the rest of life. 

Here we are ira\eling in the opposed direction, for we are going to 
meet culture now. The psychiatrist, as psychiatrist, does not care about 
culture. He sees culture merely as complicated kinds of behavior which 
are modifiable by the actual, persisting personality, and which are food 
for the private symbolisms of the personality. The psychiatrist is not 
interested, for example, in religion as an institution, except in so far as 
it is a background fact. He is interested in it in exactly the same way in 
which he is interested in the sunshine or the grass or anything else that 
is present in the environment. To him, its institutional definition does 
not constitute a human fact. To the anthropologist and sociologist, it 
does. The psychiatrist wants to see just what matters to the given indivi- 
dual with his "set," however prepared in the earliest years of life, when 
he "meets" the institution, as it were. He may ask the question, "Going 
to church?" and receive the answer "Yes," and feel that his knowledge 
is merely of culture, not of personality. "Well, what about it?" he pon- 
ders. Is church-going in this instance a casual habit, or is it a symbol of 
loyalty to the father? If it is a symbol of loyalty to the father, then the 
future conduct of the individual with regard to church-going will have 
a psychological characteristic peculiar to the father attitude. And if it 
is a problem of breaking away from the habit of going to church, mere 
scientific belief will not quite solve the personal problem, because he 
has to break away, at least to a meaningful extent, from the influence 
of the father. If he happens to develop an antagonism to the father, 
breaking away from church will be comparatively easy; in fact, too easy. 
It may even outrun his intellectual convictions. If he has intellectual 
convictions that indicate [85] the possibility of breaking away from 
church, but has a strong attachment to the father, then a conflict arises, 
in many cases involving much more important patterns than that of 
church-going itself, as, say, in the sex sphere. The psychiatrist tells us 
that such conflicts may in particular cases lead to neurosis, to psychosis, 
to all kinds of aberrant conduct, to all sorts of strange symbolism. 

We see. then, that to the psychiatrist the whole field of culturalized 
behavior, which means all behavior as expressly labeled by language, is 
of no interest whatever until it has been seen from the point of view of 
how it hooks up with the very earliest attitudinal symbolism of the 
individual, however they in turn are determined. If you want to save 



One Culture. Stniciv. and the InJtvuJuuI 225 

the culuiral siiiialii>n, you ina> sa\ that these earliest delcrminalions of 
personahty are really elementary cultural determinations. They arc nol 
such as we would ordinariK thuik of" as cultural, but perhaps \^e can 
express them in cultural terms. The peculiarit\ about them. hi)\*evcr. is 
that they are infinitely variable as we go from perstni to person. There 
arc certain t\pcs o\' personality determination which tend lo remain 
constant, but the variations are so numerous that the purely cultural 
point of view leaves us rather in the lurch. 

But, even so, let us assume that there is nothmii to take accounl of 
but secondar\. cultural deleriiiinalions that is. the imposition of cul- 
tural paiierns of various degrees of complexity on the indermiiely plas- 
tic human organism. Then the whole problem which we ha\e been la- 
boring with takes on a new aspect, and we simpl\ see one type of cul- 
tural conditioning as prior to another, and as symboh/ed b\ it. so iha! 
all human behavior takes on a highl\ relaii\ist tinge: and it becomes 
possible to say. Yes, A goes to church and B goes to church, bul is As 
going to church a more archaic symbol, personally, than B's, or not? 
That is, in the chronological development of the personalitv. the cultural 
patterns come in at various points o( the fundamental personality con- 
figurations and take on meanings assigned to ihem b\ these 

The process of such adjustment is of course exceedingls complex. 
There are all kinds oi" blends and conflicts w hich make it \er\ dilllcul! 
to give simple examples, but in order that you may mi>re clearlv perceiNC 
how complex I feel the field of personality development lo be. let mc 
for a minute discuss the term "ambivalence." which the psychoanalyst 
is fond of using. Ambivalence means that >ou feel in conirar\ ways 
about the given object. You hate your friend and you love your friend. 
Or you love your wife and, one fine da\. sou forget to kiss her. The 
psychoanalyst, that very gruesome individual, tells you that this really 
means that you hate your wife, and (hat this hatred "leaked out" at 
that particular moment. Never mind about the literal truth o( such 
analysis as that. Let us assume for the sake o\' argument thai such an 
analysis is possible. The psychoanalyst will go even further, if he is 
cranky and meticulous, and he will sa>. " ^es. vou <//</ kiss your wife, 
bul first you started to go {o the doov and then you \\enl biick lo kiss 
her. That shows that you corrected vour essential conduct, you may 
have punished yourself, perhaps you managed lo come lale to your 
appointment. Perhaps you gloried in the coming late because that 
meant thai \ou had onl\ punished yourself for your disloyalty (86) to 



226 ^^^ Culture 

your wife." These are examples of what some would call the vagaries 
of psychoanalytic explanation. 

The really important thing to observe about situations of this kind is 
this: that while you have an ambivalent attitude, you are not really 
analyzing the situation until you begin to see that even an object, if one 
may use that word for something as close to you as your own wife, is 
not a simple, single, indivisible object. She belongs to different contexts 
of meaning. (This is in some cases only too deplorably the case.) We 
have the romantic ideal of oneness of meaning of the wife, and one 
hopes, romantically, that one can carry that single meaning through all 
of life. But that, of course, the gruesome psychoanalyst tells us, is mer- 
ely one of the pleasant fictions of hfe. Actually, your wife is a symbol 
of a great many other things. For instance, she is the sister of your 
brother-in-law... and to that extent she is the symbol of brother-in-law, 
parents-in-law, alien family. 

If you look at any "object" in that way, new problems arise of a very 
disturbing kind. You may, for instance, quite frankly detest your 
brother-in-law. At the particular moment when you forgot to kiss your 
wife, you may have been punishing her for being your brother-in-law's 
sister. You transfer your dislike for the nonce to her. She was at that 
moment a symbol of something other than the wife of yourself. This 
somewhat ludicrous example is not intended to be taken too seriously, 
although I think that for some cases it is serious enough; but it is merely 
an example of thousands of possible complications of meaning. 

The term "ambivalence," in other words, is not, it seems to me, suffi- 
ciently analyzed by the psychoanalysts themselves, because they do not 
tell us, when they talk about ambivalence, exactly who the person that 
you are feeling ambivalent toward really is in his multiple symbolic 
significance; and until you find out exactly whom or what you love in 
the double or triple or quadruple entity the "object" may be, and whom 
or what you hate or are indifferent to, you do not understand the mean- 
ing of the term "ambivalence." 

A simple and perhaps more serious example of the complexity of 
behavior is seen in the distinction between individual and class. A man, 
for instance, has a very good Chinese friend, but all of a sudden he 
finds himself acting toward this Chinese friend as though he were not 
his friend, but as though he were any Chinaman; that is, he discovers 
that he has some feelings about Chinamen. Of course, this is a very 
simple case of ambivalence. It means that the person in question is not 



One C III f lire. Socictv. and tin- hulivuhuil 227 

ihc same pcrsiMi. is not ihc same cnlii\. ihc same object, in ihc iwo 
contexts. 

It is the hiismess ot the ps\eho<iiial\st of the realistic psyclit'i.'i'ist. 
I would rather sa\. for I think the term "psychoanalyst" is fated to 
disappear sooner or later to be eonsianlls worrying about what is 
the true, symbolic significance m rundamenlal personality pattern> ol 
anything that you choc^se to handle in \(>ur en\ironmenl. The \sht>le 
world ofcultiue. thererore. is of interest to the ps\ehoK>gist only in so 
tar as it can he disinlegialed and discharged as irrele\ant until reana- 
lyzed in terms or[87] tiie more rimdamenlal patterns of the \ery ear!ie>t 
years of conditioning. 

How much o\^ these more fundamentid patterns are nativistic. and 
how much ol" them are secondary. I leave to future investigators. I am 
not so bold as to suggest anxlhing al all Bui as lo the reality of the 
dual problem of seeing the "set" personality and set alarmingly earls. 
in my opinion - going out into culture and embracing it and making 
it always the same thing as itself in a constantl\ increasing comple\M> 
of blends o( behaxior in some sensible meaning o\' the word "same." on 
the one hand, and seeing the historically determined stream of culture. 
which takes us right back to paleolithic man. actualizing itself in gi\en 
human behavior on the other - this dual problem set by two opposed 
directions of interest, is the real problem, it seems to me. of the analyst 
of human behavior. The difficuIiN at present is no\ so much the under- 
standing of the problem as a problem, but the coinincing inirseKes that 
it is a real one. 



Following Sapir's presentation, the meeting was t>peneil lor iIincunm 
Frank asked first for specific questions of clarification that shoulii K- .nf 
starting a general discussion ot tiie piiper's thesis. 

U.ART. I should like to have explained a little more clcarls the li 

Dr. Sapir meant to make hetween persmialits and indivulualily. hcl- 

taking up llie psychoanalMic part of tlie talk. 

SAPIR. - I purposely refrained from defining terms because the ' 

is rather a hopeless one in the present tangle ol' usages. It can be >.:_ 

of several do/ens of ways as Dr. Sullivan, who is present, can Icslify There are 

almost as many definitions of personality as there .ire |X-' 

I thought it was much more important to point out the p 

of a concept of persistence of behavior pattern in the individual, on Ihc one hand. 

and some kind of concept of institutional fixation . 

it was to worry about uliellier we should call "|Vi 

assemblage of behavii>r patterns. 



228 fif Ciilmrc 

liKiividuality. I think, is a little more easily defined because it does not commit 
iiscll to any particular theory. All we mean by the term is a difference which is 
smnificanl enough to merit the name. Whether that modicum of difference is due to 
innate factors or to the very earliest kind of subcultural conditioning or to very 
complex cultural experiences of later life is a comparatively indifferent matter. 

A man may. for instance, at the age of thirty learn to talk like Harry Lauder and, 
having done so. he will be credited with that particular trait of "individuality." Of 
course such individuality is of very little interest to the psychiatrist, say, except as a 
mere symbol of his wish to be different. That is all he will get out of it, and that 
much may of course be very important. But the actual behavior, the Harry Lauder- 
like behavior as such, is of no interest to him whatever. It would only interest him 
as a culturalist, if for instance, he wanted to know how a Scotchman is supposed to 
talk and this were the only example he had at his disposal to illustrate the Scotch 
dialect. In such a case he makes the most of the cultural experience. When we go 
out among Indians or other primitives to study their cultures, we use any evidence 
of a cultural sort that we have, not because we hope to find out much about the 
people as people but because we are interested in the official outlines of behavior. 

From the ordinary human standpoint such an extreme variation in behavior as I 
have cited would be an example of individuality but it would not be significant for 
personality, as I use [the] term, because it does not connote that persistence of the 
fundamental individual or personal pattern which the term "personality" implies. 
H.ART. - I thought in the first part of the talk you dealt simply with individuality 
in the sense of people being different, and I do not see the problem that was raised 
there. In the second part of the talk I see the difficulty raised, but I did not see why 
the fact that people are individually different from each other should be such a 
perplexing problems. Coats are different from each other and leaves are different 
from each other as we get to know them and feel about them as though they are 
different and to recognize the individual thing simply because it is a different combi- 
nation of well-known — 

SAPIR. - I did not assume that there was any special difficulty about the fact of 
difference. The point of interest in the earlier part of my remarks was the varying 
evaluation of such differences. The point that I was particularly interested in making 
at the beginning was that many of these differences do not necessarily involve the 
nuclear concept of personality which I was hoping to develop later on, although 
they may seem to - merely that. I was simply sounding a warning, as it were. 

Chairman Frank then opened the meeting for general discussion. 

WRIGHT. - I was not quite able to see why you needed to find anything out of 
culture to account for the personality. Why can you not simply say that you have a 
uniqueness in a particular combination of cultural elements; that that combination 
or pattern persists? You certainly have a sufficient number of cultural elements so 
that you can by putting them together get any number of unique combinations. Why 
is not that a sufficient explanation of the uniqueness of personality? 
SAPIR. - That, of course, is a theory held by some sociologists, who believe that 
the essential personality is precisely what society makes of the person, but you are 
not referring to the sociological personality in the strictly technical sense of the word. 
You would grant indefinite variability of personality but you would think that the 



One Culture. Society. anJ the hulnuiiuil 229 

chances of combination of various experiences given by culture arc so great that 

(here would be a unique development lor each and c\ei . 

1 ihink that is a pcilectly possible theory, and >i»u ii. thai 1 Ined lo 

save the possibility of that theory as a theory of personality by pointing out tlial 
certain cultural determinations might be looked upon as so imp*'r' • ! 

with all others, because of a prior occurrence, perhaps, or be*., 
emotional \alue. as to define a concept of personality for the psychiairiM thjt \*ouId 
be just as firm, just as persistent, as the concept of personality defined with the help 
of inborn traits and non-cultural forces. 

I would not think it wise for anyone lo commit himself to that at all at i 
time. 1 hope that others who know more about psychology and about aK. ...... ..».- 

man behavior may throw light on these possibilities. 

.Ml I can say is that 1 personally prefer the other hypothesis, and the rcas4»n I 
prefer it is largely the \ery kind of experience that 1 referred to before, namel). that 
we get parallels in the general personality gamut, as we go from one culture lo 
another, u hich seem to me to override all the determining forces of culture H»clf. 
even the most subtle ones. 

WRIGHT. - Of course I can see that there are inherited elements which you <ipcak 
of that is. if you merely mean to distinguish between inherited elements and cultural 
elements. 

SAPIR. - I do not know whether we understand the same thing by "inherited ele- 
ments." Would you give an example of what you call an ■inherited elemenl" in Ihu 
particular connection? 

WRIGHT. - Apart from hereditary elements which do not enter into the problem 
of personality which I understand you are speaking of it seems to me you tusx 
ample opportunities for uniqueness in merely the organization of cul: 
Vou spoke for instance of language and intonation. Doubtless if \. 
Englander who uses a word characteristic of New England coupled with an iir 
tion which is characteristic of Virginia you have a combination which is a luuc 
unusual and you could readily say that that was a trait of personaht) But each .»f 
the elements, both the intonation and word, .ire of course cultural element* 
SAPIR. - Tliat was exactly the kind of example I quoted myself in supptHi of thai 
very point. But suppose we use another example. 

Suppose you find that one individual has a rather strident type of voice Ihai *ccm4 

needlessly insistent, whereas another individual belonging to the ur" -■ 1 

using exactly the same words, the same tyjx- oi' pronunciation, and 
that is socially definable in speech has a voice that somehow imp 
apologetic. Would you consider that there was anything there thai ........ 

concept of a nuclear personality mvoKing perhaps hereditary Icalurc*. or w 
think that there was nothing new in that particular Icaturc ol ' 
that I am not very clear about that, but I shi>uld think il>.rr \s. 
there that would transcend the cultural sphere 

Chairman Frank called for contributions "from those who arc partKniUriy coo- 
cerned with deviations in human behavior." 

Harry Stack Sullivan expressed his strong symp;ithy for Sapir'i analyw. and »uf. 
gested (without quite naming him) that Wright had challenged il oul of prejudice and 



230 111 Cult lire 

"a cullural pattern which requires him to dctraci/" Again emphasizing his agreement 
with Sapir, Sulhvan then spoke to the overhip between psychiatry and the social sciences: 
SULLIVAN. - ... ir he [i. e.. the psychiatrist] i<new anything about the social sci- 
ences his problems as a psychiatrist would be much more capable of attack. Many 
of the problems of the psychiatrist actually are economic problems of his patients. 
Many more of them are of another variety. But there are economic problems and so 
on and he knows nothing about economics and therefore is inclined to omit from 
his data for classification and study all these aspects that do not have good medical 
background and so on, and as a result his subject matter, the disorders of personality, 
loses its resemblance to anything that any of you gentlemen study in the social beha- 
vior of people. 

I wish to say, as my real contribution, thai all psychiatry of that kind fails so far 
as its victims, the patients, are concerned; that the very process of converting them 
into objects of a purely medical specialty omits nearly all the difficulties that go to 
make up their illnesses ... 

As soon as psychiatry begins to be concerned with the particular utilization of 
cultural patterns and so-called "social processes" by the individual who is its subject, 
then it begins to be useful to the individual, which is convenient for the doctor who 
lives by its success, but it also becomes a field for research in all the social sciences, 
since they are all supposed to apply to each member of society. 

What 1 got from Dr. Sapir's address was that he was indicating how inseparable 
are the two aspects, how genuine is personality which concerns the psychiatrist, how 
general is an infinity of cultural patterns which go to make up each subject of the 
psychiatrist, because there are unusual utilizations of social patterns ... I should say 
that in psychiatric material, by cooperation between the culturalist and the psychia- 
trist, much light can be shed in both directions. In other words, one might start in 
the middle and walk both ways. (Laughter and applause) 

Chairman Frank, noting that the members of the ongoing Conference on the Study 
of Personality (i. e., the meeting of the Committee on Personality and Culture) had 
expressed varying viewpoints during the daytime sessions, called on Adolf Meyer to 
contribute to the discussion. After some initial demur, Meyer asked: 

MEYER. - I was inclined to ask the question of Dr. Sapir as to whether he would 
perhaps give us an idea of some specific anthropological problems in which the 
difTerentiation of personality and of culture would come out in a more distinctive 
way than in the relatively casual matters which he has used for exemplification. The 
activities of the human being are so multiple that one naturally likes to make con- 
trasts only when they are of sufficient importance ... 

Citing an early paper of his own on the problem of differentiating personalities, Meyer 
suggested that it was not true that physicians did not interest themselves in culture. He 
then rephrased his question: 

MEYER. - My question would be: What are the things in anthropology that force 
us to try to make such an ultra-sharp division between what is individual and what 
is culture? As a physician I cannot separate the two things. It is a more organically 
determined or a more environmentally determined issue, but how I could make an 
absolute distinction I would be utterly unable to declare without doing harm to 
either the facts or the patient or the whole situation. 



One Culture. Society. iinJ the InanuiUiil 231 

When \vc come finally lo such a mailer lor mstancc as the C'hincxc u 
iilar lineo and our lype. where shall we liim* We know ihal ih.ii • 
has a dilTerenl analonn than we ha\e He has dilVerenl laeial inn 
Where shall we draw the line? Are those determined h> accident, and the 
perhaps somewhat related to it. or are they habits' What has determined the |v«.mi.ir 
dillereiKcs o\' the facial muscles in the Chinese and in other races' 

There are e\ identK things there which ma\ \er> easils he strong!) 
is only where the matter is conspicuous enough that we begin lo ask ;mv 
What is tribal just by cultural habit, and whal is tribal more in the form 
or morphological de\elopiiieiu.' 

The reeling 1 ha\c is that the stud\ *>! |XTsonalit> is tremendously inwv.n .fu 
because it leads us lo focusing on certain types and those types are undou 
more importance to us if tlie\ are morphologically determined as well as ihivu^h 
habit formation. 

At ihc beginning o\' the discussion this e\ening 1 could not help conjunng up 
some picture of contrasts and problems that I see 1 thought of some of ' 
funerals that 1 had an (.opportunity \o attend, where families are much m 
to come together in large groups tluin would be possible in this country. There I 
might see the farmer, the lawyer, the doctor, the minister in one famiK. ai; ' 
entl\ with totall\ ditVerent habits. It would be exceeding!) diHlcult to think . 
the farmer into the minister, and vice versa, if they once ha\e taken the fold 

Personality is not something that is acquired at birth and remair - •' •' 
same. Personality to me is something plastic and it will refer lo those ; 
not likely to be changeable under tiic mlluences either of en\iri>nmeni or ol pcrvinal 
di (Terence. 

Applied to anlliiopoK>g\ I would sa\ of course it is dilTicull to know when t»r 
have just individual traits and when we ha\e group traits, but that has not been 
decided by comparisons o'i large numbers, and I should like \er> much to hj\e 
some forceful instance where making that sort of dilVerentialion has cut u figure in 
anthropological discriminations. On the surface it is \ery easy but as to fundamental 
ones. 1 do not know. (Applause) 

SAPIR. 1 am not at all sure that I understand the question. Il may be ihrtt lo h 
certain extent we are thinking at cross-purposes, but in order that I ma> ' 
get the drift o{ Dr. Meyer's remarks 1 should like lo ask one queMt " ^"^ • 
Dr. Meyer, that there may be anatomical determmatuMis in s|\ 
which slu>w in the thing that wo c.ill speech as a pattern, as an organi/alumal *>'»»««. 
as a cultural fact' 

MLYhR. 1 would not be sure ol that. 

SAPIR I just wanted \.o get the general form of your thought 
MEVI K I should not like to put excessive emphasis on il bul I '•^ 
open to the liistiMical inquirN which of course is not acvcMibk becauw uc n.iM,- n.' 
history o^ those deep-laid things 

[To] what extent functional tendencies alTtvied stOK'tural ; 
extent structural tendencies alTected functional ones \\ 
interesting lacti>r that we ha\e such marked dillereiucs : 
detail of muscle development 



232 III Culture 

As I said I do not want to stress that point excessively but it seems to me that 
when wc go over to that funeral assemblage and the consequences that I drew from 
those observations, when wc take up this question as to whether the personality that 
has developed as the farmer is going to be transformed into the ministerial personal- 
itv, in the same familv. or vice versa, then we have something that is opened within 
our generation. 

SAPIR. Well. 1 still do not exactly know where the point of attack that I should 
ccMiibat is meant to be. but perhaps I can start the ball rolling at least by taking up 
the question o'( language, because it is a peculiarly complex cultural pattern. 

It seems to me that in that particular case we have some pretty good evidence, 
both direct, that is. in a historical sense, and inferential, in a reconstructive sense. I 
think it is the consensus of opinion of all students of comparative linguistics and of 
all anthropologists that there is not a single fact, not one single fact in the whole 
complex welter of details dealing with socialized linguistic expression, that can be 
explained by any kind of reference to anatomical facts. There is not a single sound, 
no matter how bizarre or strange it is - and many of them are strange from our 
standpoint when we are first confronted by them - which can be shown to be depen- 
dent on the peculiar formation of the larynx, for instance, or any peculiarities of the 
lips or palate or nose. You might, for instance, try to work out a correlation between 
the presence of nasalization in speech, say nasalization of vowels, as you get it in 
French, and the conformation of the nose, but the task is absolutely hopeless if only 
you look at it from the point of view of distribution, because, observe, you find that 
the distribution of this habit of nasalization, as a phonetic feature in language, has 
absolutely no relation to the facts of distribution of anatomical features. If you take 
the continent of Europe, you find that there are just a few languages that have these 
nasalized vowels. You have French, Portuguese, Polish, and a few German dialects, 
such as certain Swabian dialects, where these nasalized vowels are supposed to be 
due to the cultural influence, by diffusion, of French. If you go to the African conti- 
nent, you find that a great many African languages have nasalization, and a great 
many others have not. Some Chinese dialects have it, and a great many have not. 
We even find distinct differences in language on this score on the American continent 
in cases where its dialects are very closely related to one another. 

Of course you may say that this is too specific an instance, but if you generalize 
from such instances as these into the thousands and thousands of cases that you 
collect, you finally arrive at the conclusion that all the cultural or institutional facts, 
which I have called "cultural patterns," insofar as they deposit themselves in the 
traditions known as language habits, are of that nature; that there is no possible 
correlation that we can point to, at any rate, between the patterns and the organismal 
facts of any sort whatever. We are, then, driven by our data to believe that there is 
a very large segment, and a very important segment, of total human behavior that 
can be explained without meticulous regard to organismal facts, which does not 
mean that the actualization of these patterns in the behavior of a particular indivi- 
dual at a given time and place does not need reference to the organism - certainly 
not. The anthropological answer to that would simply be that if I actually pronounce 
a French word I do more than simply actualize the pattern; I also express private, 
individual, symbolisms that have nothing to do with the language as an organization. 



One C iiltiuc. Sociciv. unJ the InJiviJunl 233 

In fact. I pcrstMially believe that al the \er> mv)mcm ihal I am | am 

illuslialinu in speech luU merely the variDus patterns which arc con, v.. •- 

posited in speech according to the tradition which I happen to be heir lo. t 
of other personahty revelations or perhaps we should no{ t 

symptoms that i.\o not belong to speech at all. Speech is mei 
of these meanings. 

Some of these indices of my total peisi)nalii\ or iiKii\idiialii\ 
use whatever term you like - obviously belong to the analoinic.ii . i t 

be something about the conformation of my laryn.x. for instance, which lorccft mc 
to speak as I do. If you changed my larynx, there is not the slightest dou^* ■' ■ ' c 
sounds I would make would be quite dilTerent from the sounds 1 am m • 
and the acoustician could pro\e it by a study of the sound waves thai I am priHliK- 
ing. 

But the anthropologist is not interested in total behavior any more than ihc loci- 
ologist is. He is interested in definable contours or patterns which ha\e a li ! 

a distribution and which exist in some real meaning of the WDrd "exist." rc^; . I 
the actual physical variations of the body. He may be wrong in many of his infer- 
pretations, but so far as I know the data of anthropology, we can gel al. " • 

didly without the slightest recourse to any thei^ry of the human bod> \ c 

can assume in the conceptual world of the history of culture that these paiiemi 
unfold themselves owing to the coming together of ideas, of systems, of a conceptual 
nature without anybody as the carrier of them. We know of course that that i» 
ridiculous, as a matter of fact, but so far as the understanding of culture is concerned 
we can get along remarkably well w ith that kind o\' hypothesis, and in fact the mini- 
sion of the body at every turn in the explanation of cultural outlines is the greatcM 
nuisance in the study of the social sciences. 

From this point of view I am very much in synipalhv with the cvonomisi when 
he talks of the fictitious entity known as "economic man." which does not mean thai 
if he wishes to understand the total behavior of individuals m economic sin: • ■ 'r 
can dispense with more realistic contours of the indnidual. But so far as 
functioning in the main is concerned, he does not need much more than the iKiion 
that we call "economic man" and the kind of motives that are said >■' ^^^ •• ">•"» 
self-interest. 

That particular example may or may not be sound but I want ti- ; 
a rough analogy of the kind ol' thinking that the anthropologist has t. _ i 

constructing the hundreds and hundreds ol' pattern lines that make up Ihc culture 
history of mankind. 

We also find more direct evidence, which is interesting. We find, for inM.^ncr. Ihal 
the phenomenon of diffusion, the spread of patterns, is such as U> v 
violently the presuppositions of a racial analysis. We find, for insianw 
of behavior, forms of belief, forms of speech, ideals, anything \ou like 
entirely dissociated from the particular bodies that prcsumabl\ u 
cialed with them, and finally find an anchorage in Kxlics that 
minds that believe themselves to be as the poles asunder from ihc said onginalor* 

I do not know whether that particularly answers your question 

Meyer replied that he had not intended to raise any obieclion. ".ind u ••.. 
unfortunate on my part that I gave the impression that I wished to pl.uc the 

on the soma." He continued: 



234 III Culture 

MEYF.R. - ... The physician has to use all the social facts, all the religious, all the 
economic facts that are available, or he is not a good physician. And he will naturally 
also use all those things that are not social, that are more the problem, let us say, of 
structural dvnaniics or growth developments and individual changes, and finally ra- 
cial changes, and things of that sort. 

1 am very anxious not to leave the impression that I wished to antagonize the 
exceedingly interesting and well-illustrated field from the ordinary point of view, but 
I feel that we must recognize that the differentiations of personality as the physician 
uses them have a somewhat diflerent and more extended origin than was intimated; 
that he also has a forward-looking [i. e., prognostication] rather than a backward- 
looking interest and that that probably was very much more important in the devel- 
opment of the personality type as the physician looks at it. 

The very discussion shows I think what a tremendously complex field we are 
entering upon and we therefore do well to have the relativity of the concepts before 
us. And when we deal with that sort of thing we should make sure that we know 
why we make the emphasis on a certain thing. And I should say that in the anthropo- 
logical field very much the same things will have to be utilized that we used in that 
example that I mentioned, the funeral. 

ALLPORT. - I merely wanted to ask Dr. Sapir whether it might not be possible 
that the ancestors of the present races that speak these different languages might 
have been of a physical type a little bit more pure, and a little bit less mixed by 
interbreeding, so that there might have been some anatomical characteristics at the 
time of the beginning of the differentiation of the language that might have been 
associated with the different sounds. It is queer that the human organism is so adapt- 
able and can learn so readily that very slight differences of facial architecture would 
not play an important part, but when it comes to the beginning of those things, the 
initiation of those patterns of speech, it may be that small, very slight anatomical 
dilTerences would give a cast to the infiection or the speech which might remain fixed 
by habit as a part of the culture pattern. 

SAPIR. - I would not at all deny [it] as a possible theory, in answer to both Dr. 
Meyer's last remarks and Dr. Allport's, that slight physiological and anatomical vari- 
ations might have been socialized and then have set certain historical processes go- 
ing. I think, as a speculation, that is perfectly possible. All I claim is that so far as 
we have any direct or reconstructed evidence at our disposal, we never seem to be 
led to the use of purely biological differentiae in explaining our culture. 

We actually have very definite evidence as to the development of those habits of 
nasalization that I spoke about. Every Portuguese nasalized vowel and every French 
nasalized vowel goes back to an actual consonant "N" or "M" in Latin. In other 
words, the nasalization as a physical habit disappears, in a sense. I mean it is shown 
to be the perfectly regular development of a certain anterior stage in which that 
particular habit of speaking does not exist. We not only have, then, the quite un- 
correlated distribution of types of man and types of culturalized articulation on the 
one hand, but we actually have very definite historical evidence, directly in the form 
of Latin, inferential by comparison of languages, of changes of sound on non-ana- 
tomical grounds, so far as we can see. 

I do not know whether that particularly answers the question, but one has, after 
all. to trust to the cumulative experience - and I believe it is vast - of the cultural 



One Cn/turc. Sociriv. and the hhliMUiuil 235 

student in ilicsc MKittcrs and to attach some importance to the Malcmcni. which I 

think lie Muist make quite llatly. \vhate\er it ma\ mean, thai • 

o\ sheer einpirieal taei. led to in\oke somatic ditVerences ol .. 

cultural dilTeiences. Iliai these are to be entirely eliminated Irom the \\ 

picture I do not claim ai all. I think it is perfectly pi>ssiblc that fun.? ■ 

distinctions may become socialized and that in the process of dii: 

there may be sliuht denectii>ns from the original forms which register son>eihiiH' •■! 

the racial distinctii>ns themselves, but I would not be inclined to ovcrxscight ih.n I 

think It is a dangerous pt^inl to make at this stage o\ the game I think th.n when 

the concept and the historicit\ of culture are more cheerfulK accepted bs a!' 

than they are now. then will be the time, as a matter o\ tactics, to insi.; .-.. ...v 

possibility o^ this i^ther point. 

Noting that the hour had alieady struck ten. Chairman Trank called the mccling 

adjiHirned. 



4. Other Evening Sessii^ns: l-\ccipis tVoin Discussion 

In addition to the discussion ol his own lecture. .Sapir participated in the di^ mvvi.ui 
of other lecturers' presentations. We reproduce here those portions of the di 
in which he made some substantial comment. 

Concerning the comments on Bowman's geography lecture, related arguments ma) 
be found in chapter 3 o^ The Psyclioloi^y of Culture (this volume); sec also the much 
earlier work. Sapir 1912b ("Language and nn\iri>nment." CWFS I). The • 
cal comments on Ruml's lecture on social science metlu>ds and traininr 
comparisons o^ the social aiui natural sciences in cliapter 2 oi 'Pw Psycholoi: 
ture. Discussions of eticiuelle may also be found in that uork. 

Sapir's comments on Hincks's lecture on ■"Mental hsgiene and Social Sctcnce" are 
not reproduced here. They are brief and consist of questions abt>ut the dcmogntph 
characteristics and qualifications of psychiatric social workers. 



lie 



.August .^0 

Alter the lecture by Isaiah Bowman on "Geograph) as a Social Science." >c»ion 
chairman Guy S. Ford opened the meeting for discussion. Various questions ^trc asked 
about the charts and diagrams with which Bowman had illustraled his prcacnlJilion 
Sapir then broached some larger issues: 

SAPIR. - In spite o\: all the detail uhich I followed with the vcr>' grcalcst inlcrcn. 

I could not make clear to myself exacth what \li Bowman would Mxk lo show a» 

the subject matter of geography. 

I can illustrate my question b> taking such a thing a.s meteorology', which I ihink 

we all understand fairly well, in relation ti> dress Human ' 

of dress according to the state o\ the weather. If \ou h , . 

interested in human dress and think about the weather you may fin 

yourself, it seems to me, that meteorology includes the st • ' 

seasonable changes. If that h.ippens to be the Ukus ol in: 

far as to talk o{ meteon^loizN in the modification of s<Kial science 



236 111 Culture 

The parallel is very simple. I do not think that anybody denies that any given 
interest which deals with objects localized on the earth has a geographical point of 
view, and I think that Mr. Bowman's particular point of view in regard to anthropol- 
ogy is very farsighted. 1 think it is much keener than the point of view of many 
anthropologists because so far from trying to explain culture in terms of geography, 
he almost explains geography in terms of culture which I think in a sense is an 
advance. He says practically that we see on the earth what we are made to see by 
our culture. If we are living in a culture where mining is not possible, mining can 
not exist. 

I heartil\ agree in spirit with what he said in the earlier part of his lecture but 
what I do not clearly see yet - and here is where I seek enlightenment - is what is 
the conceptual justification of geography as a science if it takes in the human scene 
at all. And it is quite obvious that Mr. Bowman wishes geography to be considered 
as a human science. 

I can easily see where one actuated by human interests may wish to read the 
human implications in geographic facts just as one may wish to read human implica- 
tions in meteorological facts or physical facts. That is merely saying that you can 
have what I call intersecting types of interest, due to the meeting of two kinds of 
inquiry. That I do not deny at all. But have you the right, do you think conceptually, 
Mr. Bowman, to go so far as to actually define geography in terms of human interest 
instead of a purely objective humanly indifferent description of certain land masses? 

What would be your point of view with regard to this fundamental matter of 
di (Terence? 

BOWMAN. - I am afraid I have spoken in vain if I have given you the impression 
that conceptually, to use your term, geography is primarily a human science. I do 
not have that impression. 

Bowman then described several schools of geography in terms of how they relate 
geology and physiography to "the human aspects of the subject." He believed "the 
geographer has by far his greatest competence at the present time on the physical side 
of the subject. He continued: 

What I have done in selecting this and other illustrations is to lead to a generalization 
which runs like this: that the geographer takes the characteristics of his regions and 
sets them up in an attempt to discover whether region by region in the same or 
different cultures there is any repetition of the characteristics, a pattern. That is to 
say, if you get the white man going into a pioneer land, for example, in some other 
place than Australia, have we a repetition of the conditions of culture and conditions 
of living that are found in Australia today? 

...I would not approve, however, of your phrase "humanly indifferent." The em- 
phasis in geography is not upon "land masses" as you term them, but upon the 
elements in the environment that have the most marked human associations or rela- 
tions. After he has gained a degree of order and rationality in the treatment of his 
physical data, his next and most important step is to develop the human bearings of 
those data in their regional combinations. Geography can be defined in terms of 
"human interest," (again employing your term) as the relation of human activities 
and culture to the earth, region by region, in the present (primarily), in contrast to 
the primary interest of anthropology which may be defined as the study of cultural 
evolution in the larger past. 



One C iiliuif. S<uic[\. iuul ihf Individual 237 

SAPIR. - Mr. Bowman, it I may risk ihc suggestion, would you change the Utle of 

your address to. "The Value of CJeoiiraphy lor Social Sciences"? 

BOWMAN I hat would be mueh heller 

SAPIR. I ilimk ihere would be \er\ liiile lo quarrel with such a conception a% 
that. 

CHAIRMAN FORD. - The meelnii! siands adjourned. 

September 2 

The lecture by Beardsle> Riunl. ol" the Rockeleller I oundation. t<.H)k it 
inspiration from Sapirs presentation two nights earlier. Runil suiniu.in/cil 
Sapirs lecture as follows: 

RUML. - After showing the etTcct of a cultural pattern on one aspect ol pcrv>; 
in a simple and artificial case, Sapir referred to the complexity arising in real 
tions in the combination and fusion oi the many patterns of a culture; anil 
Sapir said, paraphrasing somewhat. "The elTect of the impact of this fusion i>i 
tural patterns upon the so-called personality at any moment will he mlerprclcJ i',> 
each according to the nature of his own experience." 

Although this statement of Sapir's is in anthropological terms, it has a dc" 
application to the whole range of social science and to the individual and partiv 
disciplines as well. Historian, economist, sociologist, political scientist, psycho). • 
the student of jurisprudence and o'( business, each is interested in the cuh 
ronment, in its impact upon individuals and of individuals upon it. .\nd .;... .... 

interpretation of this impact is by each according to the nature of his own cxpcrKncc. 
the experiential background o\~ the social scientist is a matter which may require 
more attention than it is probably receiving. 

Ruml then discussed some examples o{ how ditVerent social sciences record - i. c . 
transform into symbols - their experiential data, and the need for scnsidvity lo ihc 
symbols' inadequacy to represent all aspects of a problem. He then mo\c ' 

the training of social science researchers, and the need to provide experic:.. , , 

nities. Following the lecture. Chairman Charles E. Mcrriam asked Sapir lo comn>cnl 

SAPIR. - There are several thoughts thai I should like lo exprev*. which ha\r N 

raised by Mr. RumKs very engaging presentation. I just want lo echo wmc o\ ru-. 
statements and enlarge on a few points that ha\e been raised in m> mind I »ill 
begin with those eight peaches divided .imong four boss. 

(Ruml had posed a pmblem - how to divide eight peaches equalK ar 
- in which the arithmetical solution, two per boy, seems sir' 
qualitative dilTerences among the peaches, such as the i 

peaches are not ripe, il will not acluallv result in an equal division. Ihc pic 

sented only a partial aspect o'i the reality." Ruml had suggested ) S.ir" 

The obvious critique that was made at that point, if I did not ' «hc 

point which Mr. Ruml made, was that we musl beware of conccpiuaIi/al»on. we 

must beware of carrying over operations th.it arc i 

the conceptual sphere into the world o\ il-.iIkv I th • 

the criticism. 



238 tJf Culture 

I think that in this particular case and millions of others like it the same kind of 
apparently paradoxical statement might be made that is often made; measurements 
are critici/ed, not less measurements but more measurements. 1 should say the real 
cure tor this particular fallacy Mr. Ruml spoke about would be not less conceptual- 
ization but more conceptualization. 

rhc point is, so far as I see it, that there has been a fusion of two distinct concep- 
tual analyses of that particular situation indicated by the problem of dividing eight 
peaches among four people. You might look upon that as a mathematical problem: 
eight entities of any type to be divided among four individuals of any type. So 
considered, "boys'" is simply a content for a class, individuals who can receive some- 
thing; and "peaches" is simply a content for a class which can be divided. That is of 
course a mathematical point of view and the solution is perfectly correct. But after 
all the problem was not meant that way. Eight peaches to be divided among four 
bo\ s meant a certain mass conventionally represented as eight peaches, of enjoyable 
food, to be divided among four urchins who are so constituted as to enjoy such 
food. So put, the solution is indicated as fallacious not merely from the experiential 
viewpoint but from the strictly conceptual viewpoint. That is, the analysis of the 
situation required not less but more algebra and the whole trick of the problem is 
of course in reading one meaning into a verbal presentation which is possible on 
purely verbal grounds, but is not so intended. So that the whole thing is a kind of 
linguistic sleight-of-hand. 

That is one fancy that occurred to me. 

So that I do not think with examples of that kind we can be absolved- from the 
necessity of abstract thinking in our social problems, and we have to so mass our 
abstract thinking, so see particular situations as referable to intersecting contexts, as 
to make up the thing that we call concreteness of the situation.-^ Excess then of 
abstraction or multiplication of abstraction leads to concreteness, if you want to 
look at it in that way. One may take that or leave it but at any rate I would not 
consider that that particular example and others like it mean the death of conceptual 
approaches. 

There was another fancy that arose in my mind and that was this: if I understood 
Mr. Ruml correctly, he implied that the natural scientist has a certain peculiar advan- 
tage as compared with the social scientist. He experiences his materials. I think that 
was somewhat in your mind, was it not - the man who handles weights, masses, 
densities, deals with physical objects that he can stroke, fondle, toss, weigh, respond 
to in a sensory manner? But it seems to me that that participation in the objects that 
he studies is somewhat of an illusion. 

After all, the ivory of the billiard ball as you experience it is not helping you very 
much with the final analysis of that sphere, or mechanics of a moving sphere on a 
certain kind of a surface. You can get a certain sort of enrichment of the two experi- 
., jences, that is, the conceptual and the sensory, by associating them, enlarging the 
total field of experience, but actually the more the physical scientist concerns himself 
with the direct experience of the kind of objects that he deals with the less he is 
going to conceptualize and the less of the scientist he is going to be. So he has to 
effect some kind of association in his total experience if he is to be a real scientist. 
The real point it seems to me in his situation as compared with the situation of the 
social scientist is that that association is safe, because nothing matters much in that 



One Culture. Society. anJ tin Itulnuiuul 239 

process of abstraction which leads him id his laws He goc% on with hisdjiUv expcn- 

cnces with objects in quite an inelTeeti\e manner, and the (ornuil.!i 

i>f pli\sical science do not ha\e li> be tested \\\ the language nl 

in the ordinary sense of the word. They do of course in the final priK 

tion but there only under very special controlled ciMulitions which arc nut l>pital ul 

experience in the proper sense of the word. 

So that really the strength o^ this experiential philosophy of Mr. Ruml't of Ihc 
physical scientist is that he does not need ti> enrich his conceptual exp. 
terms o( the correlated sensory experience in the same sense in which Mr I 
- and 1 think rightly that the social scientist needs to enrich his conception*, and 
therein lies a very important distinctimi. it seems to me. which is consl.ir*'- ' — c 
overlooked, between social science and physical science, a disimclion ■■ .^ 

made best I think by Rickert, a (jerman philosopher, in his critique ol hisiorKjl 
science \ersus natural science. And the essence ol that distinction is simpK this thai 
there are two ways of apprehending the world, one to destroy il by concept uaii/in^ 
it, and thai process of destruction means getting a hold of it; the other * 

the actual as a historical entity. Social science is a sort of meeting-place ■. : : 

impulses, ^ou want to conceptualize the social world in order to understand il in 
general terms. But at the same time you dare not conceptualize too much because. 
if you do, you lose \our sense of familiarit\. 

\\'h\ do we not want to lose that sense oi familiarit\'' Why is it that the physKTHl 
can finalK get down to perfectK unreal entities, in the psschologic.il s^.•I1^ 
atoms and electrons, and so on, without daring'.' It is because he hasn i • n 

data in ad\ance. It really makes no dilTerence to him whether a given object he i* 
expcrinieniing with is destro\ed or not. 1 1 always is destroyed. No particubr event 
matters a hang to any physical scientist. 

The social scientist is not in that posiiuMi. Whether he acknowledges history as 
being particularly interesting {o him or not he is actualK swaNcd h. *' "' f 

history. He does \alue the particular event, the particular thing .An. 
always two impulses that cross in his mind and to gel a healthy balance between 
those two impulses is the crucial dilTiculty o\' the si>cial scientist On the ■- '■ ■ * 
he must conceptualize to get control at all. On the other hand he inu-i » 
experiential realij^y. I think if these conditionings are called sound it n. 
obvious that the problem of the social scientist is a ver> dilTerenl prtWh... 
of the physical scientist, and this feeling of safety and familiarit> that il- 
scientist has is simply due to the fact that an assiKiation is pi>ssiblc in 
would be dangerous and misleading in the case o\ the sixial sclcntl^; . 
task of concepluali/ing on the one hand, verifying in terms of c<'l«»r(ul . 
on the other, confronts the social scientist. 

The third fancy which came to me on the basis ol .Mr Rumi's words «a* m 
connection with the enrichment o^ experience itself. If I understtXMl him 
pleaded"* for enrichment. Enrichment has two meanings to nK li • 
more things or doing less things, lather is possible. Vou can cnru 
of love by having more people to love, or you can ennch your oonoeplKM of love 
by loving one person more. Take it either way. 

1 noticed that in illustrating his principle of enrichment or his ideal of enrKhincnt 
he spoke of doing A. doing B. doing C. doing D. In other words, he illustrated i»hat 



240 m Culture 

seems \o nic \o be ihc chronic contemporary American incoherent mental philoso- 
phy: if only you can do enough things which are obviously different, some kind of 
a synthesis will be reached which you can call richness of experience. 

So that finally in my own fantastic world Mr. Rumfs remarks lead to a critique 
- of contemporary culture and it seems to me that in the last analysis the profoundest 
' ^ reason why the social scientist cannot make real his concept world in terms of experi- 
ence hangs together with the fact that he has not a thickly massed, well-integrated, 
thoroughly consistent [amount] of experience under observation to draw from. He 
is full of contradictions. He is conceptually self-contradictory on a great many points 
and 1 will close by quoting as an example of what I mean a very humble experience 
at the luncheon table. Two of my friends here are already familiar with it because 
we discussed it at the lime - something involving etiquette. I am not talking about 
my friends. I am very polite. (Laughter) 

Etiquette is a crucial kind of experience because it is a crystallization of profound 
symbolisms which have become so habitual that one does not need to worry about 
the actual analysis. 

At this particular luncheon there took place two streams of talk. One was between 
the three scientists assembled around the table, and that was very comforting and 
comfortable. The other stream of talk was that which was due to the waitress. Now, 
there are two theories about waitresses serving at a table at which scientists are 
gathered together. One theory is the democratic theory. The other theory is the more 
or less aristocratic theory or the strictly patterned theory, and of course there are 
blends or confusions possible between the two. According to the first theory all 
human beings are alike. If a number of human beings are gathered together at a 
certain point in space and happen to talk the same medium, which in this instance 
was English, they are entitled to talk to each other as a reciprocal, meaningful assem- 
blage of human beings. There is no reason why therefore the waitress might not butt 
in and join in our psychological conversation. 

On the other hand, one might - this did not really happen but it might have - 
adopt another point of view. Her function so far as we were concerned was simply 
to serve. Inasmuch as she was to be an administrant to our unexpressed wishes she 
might even be considered as deprived of the power of speech; all that she needed to 
do was to dispense service in the form of moving plates along as expeditiously and 
discreetly as possible in order that we might be accorded the privilege of carrying 
on our conversation. 

What actually happened was a blend of those two possible conceptualizations or 
abstractions which I have presented to you. What actually happened was that she 
undoubtedly had the feeling inside of herself that she was very polite because she 
did not join with us in our talk on psychology. She kept discreetly aloof from her 
standpoint, and she felt that her business was to serve the dishes. In fact, she was so 
zealous about the serving of the dishes that she did it most effectively. 

One of the most effective ways of doing a thing when we do not quite know how 
to do it is to ask what is wanted. So that we found practically in this condensation 
of experience which actually happened that at all sorts of crucial moments where we 
were following the trail of psychological thought she wanted to know whether it was 
pie that was wanted or something else that was wanted, or whether it was A that 
ordered a certain thing or B. 



One Ciilnnr. Society, and the ImUvhlual 241 

I claim ihal that is profoundly simple because it meant that two quite di«iiru-i 
patterns were In^pclcssly confused. It may be that she was \en c- 
not (liink ymi will recogni/e this as an exceptional case I thniK 
admit it is a laiiK typical case in the commerce of human activities. 

You might say that it would be quite snubbish for her on Ii 
severely aloof and not to talk out loud, but here is the point n 
clarity of experience in that particular situation, it should have been one or Ihc olhcr 
either we should ha\e a relentlessly democratic philosophN which i " ' 

ress to join in our coinersation. if we happened to ha\e the phen 
ress who could join in a conversation on psychology, or she should be an admin* 
istrant to our wishes and keep her mouth shut. In so far as she did n "' 
the other, the context was hopelessly confused and the experience w.i 

I give this as a kind o\' instance or model o[ what I think is the matter vmh 
contemporary American culture: that it is symbolically self-contradictory ut so many 
points that it is very dilTicult even for the wise social scientist to know what it i% all 
about. (Laughter) 

Several other participants responded to Sapir's remarks. RumI commenteil 

RUML. - ... It does seem to me that we ha\e been depending too much en this 
transmission of experience purely by symbol. I do ni>t want to be irre\crent but I 
think it would be a good thing if these people could smell some of ihe^ social 
institutions (Laughter), if not literalh at least in some form that wnuld m.ikc it 
possible when the symbol comes again and again for them to K* critical i>l n And 
of course that is the real point o^ the peaches story uhich I was surpnscd that Or 
Sapir missed. (Laughter) Not. mind you. that an accurate anahsis ».■ ' ' 
been made by further conceptualization, but that without the check 
knowing that boys would want peaches and not entities, the conccpluali/ation wa» 

not pursued to the point where it would \ield a realistic answer, which ■- 

again, a ditTerent story. And it seems to me that is the type of experience. •>. 
provide that check against your symbols, \erbal or arithmetical or algebraic, that 
we lack so much. 

September y 

On the final evening of the conference, in a session chaired b> /Vrthur M. Ss.f 
Carlton J. H. Hayes spoke on "Research problems in the Field o^ Inlcmalioniil RcLi 

tions." Much of the lecture actually concerned natuMiahsm. and s»>f ' '• 

research undertaken on nationalism in several disciplines. One ol the . . 

recommended was psychological, anthropological, and sociological: "MutlKr* of hi»» 

and why men behave as nationalist indi\iduals or groups." .Sapir. late in Ihc diwuv%u>o 

period, raised further questions on this point: 

SAPIR. - May I ask. Mr. Chairman, what function dixrs Mr Hayes bclic%c national- 
ism to have? Is that funclion a necessary one' If not. how can wc dissipate naliooal- 
ism? 

... Let us assume that nationalism is dispensed with I lUst \%anl \o get your point 
of view on this. I think the intellectual can \ery easily v ■ 
that might take the place of nationalism but so far as i 
cerned, the man on the street, he needs some representation of himself on « Ur»e 



242 III Ciihurc 

scale. How would you expect him to work for anything Hke internationaHsm? Why 
would not nationalism be so necessary as to have to be accepted in some form or 
other? 

What is your position in regard to that whole matter of a large structure that we 

call nationalism' 

H.-WFS. I do not know that I have any very decided position about that. What 
I should like w ould be to discover whether we can get a larger number of our fellow 
human beimzs to be a little more rational and a little less devotional about their 
various kinds of loyalties and to develop some sane loyalty that will transcend, rather 
than [be] subordinated to. this particular loyalty which we call nationalism... 

Later. Sapir was asked to elaborate on his question: 

SECRETARY LYND.^ - Mr. Chairman, I wonder if Mr. Sapir would care to com- 
ment on some of the varying forms and varying functions which this self-identifica- 
tion with a larger group appears to take in individuals in some groups with which 
he is familiar? 

SAPIR. - I do not think I should like to go into any detail on that but I should 
like to relate an incident. 

1 knew a gentleman who was born in Yorkshire. He spoke with a great deal of 
feeling of his associations in Yorkshire and it was obvious from the way he spoke 
his sentiments were profound. He said every time he returned to Yorkshire something 
welled up in his heart and so forth, and yet owing to the fact that he had come to 
this country at a fairly early age and identified himself with a rural community here 
he had changed his allegiance. It was perfectly obvious from the way this gentleman 
spoke that he was not an intellectualist although he was connected with intellectual 
pursuits in the ordinary sense of the word, but he spoke pretty much as a man on 
the street might speak on these matters. I should say that his critical abilities were 
perhaps no more than mediocre. 

Here is the thing that interested me and seemed a little paradoxical. He said that 
after the war he returned to England once and he got in with a bunch of English 
rural squires and others who discussed in some inn that he was staying at the ques- 
tion of America's participation in the war, and they produced the usual arguments 
that America came in too late and that Americans had the bad manners to proclaim 
that they or "we" won the war and that they were very tyrannical in the imposition 
of their financial terms. And he said he could not stand for that. 

Mind you, he was a Yorkshire man revisiting his Yorkshire colleagues, and in 
defiance of prudence which would have dictated that he hold his peace, because he 
was in a rather peculiar position - he might have been considered a traitor - some- 
thing or other in this simple soul demanded that he get up and protest, and while 
his arguments were not very refined or elaborate he produced the usual parlor argu- 
ments: that intelligent Americans did not say they won the war, but that there was 
a reasonable presumption that the war might not have been won by the Allies if the 
Americans had not stepped in when they did and that after all, the Americans were 
quite reasonable in their financial settlements. 

I was very much impressed by the necessity that this newly termed American felt 
for espousing the cause of America. 



One Culiiiir. Stnuii. iind tin liulnutiuil 243 

I would put the problem iii this way: Why was ii so impDrtanl lor him to capi- 

tali/c the abstract scntiiiicni or espouse rather the abstract scnliiii 

than specific allegiance'.' You might suppose the fact that he h.i 

about Yorkshire on the one hand and certain secondary fechngs about Amcnca on 

the other would produce a kind o[' psychological blend which • ' ' 

mind, but that is not the way he acted at all. Being a fairly avcr.i 

\o di> something quite ditTerent. something that the mtelleclualisis do not Mcm lo 

do. at least those who write articles about mternationalism. What he did was lo quilc 

calmly - he was a very peaceful man who hates war surrender his m>uI as it wcic 

to the abstract ideal o\' natimialism, some kind of identification of himself with a 

great corporate body, and inasmuch as he was now identified and had been for man> 

years in a most significant way with America that identificatn>n seemed the moM 

natural to him. 

1 simply would like to ask Mr. Hayes and other internationalists uh> ti is so ea%> 
for a notably peaceful man w ho has more than the usual home allegiance lo sacrifKc 
so much for what you might call the abstract idea o\ nationalism. It seems lo mc 
that there is a psychological reality. 

HAYES. - 1 think that probably more light can he thrown on that question and a 
better answer gi\en by the anthropologists than b\ any other group 

SAPIR. ~ I am simply stating the facts. I do not know any more about il ihan you 
do. Mr. Hayes. 

ALLPORT. - It might he that that mans feeling was due to his own slalus in ihal 

particular group with which he came in cmitact in \'orkshire. in Iingiand. . 

Allport expounded at some length m response to Sapir's queslion. as did Adolf 
Meyer and Guy Ford. After a few briefer comments Chairman .Schlcsingcr adjourned 
the meetinu. 



5. "Original Memorandum lo ihc Social Science Research 

Council from the Conference on Acculluriilion and IVrsiMialil>."* 

Hanover, September 2, 1930. B\ Professor Sapir. 

Chairman o'i Conference. 

Personality research cuts in many directions across ihc held o\ tlic 
social sciences. While the social sciences can exist without p.io- "'■' 
attention to the problems of persiMicilit>, for useful icsults from t. 
in most social science problems. i\u^ leizard for such lactors is fu\ 
The data of each social discipline fiiul ihcir origin and functional mani- 
festations in personal acts. And the h^rmiilatii>ns of each ol ih; 

ences are distinguished from those of the natural .sciences b> the u . 
ment for their factual demonstration and validation of inferences kiscd 
on the actual performance of luiinan peisonalities. 



244 /// Culture 

Regardless o\' individualities of definition that may be given to the 
term, personality, research useful alike to the social scientist and to 
those dealing with specific individual living, must concern itself with 
the description of specific behavior manifestations and with the discov- 
ery of the processes that enter as factors into the differentiated behavior 
manifested by the person. Such data are already available indicating 
that these latter processes may be studied as "inner" components - the 
specific functioning of organismic constitution, of neurological integrat- 
ing apparatus, of will-power, drives, prejudices, desires, predispositions, 
sentiments, directing tendencies, tissue tensions, motives, complexes, re- 
pressed atTects, and so on. Equally validly, they may be studied as the 
manifestations of cultural patterns - mores, customs, institutionalized 
patterns o( behavior, fashions, etc., these incorporated in and function- 
ing through the person. It is evident that neither of these approaches 
used independently will give us a complete understanding of the func- 
tional activity of personality as it is manifested in behavior. Personality 
research must study the interdependence of "inner" components and 
available cultural patterns. 

There are available no adequate descriptions of behavior manifesta- 
tions as they occur in daily life. There is, however, a body of data of this 
kind bearing on behavior manifested in more or less highly controlled 
situations. There are data bearing on gross observable behavior of some 
primitive individuals. The largest collection of data fairly approximating 
description of behavior is that accumulated by psychiatrists interested 
in seriously disordered personalities. The beginning of really adequate 
descriptions has been made in the study of infants and children; e. g., 
Gesell, D. S. Thomas, J. E. Anderson. The obvious difficulties of this 
phase of personality research lie in the ubiquity of the manifestations 
and our lack of techniques. The success of the psychiatrist comes from 
the extraordinary character of the behavior that he studies. The success 
of the infant and the child investigator, in turn, arises from the simplic- 
ity of the behavior. The ordinary behavior of everyday people, on the 
other hand, is often enormously more complex, and, curiously, more 
inaccessible even for the crudest recording. 

The promising approaches to this phase of research are found in (1) 
the systematic observation and recording of particular types of behavior 
selected from the total complex, including laboratory techniques; (2) 
self-observations recorded in diaries, journals, letters, and other literary 
forms; (3) certain types of performance tests in which the behavior of 
the individual is more or less automafically recorded; (4) guided in- 



One: Culture. Society, ami the Indivulual 245 

terviews supplemented by free-fantasy, as used b\ ilic psychialrisi; and 
(5) investigation by study of recorded instances of past performances. 
The expanded utilization o\^ these techniques, simply or, preferably, m 
combination, should be pushed in many directions. 

On the side of the exploration of beha\ior by unesligalion o{ ihc 
interaction of **inner" and cultural factors, there is accumulated a great 
body of one-sided data. Some of this may be suspeciible of successful 
infcr-conrlaflo/h once techniques have been worked out bv study o( 
actual instances of interaction manifesting m adequalels described be- 
havior. Here and there such an elTori has been made. In great measure, 
however, effort has been misdirected to the "explanation" of one of this 
body of factors by appeal to the other. Interpretations of anthropologi- 
cal data on behavior by an appeal to psychological, biological, or psy- 
chiatric formulations, for any purpose other than the drafting of 
hypotheses to be tested by subsequent investigation, are useless. 

It is the sense of the Committee that the fruitful united attacks on 
this problem are to be made by the study ol" some relaii\el> small 
groups possessed of well-developed cultural patterns conspicuously dif- 
ferentiated from those with which we are so identified as ic^ make their 
functional activity obscure. Many such groups are easy of access in (a) 
the Indian reservations; e. g., the Navajo, the Plains Indians: and (b) 
various immigrant communities; e. g.. the Scandina\ian ciMiiinuiiitiL's of 
the Northwest. 

A rough suggestion of method for the investigation of such communi- 
ties takes the form of (a) studies of the life of the group as a whole; (b) 
intensive personality studies of all or a selected number of the indiMd- 
uals actually engaged in the group life; and (c) studies o( group and 
individual manifestations referable to environing cultural factors actu- 
ally incorporated into some of the individuals. This sort o( study will 
require the active team work of the cultural anthropologist, the sikmoIo- 
gist, the psychologist, and the psychiatrist, each sensiti\e to ihc view- 
points of all the others. 

From the findings of this study there will come formulations o\ per- 
sonality in which the interacting factors of culture and •"inner" compo- 
nents receive intelligible roles. The conclusions will be susceptible to 
meaningful reference to historic data on the evolution o\ the existing 
patterns of Indian and Scandina\ian ciiliurcs. Ihey will shed light on 
changes in culture actually underway in the selected groups, and on 
the processes and factors actually concerned. rhe> uill provide control 
material for such experimental variations in culture-environments as 



246 lit Culture 

those utilized of laie in the treatment of crime and mental disorder. On 
the basis of these formulations, a technique can be evolved, for example, 
for etTective utilization of representatives of other culture-groups, such 
as foreign-born and foreign-educated Fellows assembled in a seminar. 

These investigations should provide means for analysis of our own 
cultural patterns, and of their interaction with "inner" components in 
the genesis of behavior. 

It is the sense of this conference that the Social Science Research 
Council appoint a Committee on the Interrelationships of Personality 
and Culture. 



6. "A Project for the Study of Acculturation among the 

American Indians, with Special Reference to the Investigation of 

Problems of Personality," ms. presented to the Social Science 

Research Council, September 2, 1930 

Sapir's proposal for studying American Indian acculturation called for fieldwork by 
a research team to amass an empirical data base for the ethnographic study of personal- 
ity. The proposal was effectively tabled, however, until resuscitated in 1936 by Robert 
Rcdfield, Ralph Linton, and Melville Herskovits ("Memorandum for the Study of Ac- 
culturation," American Anthropologist 38: 149-152). Emphasis on personality and the 
individual was much attenuated in the later version. 

We reproduce here only the introduction to the proposed project. The original pro- 
posal continues with details concerning the project's supervisory committee, staff, dura- 
tion of study, and budget. 



The present brief memorandum of an anthropological project . . . may 
be fairly looked upon as having back of it the consensus of opinion of 
the anthropologists of this country. Owing to the rapidly growing inter- 
est in problems of personality, in the relation between personality and 
cultural background, and in the large borderland of interests that link 
up cultural anthropology, sociology and social psychology with each 
other, it is believed that the present project, however specifically anthro- 
pological in subject matter, is by no means exclusively or even predomi- 
nantly so in spirit. 

In the main, anthropologists have concerned themselves with primi- 
tive cultures in their original form, and have shown comparatively little 
interest in the fate of these primitive cultures when they are brought in 
contact with our modern civilization. In this attempt to get at the out- 



One: Culture. Socicly. ami the Individual 247 

lines ciflhc iinconlaniiiialccl nali\c liiIiuic ihc aiilhropologisl has often 
had to cliniinalc scci>iKlai\ mlliiciKcs tliic to ilic while man. More and 
more, however, the aiitliropologist is beeommg interested in prLX'isciy 
those aspects o\^ native hfe w hicli he was fiMnierl) at pams to ignore or 
weed out. All social pheiu>niena are o\' interest to the si>cial scientist, 
and amhiopology stands read\ lo y>oo\ its resources with sociology and 
social psychology. It is suggested that it would be extremely valuable to 
study in some detail exactly what happened with a number of selected 
American Indian cultures under the stresses and strains of adaptation to 
modern life. Such studies winild require a large amount of preliminary 
ethnological work, which, however, has rorlunatel> been done for a 
considerable number o'i American tribes. A careful studv o{ historical 
sources and other documenlarv material would also be necessary in 
order lo enable one to gauge as accurately as possible the extent o^ the 
gradual change in culture that was being etTected bv contact with the 
whites. 

The main part o( the work which it is proposed \o underttikc i> a 
fresh field study of some five or six Indian tribes, with a \iew not to 
reconstructing the aboriginal culture but to seeing exact 1> iiow these 
tribes maintain themselves under modern conditions, how much o^ the 
old life is relevant for modern conditions. hcn\ much has been sacrificed 
without regret, how much is being ihougiil to continue in spite of nuHl- 
ern conditions, what new interpretations o^ old material have been 
brought in by cultural blends, and. above all. w hat personalitv problems 
have been raised by the introduction of new ways of life and what elTecl 
these problems have on a selected number o\' individuals wht> m 'v >^- 
taken as illustrative of various types of personalitv. 

The particular tribes suggested for this stud\ are; the 1 laida. of Queen 
Charlotte Islands; a selected tribe of California; the Dakota or other 
tribe of the Plains region; the Navaho; and the Hopi or other tribe of 
the Pueblo region. These tribes are so selected as to illustrate five rather 
distinctive American Indian cultures which ha\e made a fairly gcxxJ 
adjustment to modern life, ilunigh illustrating at the same time many 
problems of social and perst>nal disintegration. 

It should be pointed out that the project connects with work thai has 
already been done by a number o\' anthropt^logisls and with work in 
other cultural fields that it is proposed to undertake KeeMni!"s studv of 
the Menomini Indians of Wisconsin and Mekeels studv ot ih '' '.i 
Indians have recently been undertaken under the auspices ol W il 

Yale University and stress the historical factors in cultural adjustment 



248 ff^ Culture 

lo modern conditions of life. The experiences gained in these researches 
would be invaluable in carrying out the present project, which is, how- 
e\er. to lav rather more emphasis on the psychological factors but 
somewhat less on the purely historical ones, though by no means ignor- 
ing the latter. Not unrelated also are the researches of Redfield, who 
has been studying the nature of the blend of aboriginal Mexican culture 
with the Old World culture brought in by the Spanish conquerors. The 
Personality Committee of the University of Chicago Social Science Re- 
search Council has been hoping for some time to raise funds for the 
study of personality problems in alien cultures and of the changes in 
personality which take place in individuals who are expected to adjust 
to entirely different cultural conditions than those in which they have 
been brought up or which constitute the social heritage of their people. 
The two recent Colloquia on Personality conducted by the American 
Psychiatric Association have drawn repeated attention to the impor- 
tance of studying cultural backgrounds for the understanding of grave 
personal maladjustments, and it is the hope of a number of anthropolo- 
gists, social psychologists and psychiatrists that it may be possible for 
the cultural anthropologist and the psychiatrist, apparently so far re- 
moved from each other, to study in the field problems that are of com- 
mon interest. W. I. Thomas' Scandinavian project and the proposed 
seminar, presumably at Yale, of foreign students who are to take up 
problems of the impact of culture on personality, are also rather closely 
related to the present project. 

Much of the value of the present proposal would seem to lie in the 
relative aloofness from practical problems. The state of the Indian is, 
after all, of minor concern to the administrator or the student of con- 
temporary affairs. But the extreme psychological distance between the 
aboriginal American Indian cultures and the kind of Hfe they are ex- 
pected to lead today should prove an excellent gauge for estimating the 
possibilities of relatively quick adjustment. It is the essential viewpoint 
of the proposed study that the individual is seen as the meeting place 
of contrasting cultures. It is believed that cultural anthropology could 
hardly be of more direct service to sociology and psychology than in 
the manner indicated. The Indian and his cultures are rapidly passing. 
The present types of halfway adjustment are likely to pass in the not 
distant future. It will seem very important retrospectively to have ana- 
lyzed in some detail the psychological nature of the adjustment process 
in the transitional period. 



One: Culture. SocU'ty. uml ihc Iminuiual 249 

7. "The Proposed Work ot ihc C'oniniiUcc on IVrsonalily and 

C'lillurc"' 

a. Oullinc. September 2. 1930 

A note attached to the following oiithne nulicales that the proposed work of ihc 

committee was based on the attached memorandum (Ongmal Mcmorundum lo ihc 

Social Science Research Council), and that "the menn^randum is designed ; -ul 

the approach and contribution by anthropok>gy. recogni/ing that other I.k irc 
consideration in their proper place." 



1. Scope: To study the relation between the developinenl i>l the pcrson- 
aUty and the eultural and psychologieal characteristics ot the com- 
munity in which the personaHty develops. 

2. Objective of program: Two related groups of studies concerning: 

(a) General behavior patterns peculiar to given commumlies. 

(b) A more sharply tbcussed objective, i. e. to explain the individual 
against culturally defined backgrounds. 

- While several factors may be responsible for individual dilTcr- 
ences in personality the one of considerable importance siKiall) 
is to find what the general social patterns mean to mdividuals 
who participate in them. (The thesis is that the degree o\ agree- 
ment between the meaning which the individual comes lo sex* in 
social patterns and the general meaning that is inherent (for oth- 
ers] in those patterns is significant for an undersiandmg oi the 
individual's process of adjustment, as revealing harmony or con- 
flict.) 

3. Aim: 

- The relationship of objectives (a) and (h). Worn the staiKip<Min oi 
anthropological investigation, is sequential r.iilu-i ili.ni e»>rrcLi- 
tive. Therefore: 

- We should begin through close alliance uiih current work m cul- 
tural anthropology and sociology, e. g. community suncys, 
studies of acculturation. 

- These are necessary preliminaries lo anv type o\ pcrsonaliiy 
studies that shall aim properly to stress the social cnvironmcnl as 
a factor that conditions ihc formation of the complete personal- 
ity. 

4. Organization: A Committee rcprescnlmg all approaches lo ihe sludy 
of behavior. 



250 /// Culture' 

5. Contacts:- With individual social scientists (sociological, anthropo- 
logical. psNchiainc. psychological physiological etc.) who are al- 
ready engaged on certain aspects of personality problems. 

- With institutions (Universities) that are developing a program. 

- Witii younger promising students in cultural anthropology and 
social psychology. 

6. Fields for research: 

(a) Surveys of local communities (preferably small and self-con- 
tained) with special reference to detailed study of individuals 
therein over a considerable period of their development. E.g. 
Connecticut community, Canadian Dukhobors. 

(b) Studies of acculturation among primitive peoples. E.g. American 
Indians (Navajo), peoples of Polynesia (Samoa). 

(c) Personality deviations (normal and abnormal) in groups that are 
racially and culturally distinct. 

b. Revised version, February 18, 1932 

It seems that the general objectives of the Committee are fairly clear. 
It is supposed to study the problem of the relation between the develop- 
ment of the personality and the general cultural and psychological char- 
acteristics of the community in which the personality develops. This 
would seem to indicate that the work of the Committee would fall into 
two groups of distinct, yet related, studies. One series of studies would 
take up the clarification of the general behavior patterns that are pecu- 
liar to given communities, this part of the work of the Committee would 
ally itself very closely with current work in cultural anthropology and 
sociology. Community surveys and studies of acculturation would be 
types of the kind of work envisioned in this part of the Committee's 
program. Such studies should be looked upon as necessary preliminaries 
to the more sharply focussed objective of the Committee, which is to 
explain the individual against culturally defined backgrounds. If these 
more detailed studies of personality differ at all from current studies in 
psychology, it would be in laying more continuous stress on the factors 
of the social environment which condition the formation of what we 
call the complete personality. It is not assumed that these factors are 
wholly, or perhaps even mainly, responsible for personahty differentials, 
but if there is reason to think that they are so to at least a considerable 
extent, it becomes important not merely to study a community as such 
but to see exactly what the generalized social patterns mean for a large 
variety of individuals, to what degree they actually participate in them 



One: Culture. Sociciv. inul the ImiivUlual 251 

and U^ what cxlcnl the general nicaniniis uhieh inlicrc in inslilulional 
and other social patterns afUrm or eonliailiet the meanings, conscious 
and unconscious, which the indi\idual has de\eloped \u the course of 
his adjustment to society. Thus, both problems o\' harmonious adjusl- 
ment and conflict are suggested. 

These general objectives, while eas\ to state, are diU'icult to translalc 
into specific projects which would be ccmu incmg to all siudenls of hoha- 
vior. Merely by way of submitting tentative proposals which arc lo be 
thoroughly discussed by the Committee as a whole, the writer would 
like to suggest that, among other studies, attention be directed to three 
distinct series of specific problems. 

The first of these would be surveys of selected communities with par- 
ticular reference to the detailed study of indi\iduals o\er a considerable 
period of time with a view to watching the ps\chological developmeni 
of these individuals, both personall\ and as statistical aggregates, in 
the communities which will first have been studied. Lynd's study of 
Middletown might serve as a model but it is hoped that the more strictly 
psychological aspects of such a sur\ey would be emphasized to a greater 
extent. Owing to the enormous difficulis o\' understanding the larger 
and more complex urban communities o\' coniemporar\ America il is 
proposed that these community sur\e\s specialize on rather small, rela- 
tively homogeneous and self-contained communities that roughly ap- 
proximate the conditions to be found among more primitive people. 
Specific examples might be a small Connecticut community of say 
20.000 inhabitants or a religious communits such as that i>f the Dukho- 
bors of Canada. These communities should be selected in \arious parts 
of the United States and Canada with a view to having as many geo- 
graphical environments represented as the limited funds will allow. 

It is further proposed that we undertake selected studies of accultura- 
tion among primitive peoples. The attached memorandum on the study 
of acculturation among the American Indians, with sixvial reference lo 
the investigation of problems of personality, was originally prepared by 
E. Sapir for consideration b\ the SiKial Science Research Council and 
is given by way of initial suggestion to the present committee II may 
be said that there is some reason to emphasize the studs i>l the Na\ajo 
because of certain work in this direction already being undertaken by 
Yale. A further series o\' studies ami>ng primitive peoples is ^ d 

by C. Wissler's memorandum i^n Polynesia. Naturalh. the pre \\ 

field selected tor study would ha\e to be determined alter due . '• 

alion by the committee as a whole. Il ma> Ix- poinied oul thai wc 



252 III Culture 

have promise o\^ excellent personnel for this type of work because a 
considerable number of students of cultural anthropology are becoming 
more and more interested in psychological problems connected with 
their work. 

As a third specifically delimited field of inquiry may be mentioned 
the more intensive study of personality deviations, both normal and 
abnormal, in racially and culturally distinct groups. Two specimen pro- 
jects falling within this general field are herewith appended. One is a 
psychiatric project of Harry Stack Sullivan, the other a study of emo- 
tion among primitive peoples suggested by O. Klineberg, now in the 
department of psychology at Columbia University. In the first two sets 
of studies proposed, the emphasis is on the particular community and 
the emergence of personality in that community. In this third series of 
studies the emphasis is rather on the general psychological comparison 
o^ a given community with others. If this field seems too broad, as well 
it might, it is suggested that it be defined as the psychiatric study of 
selected groups by persons who qualify for this type of work because 
of their combined interest in cultural differentials and in personality 
problems as studied by the psychiatrist. 

The question was raised of affiliation of the proposed work of the 
Committee with various institutions already interested in similar work. 
These affiliations are numerous and obvious. One has merely to men- 
tion Toronto, Chicago, Columbia, Yale and Harvard to realize how 
wide-spread is interest in the fields covered by the name of the Commit- 
tee. It may be pointed out that the Institute of Human Relations at Yale 
is particularly interested in developing a program for the intensive study 
of a small urban community in Connecticut. Plans are now under way 
for the launching of this project and it is hoped that the work of the 
Institute of Human Relations in this regard can eventually be linked up 
with the similar work proposed for the present Committee. 

A word should be said as to available personnel. There may be a Httle 
initial difficult in finding quite the right person for the various types of 
work envisaged in this memorandum, but, on the whole, the writer has 
been impressed by the large number of promising students of culture 
and personality who are interested precisely in the fields that have just 
been mapped out. An excellent example of a very promising young man 
who is interested precisely in problems of acculturafion is Dr. E. Beag- 
lehole, who has recently published a general book on "Property" from 
the standpoint of cultural anthropology and who is eager to do inten- 
sive work in some Polynesian area, for instance Samoa. His proposed 



One: Culture. Socicly. ami tin- InJiviihuil 253 

project on acculturation in Samoa is herewith submiiicJ as a kind of 
appendix to Wisslcr's general siaiciiicni i>ii I\>iyncsian problems. A fur- 
ther source of strength for the prosecution of our work would be Dr. 
Harry Stack Sullivan, a far more mature person. While his experience 
has been chietly with schizophrenic disorders, he should be helpful lo 
the Committee because o\' his coiniction lluii e\en profound behavior 
deviations, such as we observe in the insanities, are by no means with- 
out important relations to cultural differences i^f the enviri>nmenl. lor 
participation in a psychologically weighted study of a selected urban 
community, S. Mekeel stands ready to serve at an early opporlunily. He 
has had a great deal of experience in studying the acculturation o( the 
Teton-Sioux to modern conditions. He is eager to enter the siud> of 
personality development in a community representati\e of our own civi- 
lization. Mention may also be made of Dr. W. Morgan o( Cambridge. 
Massachusetts, who is a physiologist who is passing cner into the field 
of personality development in various cultures with pariicuhir reference 
to primitive communities. He has started work oi' this kind among the 
Navajo at his own expense and prepared some valuable papers which 
indicate the fruitfulness of the proposed field o\' nnestigaiion. It is 
hoped that the Committee may be sufficientl\ interested in this t\pc of 
work to warrant the submission of a more detailed memorandum on 
the study of personality development among the Navajo at a later time. 

Copies appended of the following projects: 

(a) Study of acculturation among the American Indians, with special 
reference to the investigation of problems of personalit\ - E. Sapir. 

(b) Cultural factors in emotional expression O Klineberg. 

(c) Polynesian projects - C. Wissler. 

(d) A study of the process of acculturation in Samoa I Ik-aglehoic. 

(e) Proposed investigation of schi/ophrenia IIS Sulli\an. 



Editorial Note 

These memoranda, discussion excerpts, and Sapir"s address to ihc 
Social Science Research Council at the Hanover Conference of 1930 
originally appeared in ilie contcrence u.inscripts. Not previously 
printed, they are published here with the permission o\' ihc S. ' "^^ i- 
ence Research Council. Minor changes in punctuation and c» i^ 

of typographical errors have been made for this publication. 



254 JJf Culture 

Notes 

1. For a summary o^ Sapir's brief remarks at the 1928 Hanover Conference, see Darnell 
199U;3U1. Sapir did not attend the conferences of 1927 or 1929. 

2. The transcript has "absorbed". 
3 The transcript has "students". 

4. ITic transcript has "pleased". 

5. Robert L\nd, of the Commonwealth Fund. New York. 



Cusloni ( \')}\ ) 
Edilc^iial IiUihkIucIumi 

Between 1931 and 1934, Sapir conlrihuied eight ciuiics to inc /.my- 
c/opcclid of Social Sciences edited by C\ilinnhia l'ni\ersiiy political sci- 
entist R. A. Seligman and AI\in Johnsi)n. Director of the New School 
for Social Research. Although the Encyclopedia editorial bi>ard incliklcd 
no anthropologists, representatives of the discipline did ser\e in \anous 
other ad\ isory capacities. An ad\ isory committee from ciMisiiiuenl stKJ- 
eties of the Social Science Research Council included Robert I.owic 
and Clark Wissler, acting on behalf of ihc American Anthropological 
Association. Alfred Kroeber served as an ad\ isory editiM- for anthropol- 
ogy, and W. R. Ogburn and W. 1. Thomas shared a similar position for 
sociology. Franz Boas served on the Encyclopedia's btnird of directors. 

With so many other anthropologists in\t^l\cd. Sapii'. whose ostensible 
specialty was in linguistics, was assigned important topics only in thai 
field. In anthropology he was allotted only entries the editors appar- 
ently considered tangential. Undaunted, he focused these assigned top- 
ics so as to elaborate aspects oi" his increasingK integrated theory of 
culture. He took these essays sufficiently seriousls that he included them 
as reading assignments tor his Yale seminar on '"'rhe Impact o[ Culture 
on Personality"" in 1932-33. Taken together, these brief articles present 
a succinct overview of Sapirs maturing theory of culture. six"iciy and 
the individual as presented for an inlcrdisciplinar\ siKial science in- 
formed by, but not exclusive to, anlhropologs. 

Five of Sapir's encyclopedia entries appear in the present volume: 
"Custom" (Sapir I93id), 'T^^ashion" (19311). -(iroup' ll'^."^2b). "Per- 
sonality" (1934c). and "Symbolism" (19>4e) His more spccincally lin- 
guistic entries - "Communication" (1931a). 'nialeci" (l9"^leJ. and 
"Language" (1933b) - appear in CII7:\ \olume 1. 

Regarding "Custom"" (1931 ). Sapir argued that the "fomial cohesion" 
o\^ isolated customs formed them mto "larger configurations" which 
were understood as functional units despite disparate origins This con- 
figurational perspective, which strongK connects "custom" uilh "cul- 
ture;" countered Lowie's 1920 dictum that culture was "a thing o( 



256 Jit Culture 

shreds and patches." Even while emphasizing configurations, however, 
Sapir did not abandon his interest in individuals, and the ways individ- 
uals attached feelings to these customary patterns. Culture, convention, 
and custom were all interpreted as individual habits, indirectly func- 
tional and inalienably symbolic and integrated. 

Sapir's ethnographic examples of custom characteristically evaded ex- 
otica in favor of commentary on contemporary urban North America. 
Custom was not to be identified with so-called primitive society more 
than with the Encyclopedia readers' own society, which might have a 
more complex division of labor and an increasing emphasis on the indi- 
\ idual (among other divergences) but depended on custom and conven- 
tion nonetheless. 



Custom 

The word custom is used to apply to the totality of behavior patterns 
which are carried by tradition and lodged in the group, as contrasted 
with the more random personal activities of the individual. It is not 
properly applicable to those aspects of communal activity which are 
obviously determined by biological considerations. The habit of eating 
fried chicken is a custom, but the biologically determined habit of eating 
is not. 

Custom is a variable common sense concept which has served as the 
matrix for the development of the more refined and technical anthropo- 
logical concept of culture. It is not as purely denotative and objective a 
term as culture and has a slightly affective quality indicated by the fact 
that one uses it more easily to refer to geographically remote, to primi- 
tive or to bygone societies than to one's own. When applied to the 
behavior of one's own group the term is usually limited to relatively 
unimportant and unformalized behavior patterns which lie between in- 
dividual habits and social institutions. Cigarette smoking is more readily 
called a custom than is the trial of criminals in court. However, in 
dealing with contemporary Chinese civilization, with early Babylonian 
culture or with the life of a primitive Australian tribe the functional 
equivalent of such a cultural pattern as our court trial is designated as 
custom. The hesitation to describe as custom any type of behavior in 
one's own group that is not at once collective and devoid of major 
importance is perhaps due to the fact that one involuntarily prefers to 
put the emphasis either on significant individualism, in which case the 



One: ( 'ulturc. Society, ami tin- /nJiviJual 257 

word habit is used, or on a iluMouuhls ralionali/cd and formalized 
collecti\L' inlciuion, m which case the term insiituiion seems in place. 

Custom is often used iiiierchaugeabls with convention, iradilion and 
mores, but the connotations are nol quite the same. C'onvenlu^n empha- 
sizes the hick of inner necessity in the behavior pattern and often unphes 
some measLue o\' agreement, express or tacit, that a certain mode of 
behavior be accepted as proper. The more symbolic or indirecl the func- 
tion of a custom, the more readil\ is it referred to as a convention. It 
is a custom to write w ith pen and ink; it is a con\entii>n to use a certain 
kind of paper in formal correspondence. Tradition emphasi/es the his- 
toric background of custom. No one accuses a community of being 
wanting in customs and comeniions, but if these are not felt as pos- 
sessed o( considerable antiquity a community is said to have few if 
any traditions. The difference between custom and tradition is more 
subjective than objective, for there are feu customs whose complete 
explanation in terms of history does not take one back to a remote 
antiquity. The term mores is best reserved for those customs which con- 
note fairly strong feelings of the righlness or wrongness o\ nu>des ot 
behavior. The mores oi' a people are its unftMiiuilated ethics as seen in 
action. Such terms as custom, institution, coinention. tradition and mo- 
res are, however, hardly capable of a precise scientific definitiim. .All o\ 
them are reducible to social habit or, if one prefers the anihri>pological 
to the psychological point of view, to cultural pattern. Habit and culture 
are terms which can be defined with some degree o( precision and (65^^1 
should always be substituted for custom in strictly scientific discourse, 
habit or habit system being used when the locus of behavior is thought 
of as residing in the individual, cultural pattern or culture when its Kvus 
is thought o\' as residing in societ\. 

From a biological standpoint all customs are in origin individual hab- 
its which have become diffused in society through the interaction of 
indiv idual upon indi\ idual. These diffused or socialized habits, however. 
tend to maintain themselves because i>f the unbroken continuity of the 
ditTusion process from generation to generation. One more often sees 

custom helping to form individual habit than individual hab-' '^ i: 

made over into custom. In the main, grouj^ psychologv takes pu e 

over individual psychology. In no societv. however primitive or remote 
in time, are the interactions o\' its members not controlled b> a v 

network of custom. liven at an early stage of the palaeo! *'■ : 

human beings must have been ruled bv custom to a vcr> v 
extent, as is shown by the rather sharply delimited tvjvs of arti* 



258 III Culture 

iluii were made and ilie inferences thai can be drawn from some of 
these as to behefs and attitudes. 

The crystallization of individual habit into custom is a process that 
can be followed out theoretically rather more easily than illustrated in 
practice. A distinction can be made between customs of long tenure and 
customs o^ short tenure generally known as fashions. Fashions are set 
bv a specific individual or group of individuals. When they have had a 
long enough lease of life to make it seem unimportant to recall the 
source or original locality of the behavior pattern, they have become 
customs. The habit of wearing a hat is a custom, but the habit of wear- 
ing a particular style of hat is a fashion subject to fairly rapid change. 
In the. sphere of language custom is generally referred to as usage. 
L'ncrystallized usages of speech are linguistic fashions, of which slang 
forms a particular variety. Food habits too form a well recognized set 
o\' customs, within which arise human variations that may be called 
fashions of food and that tend to die out after a brief period. Fashions 
are not to be considered as additions to custom but rather as experimen- 
tal variations of the fundamental themes of custom. 

In course of time isolated behavior patterns of a customary nature 
tend to group themselves into larger configurations which have a formal 
cohesion and which tend to be rationalized as functional units whether 
they are such historically or not. The whole history of culture has been 
little more than a ceaseless effort to connect originally independent 
modes of behavior into larger systems and to justify the secondary cul- 
ture complexes by an unconscious process of rationalization. An excel- 
lent example of such a culture complex, which derives its elements from 
thousands of disparate customs, is the modern musical system, which 
is undoubtedly felt by those who make use of it to be a well compacted 
functional whole with various elements that are functionally interdepen- 
dent. Historically, however, it is very easy to prove that the system of 
musical notation, the rules of harmony, the instrumental techniques, the 
patterns of musical composition and the conventional uses of particular 
instruments for specific purposes are independently derivable from cus- 
toms of very different provenience and of very different age, and that 
it is only by slow processes of transfer of use and progressive integration 
of all these socialized modes of behavior that they have come to help 
each other out in a complex system of unified meanings. Hundreds of 
parallel instances could be given from such diverse fields of social activ- 
ity as language, architecture, political organization, industrial tech- 
nique, religion, warfare and social etiquette. 



One Culture. Society, and the ImlivUliuil 259 

The iinpciinaiicncc cW ciisloin is i\ iruisin. Hclid iii ihc rapidily of 
change o\' clisIdih is cxaggcralctl. hcnvcver, because it is preciscK ihc 
comparatively sliuhi cii\cigciKcs IVdih uhai is socially csiablishcil ihal 
arouse attention. A comparison ot American life today with the life oi 
a mediaesal Enghsh town would in the larger perspective ol" cultural 
anthropology illustrate rather the ielali\e permanence i^t" culture than 
its tendency to change. 

The disharmony which cuiiuilati\ely results from the use of tools. 
insights or other manipulative types of behavior which had enriched the 
cultural stock in trade o\^ society a little earlier results in cluingc ol 
custom. The inlroductiiMi o\' ihe autonn>hile. lor instance, was not at 
first felt as necessarily disturbing custom, hui m ihe long run all those 
customs appertaining to visiting and other miKles of disposing of i»ne's 
leisure time have come to be seriouslv miKlified by the automobile as a 
power contrivance. Amenities of social inlcrcourse felt to be obstructive 
to the free utilization o'i this new source o{ power tend to be dismissed 
or abbreviated. Disharmony resulting from the rise of new values also 
makes [660] for change in custom. For example, the greater freedom of 
manner of the modern woman as contrasted with the far more conven- 
tionally circumscribed conduct of women of generations ago has come 
about because of the rise of a new attitude toward woman and her 
relation to man. The influences exerted by foreign peoples, e. g. the 
introduction of tea and coffee in occidental societv and the spread oi 
parliamentary government from countrv to countrv. are stressed by 
anthropologists more than by the majoritv of historians and sociologists 
as determinants of change. Most popular examples of the imposition of 
fashions which proceed from strategic personalities are probablv lanci- 
ful and due to a desire to dramatize the operation o\' the more imper- 
sonal factors, which are much more imporlanl in the aggregate than 
the specific personal ones. With the gradual spread of a custom that is 
largely symbolic and characteristic o\' a selected portion o{ the pv>pula- 
tion, the fundamental reason for its continuance weakens, so that it 
either dies out or lakes on an entirely new function. Ihis mechanism is 
particularly noteworthy in the life o\' langu.ige. l-iKulu>ns w' ' 
considered smart or chic because they are the pro|XTt> ol p:;.... 
circles are soon taken up by the masses and then die bcxause ol : 
banality. A nuicli nioic pcuvcrtiil and exact knowledge of the nature ol 
individual interaction, parlicularlv as regards the unconscious trai-^ 
of teeling. is needed before a reallv salisfving thci^rv of cultural ch.i;... 
can be formulated. 



260 III Culture 

Those customs survive the longest which either correspond to so basic 
a human need that they cannot well be seriously changed or else are of 
such a nature that lhe> can easily be functionally reinterpreted. An 
example o^ the former type of persistence is the custom of having a 
mother suckle her child. There are numerous departures from this rule, 
vet both modern America and the more primitive tribes preserve as a 
custom a mode o'i behavior which obviously lies close to the life of man 
in nature. An example of the latter type of persistence, which may be 
called adaptive persistence, is language, which tends to remain fairly 
true to set form but which is constantly undergoing reinterpretation in 
accordance with the demands of the civilization which it serves. For 
example, the word robin refers in the United States to a very different 
bird from the English bird that was originally meant. The word could 
linger on with a modified meaning because it is a symbol and therefore 
capable of indefinite reinterpretation. 

The word survival should not be used for a custom having a clearly 
defined function which can be shown to be different from its original 
place and significance in culture. When used in the latter, looser sense 
the word survival threatens to lose all useful meaning. There are few 
customs among us today which are not survivals in this sense. There 
are, however, certain customs which it is difficult to rationalize on any 
count and which may be looked upon as analogous to rudimentary 
organs in biology. The useless buttons in modern clothing are often 
cited as an example of such survivals. The use of Roman numerals 
alongside of Arabic numerals may also be considered a survival. On the 
whole, however, it seems safest not to use the word too freely, for it is 
difficult to prove that any custom, no matter how apparently lacking 
in utility or how far removed from its original application, is entirely 
devoid of at least symbolic meaning. 

Custom is stronger and more persistent in primidve than in modern 
societies. The primitive group is smaller, so that a greater degree of 
conformity is psychologically necessary. In the more sophisticated com- 
munity, which numbers a far larger total of individuals, departure from 
custom on the part of a few selected individuals, who may in turn prove 
instrumental for a change of culture in the community at large, does not 
matter so much for the solidarity of the group to begin with, because the 
chance individual of the group finds himself reinforced by the vast ma- 
jority of his fellow men and can do without the further support of the 
deviants. The primitive community has also no written tradition to ap- 
peal to as an impersonal arbiter in matters of custom and therefore puts 



One: Culture. Society, ami the InJivUhutl 261 

more cncre\ wno the conservation ot uluil is iransniilicd ihrough acliv- 
it\ and i>ral iraJilion. Ilie presence ot docunienls relieves the individual 
from ihe necessity of lakinu personal responsibility lor the perpetuation 
of custom. Far too great stress is usually laid on the actually consei 
as contrasted with the symbolically conser\nie, power o\' the w 
word. Custom among primitive peoples is apt to deri\e some mc.i 
o\^ sacredness from its association with magical and religious pro- 
cedures. When a certain type of activity is linked uilh a ritual which is 
in turn apt to be associated with a legend that to the native mind ex- 
plains the activity in question, a radical departure from the traditionalls 
conserved pattern [661] of behavior is felt as blasphemous or perilous 
to the safety of the group. There is likewise a far lesser division of labor 
in primitive communities than in our own, which means that the forces 
making for experimentation in the solution o( technical problems are 
proportionately diminished. 

In the modern world custom tends to be much more conser\ative in 
the rural districts than in the city, and the reast>ns are similar to thi>se 
given for the greater persistence o\' custom among primitive peoples 
The greater scatter of the rural population does not generallv mean the 
more intensive individual cultivation of the forms of custinn but rather 
a compensatory effort to correct the threats of distance by conforniiiN 

Within a complex community, such as is found in modern cities, cus- 
tom tends to be more persistent on the whole in the less sophisticated 
groups. Much depends on the symbolism of a custom. There are certain 
types of custom, particularly such as are symbolic of status, which tend 
to be better conserved in the more sophisticated or wealthy groups than 
in the less sophisticated. The modern American custom, for instance, of 
having a married woman keep her maiden name is not likely soon to 
take root among the very wealthy, who here jom hands with the unso- 
phisticated majority, while the custom is being sparsely dilTuscxi among 
the intellectual middle class. 

The varying degrees of conservatism in regard to cusiiMii . ' 1- 
lustrated in the behavior of a single individual because ot the ........;il 

types of social participation int^^ which he enters. In Ingland. lor in- 
stance, the same individual ma> be m the vanguard of cuslom as a 
Londoner but insistent on the pieservation of rural cuslom as a country 
squire. An American university man mav be disdainful t^l ci: " — rv 
opinion in his faculty club but be meekly i^bservant o\ religiou n 

on Sunday at church. Loyalty or departure from cuslom is not a simple 



2f)2 ffJ Culture 

iLiiKiion o{ icmpcramcni or personality but part and parcel of the sym- 
bolism o{ multiple participation in society. 

Custom is generally referred to as a constraining force. The conflict 
o\' individual will and social compulsion is familiar, but even the most 
forceful and self-asserlive individual needs to yield to custom at most 
pomts in order that he may gain leverage, as it were, for the imposition 
o^ his personal will on society, which cannot be conquered without the 
implicit capture of social consent. The freedom gained by the denial of 
custom is essentially a subjective freedom of escape rather than an effec- 
li\e freedom o^ conquest. Custom makes for a powerful economy in 
ihc learning of the individual; it is a symbolic affirmation of the solidar- 
ity of the group. A byproduct of these fundamental functions of custom 
is the more sentimental value which results from an ability to link the 
present and the past and thus to establish a larger ego in time, which 
supplements with its authority the larger ego represented by the com- 
munity as it functions in the present. 

The formulation of customs in the sphere of the rights and duties of 
individuals in their manifold relations leads to law. It is not useful to 
use the term law, as is often vaguely done in dealing with primitive 
societies, unless the enforcement of customary activity be made explicit, 
being vested in particular individuals or bodies of individuals. There are 
no societies that are wholly free from the binding force of implicit law, 
but as there are also many primitive societies which recognize some type 
of legal procedure it seems much better to speak of law only in the 
latter case. There are, for instance, few American Indian tribes in which 
customary obligations are recognized as a system of law that is capable 
of enforcement by the community. Psychologically law prevails, but not 
institutionally. This is in rather sharp contrast to the legal procedure 
which has been developed by the majority of African tribes. Here there 
is not merely the law of custom in an implicit sense but the perfectly 
explicit recognition of rules of conduct and of punishment for their 
infringement, with an elaborate method of discovering guilt and with 
the power of inflicting punishment vested in the king. The example of 
African law indicates that the essential difference between custom and 
law does not lie in the difference between oral tradition and the written 
formulation of custom. Law can emerge from custom long before the 
development of writing and has demonstrably done so in numerous 
cases. When custom has the psychological compulsion of law but is not 
controlled by society through the imposition of explicit penalties it may 
be called ethics or, more primitively, mores. It is difficult to distinguish 



One: Culture. Socii'ty. unJ flu- huiivUhuil 263 

law and ethics in llic more simple loinis ot"soeiel\. lioih emerge from 
custom but in a somewhal JiNcrgent maimer. Mundane or human sover- 
eignty becomes progressively distinguished from socially dilTuscd or su- 
pernatural or impersonal so\ereignty. [662] Custom controlled by the 
former is law; custom controlled b\ the latter is ethics. 

The agencies instrumental in the formatic^n o( custom are for ihc 
most part quite impersonal in characlcr and implicit m the mere facl of 
human interrelationships, riieie are also more selt'-conscious agencies 
for the perpetuation oi' custom. Among these the most important are 
law and religion, the latter particularly in the form o\ an orgam/ed 
church and priesthood. There are also organizations which are senti- 
mentally interested in the conservation of customs which threaten lo go 
out of use. In the modern world one often sees a rather weak nationalis- 
tic cause bolstered up by the somewhat artificial fostering o\ archaic 
custom. Much of the ritualism o\' the modern Scintish clans is secondar- 
ily rather than lineally conservative. 

If complicated forms oi' conscious manipulaticMi oi ideas and tech- 
niques which rule the modern world are excluded from the range of the 
term custom, the force of custom may be said to be gradually lessening. 
The factors which favor this weakening o\' cusioni are: the growing 
division of labor with its tendency to make scKiets less and less homo- 
geneous; the growing spirit of rationalism, in the light o\' which much 
of the justification of custom tades away; the growing tendency lo break 
away from local tradition; and. finalK. the greater store set by indiNidu- 
ality. The ideal which is latent in the nuHlcrn mind wmild seem \o be to 
break up custom into the two poles of indi\kluall> determined habit on 
the one hand and of large scale institutional plannmiz li>r the major 
enterprises of mankind on the other. 

Consult: Tylor, E. B., Prinilfivc Culture, 2 vols. (7th ed. New York 
1924); Boas, Franz, The Miml of Pruuitive Man (New \otV h)Ih. and 
Anthropology and Modern Life (New \ovk I92S); Lowie. R. H . Primi- 
tive Soeiety (New York 1920) and Are We On7/rtv/:M New York 1929): 
Wissler, Clark, Man and Culture (New ^ork 1923); KriK-bcr. A. L.. 
Anthropology (New York 1923); Sumner. W. G., /' " T^ ' 'H 

1907); Sumner, W. G., and Keller. A. (i.. The Science - • -^. 

(New Haven 1927-28); Wallis, W. D.. Culture and Pn York 

1930); Malinowski, Bronislaw. Crinu- and Custom in Savtigv > 
(London 1926); Hocarl. A. M.. "Are Savages Custom-'^ 
vol. wvii (1927) 220-21); Benedict. Ruth. "'Ilie Scien.. 
Century Magazine, vol. cwii (\')2')) (>4I 49. 



2(^4 ^^^ Culture 

Editorial Notes 

Originally published in Edwin R. A. Seligman (ed.), Encyclopaedia 
of tlw Social Sciences 4, 658-662 (New York: Macmillan, 1931). Copy- 
riizht 1931, renewed 1959, by Macmillan Publishing Company. Re- 
printed by permission of the publisher. 



Fashion (1931 ) 

Editorial InliocliiciiDii 

Another ol" Sapir's brief entries tor the /ju vclopiiliu <;/ the Stniul 
Sciences, "Fashion" was conceptually linketl wiih the entry for "Cus- 
tom"' (this volume). Sapir identified fashion as custom in the disguise 
of departure tVom custom. It could be interpreted in terms of its conven- 
tionality as cultural pattern, yet at the same time it ser\ed individuals as 
a means of expression of personality. Though fi^llouinL' the "povverful 
psychological drifts" that affect tUher cullural patterns (and language 
as well; ct\ the discussion of language history in Laniiuni^c, 1921 ). fash- 
ion also provided avenues for individuals' behavioral difTereniiaiion 

Sapir's approach to this topic differed ccnisiderablv from that o\ Al- 
fred Kroeber, who had published a papci on ii m \^)\^) ("On the Prin- 
ciple of Order in Civilization as E.xemplified b\ Changes o\' Fashion/" 
American Anfhropoloi^isf 21: 235-63). In keeping with his own lhet>rcli- 
cal stance, Kroeber had emphasized the importance of cullural pattern 
as against individuals' actions and motives, which (he argued) large- 
scale trends in fashion revealed as illusorv. Kroeber again pursued this 
theme in a quantitative study, published (with Jane Richardson) in 
1940, just af^ter Sapir's death; 'Three Centuries o\' Women's Dress Fash- 
ions; A Quantitative Analysis," Anthropoloi^icul Records 5(2): i— iv. 
11-153. The contrasts between Sapir's and Kroeber's approaches to 
this topic recall the theoretical disagreemeni t'lrsi articulated in iheir 
debate over the "Superorganic" in 1^M7. 



Fashion 

The meanmg o\' the term fashion mav be clarified by pi>inling oul 
how it differs in connolalion Uom a luimber o\' other terms whose 
meaning it approaches. A particular fashion dilTers Irom 'e 

in suggesting some measure c-)f ciMiipulsion on the par! ot ;... »s 

contrasted with individual choice friMn among a numlx*r of pt>^ 
A particular choice may of course be due to a blend of fashion and 



266 ^^^ Culture 

tasic. riui^. if hrighi and simple colors are in fashion, one may select 
\\\\ as more pleasing to one's taste than yellow, although one's free taste 
unhampered by fashion might have decided in favor of a more subtle 
lone. To the discriminating person the demand of fashion constitutes a 
challenge to taste and suggests problems of reconciliation. But fashion 
is accepted by average people with little demur and is not so much 
reconciled with taste as substituted for it. For many people taste hardly 
arises at all except on the basis of a clash of an accepted fashion with 
a fashion that is out of date or current in some other group than one's 

own. 

The term fashion may carry with it a tone of approval or disapproval. 
It is a lairly objective term whose emotional qualities depend on a 
context. A moralist may decry a certain type of behavior as a mere 
fashion but the ordinary person will not be displeased if he is accused 
of being in the fashion. It is different with fads, which are objectively 
similar to fashions but differ form them in being more personal in their 
application and in connoting a more or less definite social disapproval. 
Particular people or coteries have their fads, while fashions are the 
property of larger or more representative groups. A taste which asserts 
itself in spite of fashion and which may therefore be suspected of having 
something obsessive about it may be referred to as an individual fad. 
On the other hand, while a fad may be of very short duration, it always 
differs from a true fashion in having something unexpected, irresponsi- 
ble or bizarre about it. Any fashion which sins against one's sense of 
style and one's feeling for the historical continuity of style is hkely to 
be dismissed as a fad. There are changing fashions in tennis rackets, 
while the game of mah jong, once rather fashionable, takes on in retro- 
spect more and more the character of a fad. 

Just as the weakness of fashion leads to fads, so its strength comes 
from custom. Customs differ from fashions in being relatively perma- 
nent types of social behavior. They change, but with a less active and 
conscious participation of the individual in the change. Custom is the 
element of permanence which makes changes in fashion possible. Cus- 
tom marks the highroad of human interrelationships, while fashion may 
be looked upon as the endless departure from and return to the high- 
road. The vast majority of fashions are relieved by other fashions, but 
occasionally a fashion crystallizes into permanent habit, taking on the 
character of custom. 

It is not correct to think of fashion as merely a short lived innovation 
in custom, because many innovations in human history arise with the 



One: C 'ultinr. Society. umJ the Individual 267 

iiccJ \\m- ihcm aiul last as long as ihcy arc iisdiil or convcnicnl. IT. lor 
iiisiaiicc. ihcic Is a shoriagc of silk aiiJ ii becomes cuslomary lo subsii- 
tule cotton for silk in the nianutaclurc of certain articles of dress in 
which silk has been [\M)\ the usual material, such an enforced chaniie 
o{ material. ho\\e\er important ecoiu>micallv or aestheticalK. diK*s nol 
in itself conslilule a true change of fashion. On the other hand, ifcouon 
is substituted for silk out o\' free choice as a s\rnbol perhaps o\ the 
simple hfe or because o\' a desire to see what no\el elTect can he pro- 
duced in accepted types of dress uith simpler materials, the change mav 
be called one o'( fashion. There is nothing to prevent an innovation 
from e\entuall\ taking on the character of a new fashion. If. for exam- 
ple, people persist in using the ctMton material e\en after silk has once 
more become available, a new fashion has arisen. 

Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom. .Most nor- 
mal individuals consciously or unconsciousls ha\e the itch lo break 
away in some measure from a too literal K\\alt\ to accepted custom. 
They are not fundamentally in revolt from custom but they wish some- 
how to legitimize their personal deviation without laying ihemsehes 
open to the charge of insensiti\eness to 'd.ooi\ taste or good manners. 
Fashion is the discreet solution of the subtle conllict. Fhe slight changes 
from the established in dress or other lorms o\' behavior seem for the 
moment to give the victory to the individual, while the fact that one's 
fellows revolt in the same direction gives one a feeling of adventurous 
safety. The personal note which is at the hidden core of fashion heci>mes 
superpersonalized. 

Whether tashion is fell as a sort o{ sociallv legitimized caprice i>r is 
merely a new and unintelligible form of social t>rannv depends on the 
individual or class. It is probable that those most concerned with the 
setting and testing of fashions are the individuals who reali/c mosl 
keenly liie problem o\^ reconciling individual freedom with social con- 
formity which is implicil in the \er> fact o{ fashion, ll is fX'rhaps nol 
too much to say that most people are at least partly sensitive lo this 
aspect o\^ fashion and are secretly grateful for it. A large mmoritv ^^i 
people, however, are insensitive to the psychological complexity of i. 
ion and submit to it to the extent that thev ^\o merely because ihcv 
realize that not lo fall in with il would be to declare themselves r 
of a past generation or dull people who cannot keep up wiih ihc. ..^ 
bors. These latter reasons for being fashionable are >cvi>ndan. ihc 
sullen surrenders to bastard custom. 



268 Ifi Culture 

riic fundamental drives leading to the creation and acceptance of 
fashion can be isolaicd. in the more sophisticated societies boredom, 
created by leisure and too highly specialized forms of activity, leads to 
restlessness and curiosity. This general desire to escape from the tram- 
mels o( a too regularized existence is poerfully reinforced by a ceaseless 
desire to add to the attractiveness of the self and all other objects of 
love and tYiendship. It is precisely in functionally powerful societies that 
the individual's ego is constantly being convicted of helplessness. The 
mdividual lends to be unconsciously thrown back on himself and de- 
mands more and more novel affirmations of his effective reality. The 
endless rediscovery of the self in a series of petty truancies from the 
olTicial socialized self becomes a mild obsession of the normal indivi- 
dual in any society in which the individual has ceased to be a measure 
of the society itself. There is, however, always the danger of too great 
a departure from the recognized symbols of the individual, because his 
identity is likely to be destroyed. That is why insensitive people, anxious 
to be literally in the fashion, so often overreach themselves and nullify 
the very purpose of fashion. Good hearted women of middle age gen- 
erally fail in the art of being ravishing nymphs. 

Somewhat different from the affirmation of the libidinal self is the 
more vulgar desire for prestige or notoriety, satisfied by changes in fash- 
ion. In this category belongs fashion as an outward emblem of personal 
distinction or of membership in some group to which distinction is as- 
cribed. The imitation of fashion by people who belong to circles re- 
moved from those which set the fashion has the function of bridging 
the gap between a social class and the class next above it. The logical 
result of the acceptance of a fashion by all members of society is the 
disappeareance of the kinds of satisfaction responsible for the change 
of fashion in the first place. A new fashion becomes psychologically 
necessary, and thus the cycle of fashion is endlessly repeated. 

Fashion is emphatically a historical concept. A specific fashion is 
utterly unintelligible if lifted out of its place in a sequence of forms. It 
is exceedingly dangerous to rationalize or in any other way psychologize 
a particular fashion on the basis of general principles which might be 
considered applicable to the class of forms of which it seems to be an 
example. It is utterly vain, for instance, to explain particular forms of 
dress or types of cosmetics or methods of wearing the hair without a 
preliminary historical critique. Bare legs among modern women in [141] 
summer do not psychologically or historically create at all the same 
fashion as bare legs and bare feet among primitives living in the tropics. 



One CiilfKir. Socii'lv. und iln- huiiviJuul 269 

The importance of iiiulcrsUiiKling fashion historically should be obvious 
enough when it is rccogni/cd ihai the very essence o( fashion is thai ii 
be valued as a variation in an understood sequence, as a departure from 
the immediately preceding mode. 

Changes in fashion depend on the pre\ ailing culture and on the siKMal 
ideals which inform il. I iidci the apparently placid surface of culture 
there are always powerful psychological drifts of which fashion is quick 
to catch the direction, in a democratic society, for instance, if there is 
an unacknowledged drift toward class distinctions fashion will discover 
endless ways of giving it visible form. Criticism can always be met by 
the insincere defense that fashion is merely fashion and need not be 
taken seriously. If in a puritanic society there is a growing impatience 
with the outward forms of modesty, fashion finds it easy to minisier to 
the demands of sex curiosity, while the old mores can be trusted to 
defend fashion with an affectation o\' unauareness o\' what fashion is 
driving at. A complete study o\^ the history of fashion would undi>ubi- 
ediy throw much light on the ups and downs of sentiment and attitude 
at various periods of civilization. Howe\er. fashion never permanenll) 
outruns discretion and only those who are taken in b\ the sufXTficial 
rationalizations of fashion are surprised b\ the frequent changes of face 
in its history. That there was destined to be a lengthening o\' women's 
skirts after they had become short enough was obvious from the outset 
to all except those who do not believe that sex symbolism is a real factor 
in human behavior. 

The chief difficulty of understanding fashion in its apparent vagaries 
is the lack of exact knowledge of the unconscious ssmbolisms attaching 
to forms, colors, textures, postures and other expressive elements in a 
given culture. The difficulty is appreciabiv increased b> the fact thai the 
same expressive elements tend to have quite ditVerent symbi>lic refer- 
ences in different areas. Gothic type, for instance, is a nation. i'" • *■ 
ken in Germany, while in Anglo-Saxon culture the praciicalK - 'i 
type known as Old English has entirely dilTerent connotations. In other 
words, the same style of lettering may symboli/e either an undsing ha- 
tred of France or a wistful look backward at madrigals aiu' r 

An important principle in the history ol fashion is that ti. ure^ 

of fashion which do not configurate correctK with ifie unconsaouN ^ 
tem of meanings characteristic o\' the given culture are relalivcly inse- 
cure. Extremes of style, which too frankly s>mboh/e the \:u^ • t 
feeling of the moment, are likely to find themselves in exposed p>- 
as it were, where they can be outflanked b\ meanings which ihcy do 



270 /// Culture 

noi wish to recognize. Thus, it may be conjectured that Hpstick is less 
secure in American cuhure as an element of fashion than rouge 
discreetly applied to the cheek. This is assuredly not due to a superior 
sinfulness o\^ lipstick as such, but to the fact that rosy cheeks resulting 
from a healthy natural life in the country are one of the characteristic 
fetishisms of the traditional ideal of feminine beauty, while Hpstick has 
rather the character of certain exotic ardors and goes with flaming ori- 
ental stufls. Rouge is likely to last for many decades or centuries be- 
cause there is, and is likely to be for a long time to come, a definite 
strain o\^ nature worship in our culture. If lipstick is to remain it can 
onl\ be because our culture will have taken on certain violently new 
meanings which are not at all obvious at the present time. As a symbol 
it is episodic rather than a part of the underlying rhythm of the history 
of our fashions. 

in custom bound cultures, such as are characteristic of the primitive 
world, there are slow non-reversible changes of style rather than the 
often reversible forms of fashion found in modern cultures. The empha- 
sis in such societies is on the group and the sanctity of tradition rather 
than on individual expression, which tends to be entirely unconscious. 
In the great cultures of the Orient and in ancient and mediaeval Europe 
changes in fashion can be noted radiating from certain definite centers 
o'i sophisticated culture, but it is not until modern Europe is reached 
that the familiar merry-go-round of fashion with its rapid alternations 
of season occurs. 

The typically modern acceleration of changes in fashion may be as- 
cribed to the influence of the Renaissance, which awakened a desire for 
innovation and which powerfully extended for European society the 
total world of possible choices. During this period Italian culture came 
to be the arbiter of taste, to be followed by French culture, which may 
still be looked upon as the most powerful influence in the creation and 
distribution of fashions. But more important than the Renaissance in 
the history of fashion is the effect of the industrial revolution and the 
rise of the common people. The former [142] increased the mechanical 
ease with which fashions could be diffused; the latter greatly increased 
the number of those willing and able to be fashionable. 

Modern fashion tends to spread to all classes of society. As fashion 
has always tended to be a symbol of membership in a particular social 
class and as human beings have always felt the urge to edge a litfle 
closer to a class considered superior to their own, there must always 
have been the tendency for fashion to be adopted by circles which had 



One: Culiuic. Society, uiul the huiivutiutl 271 

a Unvcr status than the uioiip sctlini: the lasliioiis. liul on the whole 
such adoption o( lashion from above leiuled lo be discrccl because of 
the great importance attachetl to llie maintenance of scKial clasNcs 
What has happened m the modern world, regardless of the olTicidl 
forms of government wliieh prevail m the dilVerent nations, is that the 
tone giving power whicli hes back o[' fashion has largeh shpped away 
from the aristocrac\ o\' lank to the aristocrac\ i>f ueahh. I'his means a 
psychological if not an economic lexelmg of classes because of the feel- 
ing that wealth is an accidental or accreted cjualit) t»f an individual as 
contrasted with blood, in an aristocracy o\' wealth everyone, even the 
poorest, is potentially wealthy both in legal theory and in private fancy. 
In such a society, therefore, all nuiividuaK aie eciuallv entitled, it is fell, 
so far as their pockets permit, to the insignia o'i fashion. This universal- 
izing of fashion necessarily cheapens its value in the specific case and 
forces an abnormally rapid change of fashion. The onlv effective protec- 
tion possessed by the wealthy in the world o\' fashion is the insislentx 
on expensive materials in which fashion is to express itself. Too great 
an insistence on this factor, however, is the hallmark of wealthy vu! • 
ity, for fashion is essentialh' a thing of forms and svnibols, not of iikiIi.- 
rial values. 

Perhaps the most important o\' the special facti>rs which encourage 
the spread of fashion today is the increased faciliiv for the production 
and transportation of goods and for communication either personally 
or by correspondence from the centers of fashion to the outmost periph- 
ery of the civilized world. These increased facilities necessarily lead \o 
huge capital investments in the manufacture and distribution of fash- 
ionable wear. The extraordinarily high initial profits to be derived from 
fashion and the relatively rapid tapering off of profits make it inevit.'^'/ 
that the natural tendency to change in fashion is hel|x*d along bv c> : 
mercial suggestion. The increasingly v aried activities o\ modern lile also 
give greater opportunity for the growth and change of fashion. Ttxiay 
the cut o\' a dress or the shape o\' a hat stands readv lo svmK ' 
anything from mountain climbing i>r military efficiency ihi •■••^^ ■ 
mobiling to interpretative dancing and \eile«.l harK>lry. No ^ 
merely what his social role indicates that he is {o be or may vary only 
slightly from, but he may act as if he is anv thing else ihal mdividual 
fantasy may dictate. The greater leisure and s(XMHiing pimer o'i the 
bourgeoisie, bringing them externally nearer the up(X-r classes ol former 
days, are other obvious stimuli to change in fashion, as arc ihc gradual 



272 Jit Culiwc 

psychological and economic liberation of women and the greater oppor- 
tunity given them for experimentation in dress and adornment. 

Fashions for women show greater variability than fashions for men in 
contemporary civilization. Not only do women's fashions change more 
rapidly and completely but the total gamut of allowed forms is greater 
tor women than for men. In times past and in other cuUures, however, 
men's fashions show a greater exuberance than women's. Much that 
used to be ascribed to woman as female is really due to woman as a 
sociologically and economically defined class. Woman as a distinctive 
theme for fashion may be explained in terms of the social psychology 
o^ the present civilization. She is the one who pleases by being what she 
is and looking as she does rather than by doing what she does. Whether 
biology or history is primarily responsible for this need not be decided. 
Woman has been the kept partner in marriage and has had to prove 
her desirability by ceaselessly reaffirming her attractiveness as symbol- 
ized by novelty of fashion. Among the wealthier classes and by imitation 
also among the less wealthy, woman has come to be looked upon as an 
expensive luxury on whom one spends extravagantly. She is thus a sym- 
bol of the social and economic status of her husband. Whether with the 
increasingly marked change of woman's place in society the factors 
which emphasize extravagance in women's fashions will entirely fall 
away it is impossible to say at the present time. 

There are powerful vested interests involved in changes of fashions, 
as has already been mentioned. The effect on the producer of fashions 
of a variability which he both encourages and dreads is the introduction 
of an element of risk. It is a popular error to assume that professional 
designers arbitrarily dictate fashion, they do so [143] only in a very 
superficial sense. Actually they have to obey many masters. Their de- 
signs must above all things net the manufacturers a profit, so that be- 
hind the more strictly psychological determinants of fashion there lurks 
a very important element due to the sheer technology of the manufac- 
turing process or the availability of a certain type of material. In addi- 
tion to this the designer must have a sure feeling for the established in 
custom and the degree to which he can safely depart from it. He must 
intuitively divine what people want before they are quite aware of it 
themselves. His business is not so much to impose fashion as to coax 
people to accept what they have themselves unconsciously suggested. 
This causes the profits of fashion production to be out of all proportion 
to the actual cost of manufacturing fashionable goods. The producer 
and his designer assistant capitalize the curiosity and vanity of their 



One: Culture. Sociav. unJ ilw huUvUtual 273 

customers bul ihcv nuist also be proicclcd agamsi ihc losses of a rt-v • 
business. Those who are lamiliar with the history of fashion arc 
phatic in speaking o{ the inabiliu o\' business to combat the fashion 
trends which have been set going by various psychological faclons. A 
fashion may be aesthetically pleasing in the abstract, but if it runs 
counter to the trend or does not help to usher in a new tinul uln. h i^ 
struggling for a hearing it may be a Hat failure. 

The distribution of fashions is a comparati\ely simple and automatic 
process. The vogue of fashion plates and fashion magazines, the mans 
lines of communication which connect fashion producers and fashion 
dispensers, and modern methods of marketing make it almost incxitable 
that a successful Parisian fashion should find its wa\ uithin an incredi- 
bly short period of time to Chicago and San I rancisco If it were not 
for the necessity of exploiting accumulated stocks of goods these fash- 
ions would penetrate into the remotest corners o\' rural America e\cn 
more rapidly than is the case. The average consumer is chronicall> dis- 
tressed to discover how rapidly his accumulated property in wear depre- 
ciates by becoming outmoded. He complains bitterl> and ridicules the 
new fashions when they appear. In the end he succumbs, a victim to 
symbolisms of behavior which he does not fully comprehend. What he 
will never admit is that he is more the creator than the \iclim o^ his 
difficulties. 

Fashion has always had vain critics. It has been arraigned b> the 
clergy and by social satirists because each new style o{ wear, ca!'"^" 
attention as it does to the form of the human body, seems to the ci . 
to be an attack on modesty. Some fashions iheie are, lo be sure, whose 
very purpose it is to attack modesty, but o\er and above spcvific attacks 
there is felt to be a generalized one. The charge is well founded bul 
useless. Human beings do not wish to be modest; thev want \o K- in 
expressive - that is, as immodest -as fear allows; fashion helps i;. 
solve their paradoxical problem. Ihc charge of economic waste uhich 
is often leveled against fashion has had little or no elTect on the public 
mind. Waste seems to be of no concern where values are lo be constvi 
ered, particularly when these values are both egoistic and unconxu<ux 
The criticism that fashion imposes an unwanted umformiiy is nol as 
sound as it appears to be in (he first iiisiance I he individual in soaciv 
is only rarely significantly expressive in his own right. Kor ihc \.iM 
majority of human beings the voice lies between unchanging cuslom 
and the legitimate caprice of custom, which is tashK>n. 



2 "4 /// Culture 

Fashion concerns itself closely and intimately with the ego. Hence its 
proper field is dress and adornment. There are other symbols of the 
e20, however, which are not as close to the body as these but which are 
almost equally subject to the psychological laws of fashion. Among 
them are objects of utility, amusements and furniture. People differ in 
their sensitiveness to changing fashions in these more remote forms of 
human expressiveness. It is therefore impossible to say categorically 
just what the possible range of fashion is. However, in regard to both 
amusements and furniture there may be observed the same tendency 
to change, periodicity and unquestioning acceptance as in dress and 
ornament. 

Many speak of fashions in thought, art, habits of living and morals. 
It is superficial to dismiss such locutions as metaphorical and unimport- 
ant. The usage shows a true intuition of the meaning of fashion, which 
while it is primarily applied to dress and the exhibition of the human 
body is not essentially concerned w ith the fact of dress or ornament but 
with its symbolism. There is nothing to prevent a thought, a type of 
morality or an art form from becoming the psychological equivalent of 
a costuming of the ego. Certainly one may allow oneself to be converted 
to Catholicism or Christian Science in exactly the same spirit in which 
one invests in pewter or follows the latest Parisian models in dress. 
Beliefs and attitudes are not fashions in their character of mores but 
neither are dress and ornament. [144] In contemporary society it is not 
a fashion that men wear trousers: it is the custom. Fashion merely dic- 
tates such variations as whether trousers are to be so or so long, what 
colors they are to have and whether they are to have cuffs or not. In 
the same way, while adherence to a religious faith is not in itself a 
fashion, as soon as the individual feels that he can pass easily, out of 
personal choice, from one belief to another, not because he is led to his 
choice by necessity but because of a desire to accrete to himself sNinbols 
of status, it becomes legitimate to speak of his change oi attitude as a 
change of fashion. Functional irrelevance as contrasted with symbohc 
significance for the expressiveness of the ego is implicit in all fashion. 

Consult: Boehn, Max von, Die Mode: Menschen unci Moden im neun- 
zehnten Jahrhundert, vols, i-v, vii (Munich 1919-20). tr. by M. Edw- 
ardes, 4 vols. (rev. ed. London 1927); Kroeber. A. L., "On the Prmciple 
of Order in Civilization as Exemplified by Changes oi Fashion" in 
American Anthropologist, n.s., vol. xxi (1919) 235-63; Elster. .Alexander. 
"Mode" in Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, vol. vi (4th ed. 
Jena 1925) p. 603-14; Lowie, R. H., Are We Civilized? (New York 1929) 



One Cultmr. Sodctv. and t/ic Imlividiuil 275 

ch. \; Stem, Norbcrt. Mode iiiiil Kultur, 2 \o\s. ( Dresden I ^^15); Bradlc\. 
H. [)., The i'.tcniiil Mdsiiucidilc (\ o\\(\(n\ h)22); V'cbk-n. I horslcin. Jlte 
Theory oj the Leisure Class (New York 1X99). ch. \ii; Iroellsch. Waller. 
I'olkswirlseliaftliehe Hetnieluuniieniiher die Mode (Marbiiri! 1912); C'ler- 
get. Pierre. "l,e roleeec)iu)iiiic|ue el social de la mode" in Revuecconom- 
ii/iie inierihitioihde, Brussels, \ol. ii (1913) 126 42. Ir. in Smithsonian 
Institution, Annmd Report (1913) 755-65; Sombarl, Werner. Wirtschafi 
und Mode (Wiesbaden 1902); NystrtMii. Paul II.. The Teonomies of Tush- 
ion (New York 1928); Raushenbush. Winifred, m \e\\ Treenum. vol. i 
(1930) 10-12, 323-25; Hurloek, E. B., The Psyeh<doi^v of Press (New 
York 1929); Fliigel, J. C, llie Psvehoh>gy of Clothes (London 1930). 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in Edwin R. A. Seligman (ed). TncvclopaeJiu 
of the Social Sciences 6, 139-144 (New York: Macmillan, 1931 ). Cops- 
right 1931, renewed 1959, by Macmillan Publishing C'ompans. Re- 
printed by permission of the publisher. 



Cultural Anthropology and Ps\chialr\ {\^)}2) 
Editorial Inlroduclion 

Sapir's most explicit formulation to dale ( 1932) ot the pi>iemial col- 
laboration between his version of cultural anthropology and Harry 
Stack Sullivan's interactional psychology, this essay appeared in the 
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psycholoi^y. Sapir challenged the an- 
thropological and sociological assumption that individuals could he 
seen merely as typical of their communities. Any fieldworker learns by 
experience, he pointed out, how necessary it is to cross-check siatemenis 
by single individuals with other members of the same society. Nonethe- 
less, the generic conventions oi' the ethnography o( the day precluded 
acknowledgement of such variability (see also Sapir's discussion of this 
point in "Why Cultural Anthropology Needs the Ps\chiairist." I^.'^S. 
this volume). In most ethnographic accounts, paiicnis uere staled m 
"relatively clear and impersonal terms" regardless o\' the degree of cer- 
tainty with which they were ascertained. 

Cultural phenomena could for some purpt^ses legiiiniaiel> be under- 
stood as impersonal, Sapir acknowledged; but they could not, on episic- 
mological grounds, evade attention to the individual. Moreover, this 
approach to culture needed to be supplemented b\ studs o\' the indivi- 
dual in order to arrive at some sense ol' process. I'hai is. the d>naniic 
element in Sapir's theory of culture lay neither in the individual nor in 
society per se, but in the interaction o\' the two 

Simply adding psychiatry to the social scientist's background \\ou\\i 
not answer, however. Psychiatry had its own problems, stemming Irom 
the ad hoc interpretation of clinical experience. Physiology and mkkiI 
psychology were as far as psychiatrists usuall\ looked; culture and mvi- 
ety entered into diagnosis and treatment unsysiematicalh. an>' n 

the absence of alternatives. Moreover, psychoanalvsis disquali: i 

from a major role in interdisciplinar\ synthesis bv using anthns -il 

data only to support racist or c\ohiiuMiar> positions. In conlrasi. 
Sapir's cultural anthropology asserted that the psychology of the "prim. 
idve" and the "modern" were not ditTerent m kind. All hum.i- »-•"-- 
were psychologically "primitive." and unci>nscious symbolism • 



278 Jt^ Culture 

sen tor socialization in a particular culture regardless of level of cultural 
development.' 

In this essay Sapir offered a definition of culture that was symbolic 
and focused on the individual situated in terms of his/her social interac- 
tion (1932: 236). The argument about the "true locus of culture" in the 
actions and interactions of specific individuals was further elaborated 
in 'The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior 
in Society" (1937) and in The Psychology of Culture, chapter 10 in par- 
ticular (from lectures given in 1937). The "world of meanings" resulting 
from these interactions for the individual was unconscious and sub- 
jective; nonetheless it was real, and engaged in culture process. The 
epistemological danger for the anthropologist lay in elevating the useful 
statistical fiction of culture to a metaphysical state. In reality there were 
only individuals, having variable interpretations of symbolisms, in 
which personal and institutionalized meanings were intertwined. 

Despite his longstanding critique of the "superorganic," a critique in 
which the present essay played a part, Sapir's discussions of culture in 
interdisciplinary contexts continued to refer to the cultural as a separate 
analytic level. What he sought was not to supplant cultural analysis; 
psychiatrists, in particular, needed to understand its relevance to them. 
Instead, he called on each of the major social science disciplines to 
reorient its conceptual apparatus to focus on the locus of patterning at 
the intersection of culture and the individual. 

The original audience for this paper was primarily outside anthropol- 
ogy. Only later, and especially after its inclusion in Mandelbaum's Se- 
lected Writings of Edward Sapir {\949}, did it gain much attention within 
the discipline. Although the scope of the argument escaped many of 
Sapir's colleagues at the time of writing and for some time afterward, 
its thrust has been taken up in the several disciplines in more recent 
decades. 



Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry 

Before we try to establish a more intimate relation between the prob- 
lems of cultural anthropology and those of psychiatry than is generally 
recognized, it will be well to emphasize the apparent differences of sub- 
ject matter and purpose which seem to separate them as disciplines 
concerned with human behavior. In the main, cultural anthropology 
has emphasized the group and its traditions in contradistinction to indi- 



One: Culture. Society, mul the ImlhUiual 279 

vidual sarialions of behavior. Ii aims \o discover ihc generalized lorni!* 
of action, lliouglu and tcclniu ulikh. m iIkmi complex inlerrelaledness, 
constitute the culture ot a community. Whether the ullmiaic aim of such 
a study is to establish a typical sequence o\' institutional forms in the 
history of man. or to work out a complete distributional survey of 
patterns and cultural types over the globe, ov to make an exhaustive 
descriptive analysis of as man\ cultures as possible in order that funda- 
mental sociological laws may be arrived at. is important, indeed, for 
the spirit and method of actual research in the Held of human culture. 
But all these approaches agree in thinking o'i the individual as a more 
or less passive carrier of tradition or. to speak more dynamically, as the 
infinitely variable actualizer of ideas and o{ modes o\' behavior which 
are implicit in the structure and traditicMi of a given scK'iely. It is what 
all the individuals of a society have in common in their mutual relations 
which is supposed to constitute the true subject matter o'i cultural 
anthropology and sociology. If the testimony o^ an individual is set 
down as such, as often happens in our anthropological numographs. it 
is not because of an interest in the individual himself as a matured and 
single organism of ideas, but in his assumed typicalitv for the com- 
munity as a whole. 

It is true that there are many statements in our ethnological mono- 
graphs which, for all that they are presented in general terms, really rest 
on the authority of a few indiv iduals. or even o\' one indiv idual. who 
have had to bear testimony for the group as a whole. Inlormation on 
kinship systems or rituals or technological processes or details ol sivial 
organization or linguistic forms is not ordinarily evaluated b> the cul- 
tural anthropologist as a personal document. He alvva>s hopes that the 
individual informant is near enough lo the understandings and inten- 
tions of his society to report them dulv. therebv implicitiv eliminating 
himself as a factor in the method of research. .Ml realistic field workers 
in native custom and belief are more or less aware o\ the dangers of 
such an assumption and, naturally enough, efforts are generally made 
to "check up" statements received from single individuals. This is no! 
always possible, however, and so our ethnological nuMiographs present 
a kaleidoscopic picture of varying degrees o{ generalitv. olten within 
the covers of a single volume. Thus, that the Haida Indians of Queen 
Charlotte Islands were divided into two e\ogamic phratnes. the I 
and the Ravens, is a statement winch could, no doubt, he elu' n 

any normal Haida Indian. It has verv nearlv the same degree ■- , r- 
sonality about it that characterizes the statement that the United Stales 



280 /// Culture 

is a republic governed by a President. It is true that these data about 
social and political organization might mean rather different things in 
the systems of ideas and fantasies of different individuals or might, as 
master ideas, be construed to lead to typically different forms of action 
according to whether we studied the behavior of one individual or an- 
other. But that is another matter. The fundamental patterns are rela- 
tively clear and impersonal. Yet in many cases we are not so fortunate 
as in the case of fundamental outlines of political organization or of 
kinship terminology or of house structure. What shall we do, for in- 
stance, with the cosmogonic system of the Bella Coola Indians of British 
Columbia? The five superimposed worlds which we learn about in this 
system not only have no close parallels among the other tribes of the 
Northwest Coast area but have not been vouched for by any informant 
other than the one individual from whom Boas obtained his informa- 
tion. Is this cosmogonic system typical Bella Coola religious belief? Is 
it individual fantasy construction or is it a peculiar individual elabora- 
tion on the basis of a simpler cosmogonic system which belongs to 
the community as a whole? In this special instance, the individual note 
obtrudes itself somewhat embarrassingly. In the main, however, the cul- 
tural anthropologist believes or hopes that such disquieting interrup- 
tions to the impersonality of his thinking do not occur frequently 
enough to spoil his science. 

Psychiatry is an offshoot of the medical tradition and aims to diag- 
nose, analyze, and, if possible, cure those behavior disturbances of in- 
dividuals which show to observation as serious deviations from the nor- 
mal attitude of the individual toward his physical and social environ- 
ment. The psychiatrist specializes in "mental" diseases as the dermatolo- 
gist specializes in the diseases of the skin or the gynecologist concerns 
himself with diseases peculiar to women. The great difference between 
psychiatry and the other biologically defined medical disciplines is that 
while the latter have a definite bodily locus to work with and have been 
able to define and perfect their methods by diligent exploration of the 
limited and tangible area of observation assigned to them, psychiatry is 
apparently doomed to have no more definite locus than the total field 
of human behavior in its more remote or less immediately organic sense. 
The convenfional companionship of psychiatry and neurology seems to 
be little more than a declaration of faith by the medical profession that 
all human ills are, at last analysis, of organic origin and that they are, 
or should be, localizable in some segment, however complexly defined, 
of the physiological machine. It is an open secret, however, that the 



One: Culture. Society, and the Individual 281 

neurologist's science is one thing and the psychiatrist's practice another. 
Almost in spite o\' theniseKes psychiatrists have been forced lo be 
content with an elaborate arra\ of clinical pictures, with term;' .i| 

problems of diagnosis, and with such thumb rules of clinical pn-^cuurc 
as seem to otTer some hope o{ success in the handling o{ actual cases. 
It is no wonder that psychiatry tends \o be distrusted by its sister disci- 
pline within the field of medicine and that the psychiatrists themselves, 
worried by a largely useless medical training and secretly exasperated 
by their inability to apply the strictly biological part o\ their training to 
their peculiar problems, tend to magnify the importance of the biologi- 
cal approach in order that they may not feel that the\ have sira>cd 
away from the companionship o{ their more illustrious brethren. No 
wonder that the more honest and sensitise psychiatrists ha\c come lo 
feel that the trouble lies not so much in psychiatry itself as m the role 
which general medicine has wished psychiatr\ to pla>. 

These insurgent psychiatrists, among whom Ireud must be reckoned 
the most courageous and the most fertile in ideas. ha\e come to feel 
that many of the so-called nervous and mental disorders can be looked 
upon as the logical development of systems of ideas and feelings which 
have grown up in the experience of the individual and which have an 
unconscious value for him as the symbolic solution of profound diHlcul- 
ties that arise in an effort to adjust to his human einironment. I"hc 
morbidity, in other words, that the psychiatrist has to deal with seems, 
for the most part, to be not a morbidity of organic segments or even of 
organic functions, but of experience itself, flis attempts to explain a 
morbid suspiciousness of one's companions or delusion as to one's 
status in society by some organically definable weakness of the ncr\ous 
system or of the functioning of the endocrine glands may be no more 
to the point than to explain the habit o^ swearing b\ the absence of a 
few teeth or by a poorly shaped mouth. This is not the place to gi> inlo 
an explanation, however brief o\' the new points o'i \iew which arc lo 
be credited to Freud and his followers and which have invaded ihc 
thinking of even the most conservative o\ psychiatrists to no wu " r- 

able extent. All that interests us here is \o note the fact that ps. .:y 

is moving away from its historic position i>f a medical discipline thai is 
chronically unable to make ^2.oo(.\ lo that of a discipline thai is medial 
only by tradition and courtesy and is compelled, with or wii! 
mission, to attack fundamental problems o\ psscholi^o and s.-... .. .. 

so far as they aftect the well-being o\ the indi\idual Ihc Kkus. then, of 
psychiatry turns out not to be the human organism al all in any Iruilful 



282 III Culture 

sense o^ the word but the more intangible, and yet more intelligible, 
world o^ human relationships and ideas that such relationships bring 
forth. Those students of medicine who see in these trends little more 
than a return to the old mythology of the ''souF' are utterly unrealistic, 
for they tacitly assume that all experience is but the mechanical sum of 
physiological processes lodged in isolated individuals. This is no more 
defensible a position than the naively metaphysical contention that a 
table or chair or hat or church can be intelligibly defined in terms of 
their molecular and atomic constitution. That A hates B or hopelessly 
loves B, or is jealous of B, or is mortally afraid of B, or hates him in 
one respect and loves him in another, can result only from the complica- 
tions of experience. If we work out a gradually complicating structure 
of morbid relationships between A and B and, by successive transfers, 
between A or B and the rest of the human world, we discover behavior 
patterns that are none the less real and even tragic for not being funda- 
mentally attributable to some weakness or malfunctioning of the ner- 
vous system or any other part of the organism. This does not mean that 
weakness or malfunctioning of a strictly organic character may not re- 
sult from a morbidity of human relationships. Such an organic theory 
would be no more startling than to maintain that a chronic sneer may 
disfigure the shape of the mouth or that a secret fear may impair one's 
digestion. There are, indeed, signs that psychiatry, slowly and painfully 
delivering itself from the somatic superstitions of medicine, may take 
its revenge by attempts to "mentalize" large sections of medical theory 
and practice. The future alone can tell how much of these psychological 
interpretations of organic disease is sound doctrine or a new mythology. 
There is reason, then, to think that while cultural anthropology and 
psychiatry have distinct problems to begin with, they must, at some 
point, join hands in a highly significant way. That culture is a superor- 
ganic. impersonal whole is a useful enough methodological principle to 
begin with but becomes a serious deterrent in the long run to the more 
dynamic study of the genesis and development of cultural patterns be- 
cause these cannot be realistically disconnected from those organiza- 
tions of ideas and feelings which constitute the individual. The ultimate 
methodological error of the student of personality is perhaps less obvi- 
ous than the correlative error of the student of culture, but is all the 
more insidious and dangerous for that reason. Mechanisms which are 
unconsciously evolved by the neurotic or psychotic are by no means 
closed systems imprisoned within the biological walls of isolated in- 
dividuals. They are tacit commentaries on the validity or invalidity of 



One: Culture. Society, ami the Itulividuul 283 

sonic o[^ the more inlinuiie impliealuMis o\ culture for the adjuslmcni 
processes of given iiKli\ kIlkiK. We arc not. iherelbre. to begin wilh a 
simple contrast between social patterns and individual behavior, 
whether normal or abnormal, but we are. rather, to ask what is ihc 
meaning o\^ culture in terms o\' indi\idual behaxior and whether the 
indixidual can in a sense, be looked upon as the etVeclive carrier of ihc 
culture of his group. As we follow tangible problems o{ behavior rather 
than the selected problems set b\ recognized disciplines, we discover the 
Held o^ social psychology, which is not a whit more social than it is 
individual and which is. or should he. the mother science from which 
stem both the abstracted impeisonal pi-oblems as phrased by the cul- 
tural anthropologist and the almost impertinently realistic e\ploratu>ns 
into behavior which are the province of the psychiatrist. Be it remarked 
in passing that what passes tor individual psychology is little more than 
an ill-assorted melange o^ bits o\' ph\siolog\ and o{ studies of highly 
fragmentary modes of behavior which have been artificially induced by 
the psychologist. This abortive discipline seems to be able to arrne at 
no integral conceptions of either indi\idual or societ\ and one can onl> 
hope that it will eventually surrender all its problems to physiology and 
social psychology. 

Cultural anthropology has not been neglected b\ ps\chiair\. I he ps>- 
choanalysts in particular have made very extensne use o^ the data of 
cultural anthropology in order to gather e\idence in support o{ iheir 
theories of the supposed "racial inherilaiice of ideas" b\ the individual 
Neurotic and psychotic, through the symbolic mechanisms which con- 
trol their thinking, are believed to regress to a more primitive slate o\ 
mental adjustment than is normal in modern societv and which is sup- 
posed to be preserved tor our obser\aiii>n in the institutions of pnmm\c 
peoples. In some undefined way which it seems quite impossible to ex- 
press in intelligible biological or psychological terms the cultural evpcn- 
ences which have been accumulaled b> primitive man are bclievetl \o 
be unconsciously handed on to his more civili/ed progeny. The resem- 
blances between theconlenl of primili\e ritual and svmb. 
generally among primitive peoples and the apparentiv pi.^.. 
and symbolisms developed by those who have gieater than noii 
culty in adjusting to their social environment are said lo be so numerous 
and far-reaching that the latter must be looked upon as an inherited 
survival of more archaic types o[ thought and (eeling. Hence, we arc 
told, it is very useful to study the culture o\ primitive man. fi»i in this 
way an enormous amount ol light is thrown upon the fundamcnial 



284 /// Culture 

significance o\' modes of behavior which are otherwise inexphcable. The 
searching clinical investigation into the symboHsm of the neurotic re- 
covers for us, on a modern and highly disguised level, what lies but a 
little beneath the surface among the primitives, who are still living under 
an archaic psychological regime. 

Psychoanalysts welcome the contributions of cultural anthropology 
but it is exceedingly doubtful if many cultural anthropologists welcome 
the particular spirit in which the psychoanalysts appreciate their data. 
The cultural anthropologist can make nothing of the hypothesis of the 
racial unconscious, nor is he disposed to allow an immediate psycholog- 
ical analysis of the behavior of primitive people in any other sense than 
that in which such an analysis is allowable for our own culture. He 
believes that it is as illegitimate to analyze totemism or primitive laws 
of inheritance or set rituals in terms of the peculiar symbolisms discov- 
ered or invented by the psychoanalyst as it would be to analyze the 
most complex forms of modern social behavior in these terms. And he 
is disposed to think that if the resemblances between the neurotic and 
the primitive which have so often been pointed out are more than fortu- 
itous, it is not because of a cultural atavism which the neurotic exempli- 
fies but simply because all human beings, whether primitive or sophisti- 
cated in the cultural sense, are, at rock bottom, psychologically primi- 
tive, and there is no reason why a significant unconscious symbolism 
which gives substitutive satisfaction to the individual may not become 
socialized on any level of human activity. 

The service of cultural anthropology to psychiatry is not as mysteri- 
ous or remote or clandestine as psychoanalytic mysticism would have 
us believe. It is of a much simpler and healthier sort. It lies very much 
nearer the surface of things than is generally believed. Cultural anthro- 
pology, if properly understood, has the healthiest of all scepticisms 
about the validity of the concept "normal behavior." It cannot deny the 
useful tyranny of the normal in a given society but it believes the exter- 
nal form of normal adjustment to be an exceedingly elastic thing. It is 
very doubtful if the normalities of any primitive society that lies open 
to inspection are nearer the hypothetical responses of an archaic type 
of man, untroubled by a burdensome historical past, than the normali- 
ties of a modern Chinese or Scotchman. In specific instances one may 
even wonder whether they are not tangibly less so. It would be a rare 
joke to turn the tables and to suggest that the psychoanalysis of an 
over-ritualized Pueblo Indian or Toda might denude him sufficiently to 
set him "regressing" to the psychologically primitive status of an Ameri- 



One Cult Kir. Society, und the InJiviJual 285 

can professor's child or oi'd professor hiniscll. I he culuiral anlhf..p.,l.w 
gist's quarrel with ps\elioaiial\sis can perhaps he piil most sigi. i, 

by pointing out that the psychoanalyst has confused the archaic in ihc 
conceptual or theoretical psychologic sense with the archaic in the iilcral 
chronological sense. Cultiual anlhropologs is not valuable because it 
uncovers the archaic ni the psychological sense. It is valuable because 
it is constantly rediscovering ihe ni>rnial. I or ihe psychiatrist and for 
the student o\' personalit\ in general this is of the greatest impt>rl.;' 
for personalities are not conditioned by a generalized process of aii 
ment to "the normaT" but by the necessity o\' adjusting to the grc. 
possible variety o\^ idea patterns and acluMi palierns according to the 
accidents of birth and biography. 

The so-called culture o( a group o( human hemgs, as ii in oidiiuiiii\ 
treated by the cultural anthropologist, is essentially a systematic list ot 
all the socially inherited patterns of beha\ior which may be illustrated 
in the actual behavior of all or more oi' the mdi\iduals o\' the group. 
The true locus, however, of these processes which, when abstracted into 
a totality, constitute culture is not in a theoretical communit> of human 
beings known as society, for the term 'sociei)" is itself a cultural con- 
struct which is employed by individuals who stand in significant rela- 
tions to each other in order to help them in the interpretation of certain 
aspects of their behavior. The true locus of culture is in the interactions 
of specific individuals and, on the subjective side, in the world of mean- 
ings which each one of these individuals ma) unconsciously abstract for 
himself from his participation in these interactions. Every individual is. 
then, in a very real sense, a representative o\' at least one sub-culture 
which may be abstracted from the generalized culture of the group o( 
which he is a member. Frequently, if not ivpically, he is a representative 
of more than one sub-culture, and the degree to which the ^ ! 

behavior of any given individual can be identilled with or ab>u.uiLd 
from the typical or generalized culture o\' a sinL'le L'roup vanes enor- 
mously from person to person. 

It is impossible to think o\' anv cultural pattern or set of cullurnl 
patterns which can, in the literal sense of the word, be referred to sivietv 
as such. There are no facts o( political organization or familv life oi 
religious belief or magical privedure or technology or acslhciic en- 
deavor which are cotermimuis with society or with any mcvhan r 

sociologically defined segment of society. The fact that John i )oc is 
registered in some municipal otfice as a member o\ such and such a 
ward only vaguely defines him with reference to those cultural patterns 



286 tit Culture 

which arc coinciiicnily assembled under some such term as "municipal 
administration." The psychological and, in the deepest sense of the 
word, the cuhural realities of John Doe's registration may, and do, vary 
enormously, if John Doe is paying taxes on a house which is likely to 
keep him a resident of the ward for the rest of his life and if he also 
happens to be in personal contact with a number of municipal officers, 
ward classification may easily become a symbol of his orientation in his 
world of meanings which is comparable for clarity, if not for impor- 
tance, to his definition as a father of a family or as a frequent partici- 
pant in golf. Ward membership, for such an individual, may easily pre- 
cipitate itself into many visible forms of behavior. The ward system and 
its functions, real or supposed, may for such a John Doe assume an 
impersonal and objective reality which is comparable to the objective 
reality of rain or sunshine. 

But there is sure to be another John Doe, perhaps a neighbor of the 
first, who does not even know that the town is divided into wards and 
that he is, by definifion, enrolled in one of them and that he has certain 
duties and privileges connected with such enrollment, whether he cares 
to exercise them or not. While the municipal office classifies these two 
John Does in exactly the same way and while there is a theory on 
foot that ward organization, with its associated functions, is an entirely 
impersonal matter to which all members of a given society must adjust, 
it is rather obvious that such a manner of speech is little more than a 
sociological metaphor. The cultures of these two individuals are, as a 
matter of fact, significantly different, as significantly different, on the 
given level and scale, as though one were a representative of Italian 
culture and the other of Turkish culture. Such differences of culture 
never seem as significant as they really are; partly because in the worka- 
day world of experience they are not often given the opportunity to 
emerge into sharp consciousness, partly because the economy of inter- 
personal reladons and the friendly ambiguities of language conspire to 
reinterpret for each individual all behavior which he has under observa- 
fion in the terms of those meanings which are relevant to his own life. 
The concept of culture, as it is handled by the cultural anthropologist, 
is necessarily something of a statistical ficfion and it is easy to see that 
the social psychologist and the psychiatrist must eventually induce him 
to carefully reconsider his terms. It is not the concept of culture which 
IS subtly misleading but the metaphysical locus to which culture is gen- 
erally assigned. 



One: Culliiir. Socictv. hikI the liulivUliuil 287 

Clearly, not all cultural trails arc olcciual iinporiaiKc \or ilic develop- 
ment of personality, lor not all o\' ihcni arc equally ditlused as mle^iral 
elements in the idea-systems o\' dilTcrcni nidividuals. Some modes ol" 
behavior and attitude arc pervasive and eompelHng beyond the pimer 
of even the most isolated individual to wiliistand or reject. Such pat- 
terns would be, for example, the symbolisms of atTeclion or hosiilii), 
the overtones of emotionally significant words; certain lundamenial mi- 
plications and many details o\^ the economic order; much, but by no 
means all, of those understandings and procedures which consiituie the 
law of the land. Patterns of this kind are compulsive for the \asi niajDr- 
ity of human beings but the degree o( compulsi\cness is m no smiple 
relation to the official, as contrasted with the inner or psychological. 
significance of these patterns. Thus, the use of an olTcnsive word mas 
be of negligible importance from a legal standpoint but mas. psycholog- 
ically considered, have an attracting or repelling potency that far tran- 
scends the significance of one's scientific thinking. A culture as a whole 
cannot be said to be adequately known for purposes o\' personalil> 
study until the varying degrees of compulsi\encss which attach to its 
many aspects and implications are rather definitely understood. No 
doubt there are cultural patterns which tend to be iini\crsal. not onl> 
in form but in psychological significance, but it is very eas\ to be mis- 
taken in these matters and to impute cquixalcnces of meaning which do 
not truly exist. 

There are still other cultural patterns which are real and compelling 
only for special individuals or groups of individuals and are as good as 
nonexistent for the rest of the group. Such, for instance, are the ideas. 
attitudes and modes of behavior which belong to specialized trades We 
are all aware of the reality of such private or limited worlds of meaning. 
The dairyman, the movie actress, the laboraiiM\ physicist, the party 
whip, have obviously built up worlds which are anonsnious or - ' 
to each other or, at best, stand to each other in a relation i>l : . • . 
acceptance. There is much tacit mythology in such hugely complex soa- 
eties as our own which makes it possible for the personal significance 
of sub-cultures to be overlooked. For each indi\idual. ihe ctM' 

accepted fund of meanings and values tends to be powerlulK s|x\ : 

or emphasized or contradicted by types o( experience and nunles of 
interpretation that are far from being the properly o\' all men. If y^x 
consider that these specialized cultural participations are parlK the re- 
suk of contact with limited traditions and techniques. partK the result 
of identification with such biologically and socialK imposed croups as 



288 IJi Culture 

ihc familv or the class in school or the club, we can begin to see how 
inevitable it is that the true psychological locus of « culture is the indivi- 
dual or (/ specif icidlv enumerate list of individuals, not an economically 
or politically or socially defined group of individuals. "Individual," 
however, here means not simply a biologically defined organism main- 
taining itself through physical impacts and symbolic substitutes of such 
impacts, but that total world of form, meaning and implication of sym- 
bolic behavior which a given individual partly knows and directs, partly 
intuits and yields to. partly is ignorant of and is swayed by. 

Still other cultural patterns have neither a generalized nor a special- 
ized potency. They may be termed marginal or referential, and while 
they may figure as conceptually important in the scheme of a cultural 
theorist, they may actually have little or no psychological importance 
for the normal human being. Thus, the force of linguistic analogy which 
creates the plural "unicorns" is a most important force for the linguistic 
analyst to be clear about, but it is obvious that the psychological immi- 
nence of that force, while perfectly real, may be less than the avoidance, 
say, of certain obscene or impolite words, an avoidance which the lin- 
guist, in turn, may quite legitimately look upon as marginal to his 
sphere of interests. In the same way, while such municipal subdivisions 
as wards are, from the standpoint of political theory, of the same order 
as state lines and even national lines, they are not psychologically so. 
They are psychologically related to such saturated entities as New York 
or "the South" or Fifth Avenue or "the slums" as undeveloped property 
in the suburbs is economically related to real estate in the business heart 
of a great metropolis. Some of this marginal cultural property is held 
as marginal by the vast majority of participants in the total culture, if 
we may still speak in terms of a "total culture." Others of these marginal 
patterns are so only for certain individuals or groups of individuals. No 
doubt, to a movie actress the intense world of values which engages the 
participation of a physicist tends to be marginal in about the same sense 
as a legal fiction or unactualized linguistic possibility may be marginal 
cultural property. A "hard-headed business man" may consign the 
movie actress and the physicist to two adjoining sectors, "hvely" and 
"sleepy" respectively, of a marginal tract of "triviality." Culture, then, 
varies infinitely, not only as to manifest content but as to the distribu- 
tion of psychologic emphases on the elements and implications of this 
content. According to our scale of treatment, we have to deal with the 
cultures of groups and the cultures of individuals. 



One Culimv. S(nici\: ami the Indixidual 289 

A personality is carxcd lUil h\ ihc siihilc iiiicracuon ol ihosc systems 
of ideas which are characicrisiic o\' ihc ciihure as a whole, as well as 
those systems ol ideas which gel established lor the individual through 
more special types of participation, with the physical and psychological 
needs of the individual organism, which cannot lake over any of ihe 
cultural material that is offered in its original form but \sorks it over 
more or less completely, so that it integrates with those needs. The more 
closely we study this interaction, the more diUlcult it becomes to distin- 
guish society as a cultural and psychological unit fri>m the individual 
who is thought of as a member o^ the societs to whose culture he is 
required to adjust. No problem of social ps\clu)U)g\ that is at all realis- 
tic can be phrased by starting with the conventional contrast o{ the 
individual and his society. Nearly e\er\ problem o\' social psychology 
needs to consider the exact nature and implication of an idea complex, 
which we may look upon as the psychological correlate o'i the anthro- 
pologist's cultural pattern, to work out its relation to other idea com- 
plexes and what modifications it necessaril\ undergoes as it accommo- 
dates itself to these, and, above all, to ascertain the precise locus of such 
a complex. This locus is rarely identifiable with society as a whole, ex- 
cept in a purely philosophical or conccpiual sense, nor is ii often Uxlged 
in the psyche of a single individual. In extreme cases such an idea com- 
plex or cultural pattern may be the dissociated segment o^ a single in- 
dividual's mind or it may amount to no more than a potential revi\ idea- 
tion of ideas in the mind of a single indi\idual ihrough the aid of some 
such symbolic depository as a book or museum. OrdinariU the Kkus 
will be a substantial portion of the members o\ a communils. each of 
them feeling that he is touching common interests so far as this particu- 
lar culture pattern is concerned. We have learned that the individual in 
isolation from society is a psychological fiction. We have not had the 

courage to face the fact that formally organized groups aro "v 

fictitious in the psychological sense, for geographical!) co; .n 

groups are merely a first approximation to the infinitely variable group- 
ings of human beings to whom culture in its \arious aspects is act 
to be credited as a matter o{ realistic ps>cholog>. 

"Adjustment," as the term is ordinaril> understood, is a suivrtui.il 
concept because it regards only the end product of individual ' 
as judged from the standp^^int o\ the requirements, real or suppi>Mxl. ol 
a particular society. In reality, 'adjustment'" consists ol tw.' ■ 

even confiicting types of process. It includes. obMously. li.. 

modations to the behavior requirements o{ the group without which 



290 /// Culture 

the individual would find himself isolated and ineffective, but it in- 
cludes, just as significantly, the effort to retain and make felt in the 
opinions and attitudes of others that particular cosmos of ideas and 
\alues which has grown up more or less unconsciously in the experience 
o\' the individual. Ideally these two adjustment tendencies need to be 
compromised into behavior patterns which do justice to both require- 
ments. 

it is a dangerous thing for the individual to give up his identification 
with such cultural patterns as have come to symbolize for him his own 
personality integration. The task of external adjustment to social needs 
may require such abandonment on his part, and consciously he may 
cra\ e nothing more passionately, but if he does not wish to invite dis- 
harmony and inner weakness in his personality, he must see to it, con- 
sciously and unconsciously, that every abandonment is made good by 
the acquisition of a psychologically equivalent symbolism. External ob- 
servations on the adjustment processes of individuals are often highly 
misleading as to their psychological significance. The usual treatment, 
for instance, of behavior tendencies known as radical and conservative 
must leave the genuine psychiatrist cold, because he best realizes that 
the same types of behavior, judged externally, may have entirely dis- 
tinct, even contradictory, meanings for different individuals. One may 
be a conservative out of fear or out of superb courage. A radical may 
be such because he is so secure in his fundamental psychic organization 
as to have no fear for the future, or, on the contrary, his courage may 
be merely the fantasied rebound from fear of the only too well known. 

Strains which are due to this constant war of adjustment are by no 
means of equal intensity for all individuals. Systems of ideas grow up 
in endless ways, both within a so-called uniform culture and through 
the blending of various aspects of so-called distinct cultures, and very 
different symbolisms and value emphases necessarily arise in the endless 
sub-cultures or private symbol organizations of the different members 
of a group. This is tantamount to saying that certain systems of ideas 
are more perilously exposed to the danger of disintegration than others. 
Even if it be granted, as no one would seriously argue that it should 
not, that individual differences of an inherited sort are significantly re- 
sponsible for mental breakdowns, it yet remains true that such a "fail- 
ure^' in the life of an individual cannot be completely understood by 
the study, however minute, of the individual's body and mind as such. 
Such a failure invites a study of his system of ideas as a more or less 



One Cull lire. Sinictv. ami the liulnnhutl 291 

distincl cullural cnlil\ which has hccii \aiiil\ slri\mi' i" fnaintain . !>,... 
Ill a discouraging environmcnl. 

We may go so far as to siiiiycsi qiiiic liaiikl) thai a psychosis, for 
instance, may be an index al t)ne and the same lime oi ihe loo grcal 
resistance of the indi\idual to the forces that phi> upon him and. so 
far as /?/.v world o\' \alues is concerned, o\' ihe cuhural povcriy o\ his 
psNchological cm ironnicnl. The int>re obvious conflicts of cultures with 
which we are famihar in the modern \\ov\d create an uneasiness which 
forms a fruitful soil for the e\entual de\elopmenl, in particular cases. 
of neurotic symptoms and mental breakdowns, but lhe\ can hardK he 
considered sufficient \o accounl \'o\- serious ps\chological derangements 
These arise not on the basis o{ a generalized cullural conllicl. but oui 
of specific conflicts of a more intimate sort, in which systems o\ ideas 
get attached to particular persons, or images of such persons, who play 
a decisive role in the life of the individual as representative of cultural 
values. 

The personal meaning of the symbolisms of an indi\iduals sub-cul- 
ture are constantly being realTirmed by society or. at the least, he likes 
to think that they are. When they obviousK cease to be. he loses his 
orientation and ihal strange inslincl. or ulKitc\er uc c.ill il. which in 
the history of culture has always tended to preserve a system o\ ideas 
fYom destruction, causes his alienation from an impossible world. Both 
the psychosis and the development o\' an idea or insiiiulion through 
the centuries manifest the stubbornness o\' idea complexes and iheir 
implications in the face of a material environment which is less dem, 
ing psychologically than physically. The mere problem of bioK^ ■■ 
justment. or even of ego adjustment as il is i>rdinaril> handle^ 
sociologist, is comparatively simple. It is literall> irue that "man wants 
bill liltlc here below nor wants thai Iiille long." Hie trouble alw.i 
that he wants that little on his own terms, il is not enou.' 
one's material wants, to ha\e success in one's practical ci..:-.. 
give and receive atTeclion. or to accomplish an> o'i the purpi>se> laid 
down by psychologists and sociologists aiul moralists. Personality or- 
ganizations, which at last analysis are psychi)logically compai.i' ' S 
the greatest cultures or idea systems, have as their llrNt law . ; ,..-e: 
their essential self-preservalion. and all conscious attempts to define 
their functions or lo manipiilaie their iiiienlion and direction are but 
the estimable rationalization o{ people who are wanting lo "do " 
Modern psychiatrists should be tolerant not onl> of \ar\ing p 
ties but of the differenl types o\ \ allies which pcrsonalit> \.. 



292 Itl Culture 

imply. Psychiairists who are tolerant only in the sense that they refrain 
trom criticizing anybody who is subjected to their care and who do 
their best to guide him back to the renewed performance of society's 
rituals may be good practical surgeons of the psyche. They are not 
necessarily the profoundly sympathetic students of the mind who re- 
spect the fundamental intent and direction of every personality organ- 
ization. 

Perhaps it is not too much to expect that a number of gifted psychia- 
trists may take up the serious study of exotic and primitive cultures, 
not in the spirit of meretricious voyaging in behalf of Greenwich Vil- 
lage, nor to collect an anthology of psychoanalytic fairy tales, but in 
order to learn to understand, more fully than we can out of the re- 
sources of our own cultures, the development of ideas and symbols and 
their relevance for the problem of personality. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychol- 
ogy 27, 229-242 (1932). 



Note 

This was, in fact, the rationale on which Freud and many of his contemporaries ap- 
proached the ethnographic evidence. Sapir argued to a different point, however - the 
comparabiHty of the "primitive" and the "modem." 



Group ( 1^)32) 
Editorial liilrodiicliiMi 

In his entry on "Group" for the EmyclDpcdui of the .Smuil Siumcs, 
Sapir addressed the perennial debate o\er the anal\ tieal priniac\ o\ ihc 
group or the individual. Although he elaborated on dilVereni kinds of 
group affiliation, and emphasized the symbolie importance of group 
identification tor individuals, his own position was that the group had 
no independent existence apart tYom its meaning to its indnnhial mem- 
bers. 

Although the position was similar to the one he took in the "supcror- 
ganic" debate in 1917, Sapir's intervening association with ps>chologisis 
and psychiatrists was refiected in his insistence that indisiduaK \Mth 
different personalities enter into group identificatii>ns ditTerenlly. \'an- 
ability was inherent in culture and socict\ because of this variation 
among personalities and their relationships to groups. Among psychiat- 
ric views that had influenced his thinking on the ps\choU\e\ o\ irrtuip 
identification Sapir explicitly cited Kreud. but echoes o\ H.trr\ Slack 
Sullivan can be heard also, especiall\ in the statement that "the psycho- 
logical basis of the group must rest on the psych(^log\ of spcvific per- 
sonal relations" (1932: 182). 



Group 

There is a wide variety of meanings attached to the term group: dif- 
ferent kinds of reality are imputed to the concept b> psychologists and 
sociologists of different schools. To some the group is a pnniar> conccpl 
in the study of human behavior; many socioU>gisis sa\ that V ' i- 
dual has no reality, aside from his biologically defined binh. > .,-, as 
a carrier or crystalli/er of meanings that are derivative i^l group actum 
and interaction. To others, however, the individual remains as ihc socio* 
logically primary entity and groups are the more or less artif' ' :i- 
structs which result when individuals, viewed as csscnlialK v. ..., -ic 
physical and psychological entities, come mlo contact with each other. 



294 JJJ Culture 

For the former sociologists a child can hardly be said to have social 
reality except in so far as there is in prior existence a supporting family 
or social agency substituting for the family and a fairly well defined set 
of rules o^ behavior defining the relation between the child and such a 
family. In much the same sense there would be no such individual as a 
musician except in so far as there are such groups as conservatories, 
historically determined lines of musicians and musical critics, dancing, 
singing and playing associations of varying degrees of formal organiza- 
tion and many other types of groups whose prior definition is needed 
to make the term musician actual. For the latter sociologists the child 
and tiie musician exist as given types of individuals, whether they are 
so born or so conditioned; and the groups which the sociologist discov- 
ers as operative in the behavior which actualizes such individual terms 
as child or musician are merely ad hoc constructions due to the specific 
experiences of mdividuals either [179] within a given lifetime or over 
many generations. The difficulty of deciding whether the group or the 
individual is to be looked upon as the primary concept in a general 
theory of society is enhanced by fatal ambiguities in the meaning of the 
term group. 

Any group is constituted by the fact that there is some interest which 
holds its members together. The community of interest may range from 
a passing event which assembles people into a momentary aggregate to 
a relatively permanent functional interest which creates and maintains 
a cohesive unit. The crowd which forms when there is an automobile 
accident, drawn together in the first place by a common curiosity, soon 
develops certain understandings. Its members may feel themselves to be 
informally delegated by society to observe and eventually report or to 
help with advice or action or, if there has been an infraction of the 
traffic rules, to constitute a silent or audible image of criticism. Such a 
group cannot be despised by the sociologist for all its casualness of 
form and function. At the other extreme is such a body as the United 
States Senate, which is fixed as to numbers, principle of selection, time 
of meeting, function and symbolic importance in a representative capac- 
ity. The former consists of individuals who do not feel that they are 
assuming a known or imputed role when they become members of the 
group; the latter is consfituted by political and legal theory and exists 
in a sense in advance of the appearance of specific members, so that 
those who actually take part in deliberafions of the Senate are some- 
thing other than or beyond themselves as individuals. There is in reality 
no definite line of division anywhere along the gamut of group forms 



One: Culture. Society, ami the liulivUlual 295 

which connect these extremes. If the auioniobilc accident is serious and 
one of the members of the crowd is a doctor, the informal group may 
with comparatively little difficulty resoKc iisclf into something like a 
medical squad with an implicitly elected leader. On the other hand, if 
the government is passing through a great political crisis, if there is Imic 
confidence in the representative character or honesty o\' the senators or 
if an enemy is besieging the capital and likely at an\ moineni to subsii- 
tute entirely new forms of corporate authority for those legalK recog- 
nized by the citizens of the country, the Senate may easily become an 
unimportant aggregation of individuals who suddenly and \Mth unex- 
pected poignancy feel their helplessness as mere indi\iduals. 

Sociological theory can hardly analyze the group concept into its 
various forms unless it uses definable principles of classification. The 
primary principle of classification may rest on the distinction between 
physical proximity on the one hand and the adoption of a symbolic role 
on the other. Between the two extremes comes a large class of group 
forms in which the emphasis is on definite, realistic purpose rather than 
on symbolism. The three major classes of groups are therefore those 
physically defined, those defined by specific purposes and those symbol- 
ically defined. Examples of simply physical groups arc a bread line, a 
little crowd milling in the lobby of a theater between the acts of a play, 
the totality of individuals who look on at a football game, a handful of 
people going up in an elevator and a Saturday afiernoon crowd on 
Fifth Avenue. Groups possessed of a relati\cly firm organization and 
of a real or imputed specific purpose are, for example, the emplosces 
of a factory, the administrative personnel of a bank or stock company, 
a board of education, a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, 
the taxpayers of a municipality, a trade union \icued as an agency 
for securing certain economic advantages to its members and a slalc 
legislature viewed simply as an agency of government, (irour ' "''c 
third type differ from those of the second in that to external r;, i- 
tion and one or more well defined functions there is added the iieneral 
symbolic function of securing for the individual an integrated status in 
society. Examples of such symbolically defined groups are the lai- * 
the membership of a particular church or of a religious denomin.n.. ;.. 
a political party in so far as it is not merely a mechanism for the ekvlion 
of political officers; a social club in so far as it means more than a 
convenience for luncheon or an occasional game i>f billiards; a uniNer- 
sity group looked at as something over and abo\e an msiruiv—' ''-'v 
for specific types of education; the United States Senate as a rc^, c 



296 JJ^ Culture 

spokesman o^ ihe American government; a state as the legalized repre- 
sentative of the nation: a nation as a large aggregate of human beings 
w ho feel themselves to be held together by many ties of sentiment and 
which believes itself, rightly or wrongly, to be a self-sufficient social 
entity in the world of physical necessity and of human relationships. 

The examples have been purposely chosen to suggest doubts and 
multiple interpretations. Some degree of physical proximity is either 
required or fancied in order to make for group cohesiveness; some de- 
gree o{ purpose or function [180] can be found in or rationalized for 
any conceivable group of human beings that has meaning at all; and 
there is no group which does not reach out symbolically beyond its 
actual composition and assigned function. Even so wide a group as a 
political party needs from time to time to give itself the face to face 
psychology of a mere physical gathering, lest the loyalty and enthusiasm 
which spring from handshakes, greetings, demonstrations, speeches and 
other tokens of immediate vitality seep away into a colorless feehng of 
merely belonging. The members of a church, standing obviously as a 
symbol of the relation between God and man, carry definite purposes 
of a practical sort, such as the securing of burial rights. SymboHsms of 
a potent sort may be illustrated in groups which are most readily classi- 
fied under the first and second rubrics. Thus, a passer-by may be 
attracted to the casual crowd brought together by an automobile acci- 
dent not because he thinks he can be of any particular assistance nor 
because he is devoured by curiosity but merely because he wishes half 
unconsciously to register his membership in the human universe of po- 
tential suffering and mutual good will. For such an individual the non- 
descript group in question becomes the mystic symbol of humanity 
itself. Thus defined it may be more potent in a symbolic sense than the 
nation itself. So clearly defined a functional group as a board of educa- 
tion has or may have a symbolic significance for its community that far 
transcends its avowed purposes. Nevertheless, there are few groups of 
human beings that cannot be readily classified as coming primarily un- 
der one or the other of the three indicated heads. This tripartite classifi- 
cation is easiest to apply in the modern civilized world. In less sophisti- 
cated folk cultures and to an even greater extent in primitive societies 
the possibility of allocating groups to one rather than another of the 
three types becomes difficult. Physical contact, a bundle of common 
purposes and heavy saturation with symbolism tend to be typical of all 
groups on these more primitive levels. 



One: Ciilnnv. Sociav. unJ ilic InJiviJuul 297 

The suggested classification is based on an analysis of groups from 
an objective standpoint; that is. iVoin ihc siandpoini of an obscr\'ing 
non-participant or the siandpoini o\' humanity or the nation or any 
other large aggregate in vvliich the significance of the individual as such 
tends to be lost. The interpretation of the various i>pcs ot gri)ups from 
the standpoint of individual pariicipalion oilers new dilTicullics. and 
new principles of classification may be ventured. Indi\iduals dilTcr in 
the degree to which they can successfully identify themsehcs uiih the 
other members of the group in which they are includetl and in the na- 
ture oi' that identification. Such identification ma> he direct, sckx'livc 
or referential. Direct participation implies that the individual is or feels 
himself to be in a significant personal relation to all c^r most of the 
fellow members of the group with whom he comes in contact. For such 
an individual the reality of a committee, for instance, is not given by 
its external organization and assigned duties but raiher by his ability lo 
work with or fail to work with particular members oi' the comniiiiec 
and to get his own purposes accomplished with or in defiance o\ their 
help. A selective type of participation implies that the indi\idual is able 
to identity himself with the group onl\ in so far as he can identify 
himself with one or more selected members of the group who stand 
as its representatives and who tend to exhaust for the individual the 
psychological significance of the group itself Or the seleciK>n nia> act 
negatively, so that the significance of the group is damaged for the 
individual because of feelings of hostility toward particular members of 
the group. This type of group identification is comniiMi in the workaday 
world. Referential participation implies that the indi\idual makes no 
serious attempt to identify himself with some or all oi the actual mem- 
bership of a group but feels these fellow members to be the more or 
less impersonal carriers of an idea or piirpi>se. Fhis is essenlialK the 
legalistic type of approach. 

The type of individual participation in ihe group and Un purposes has 
something to do with its unconscious classification, so that the objective 
and subjective points of view are not in reality distinct. It is well to keep 
them apart, however, and to look upon them as intercrossing clasNifica- 
tions. The least significant type o( group psychologically would be the 
mere physical group with refereniial participation of the individual. The 
group so defined is little more than a statistical entity in the field of 

population. At the other extreme is the s\mbolicall> defino' r wilh 

direct individual participation. Cireat art brings lo the int. , m of 

symbolically defined groups, which lend lo be somewhat colorless as 



298 ^^^ Culture 

human entities because of their indefinite membership, the touchstone 
of direct participation. In Hauptmann's Die Weber (Berhn 1892; tr. by 
M. Morison as The Weavers. London 1899), for instance, German labor, 
a symbolicallv defmed group as conceived by the [181] dramatist, is 
made doubly significant because of the illusion of direct participation 
in Its membership. 

Ihe nature of the interest which lies at the basis of the formation of 
the iiroup varies indefinitely. It may be economic, political, vocational, 
meliorative, propagandist, racial, territorial, religious or expressive of 
general attitudes or minor purposes, such as the use of leisure. To go 
Tnto the details of the organization and purpose of such specifically 
defined groups would be tantamount to a description of the institutions 
of society. A popular classification of groups has been into primary or 
face to face groups and secondary groups. This is a convenient descrip- 
tive contrast but it does not take sufficient account of the nature of 
individual participation in the group. The distinction becomes of greater 
\alue if it is interpreted genetically as a contrast between those types of 
participation which are defined early in life and those which come later 
as symbolic amplifications or transfers of the earlier participations. 
From this point of view membership in a labor union with a dominant 
leader may have the value of an unconscious psychological recall of 
one's childhood participation in the family. Still another type of classifi- 
cation of groups which can readily be made is that based on the degree 
to which groups are self-consciously formed and group membership is 
voluntary. From this point of view the trade union or political party 
contrasts with the family or the state. The individual enters into the 
latter type of group through biological or social necessity, while he is 
believed to align himself with a trade union or pohtical party without 
such necessity. This distinction is misleading, for the implicit social 
forces which lead to membership in a given political party, for instance, 
may for many individuals be quite as compulsive as those which identify 
him with the state or even the family. To make too much of the distinc- 
tion is to confuse the psychological realities of various forms of partici- 
pation with the roles which society imputes to the individual. The plu- 
rality of groupings for any one individual is a point that sociologists 
have emphasized. If one looks beyond the groups which are institution- 
ally defined - in other words, beyond associations in the narrow sense 
of the word - any society, above all the complex society of modern 
times, has many more groups of more or less psychological significance 
than it possesses individuals who participate in these groups. 



One: Culiurc. Society, ami the Jmlivuiual 299 

The changes in social uiHuipiiiLis. sUiJicd partly through hisioncal 
evidence, partly thrcuiiih ihc direct ohscr\atii»n of conlcmporars trends. 
constitute a large part of the history of society. 'I"herc arc changes in 
the actual personnel o\' groups resulting from realignments " i 

about by such factors as economic change and changes m the i... \ 

communication, changes in the deepening or the impo\erishmenl i>l the 
symbolic significance o\' the group and changes in the tendency to a 
more or to a less direct participation o\' the indi\idual m h: 
These types of change necessarily condition each other m a gre.ii .... i^v 
of ways. An example of the first type is the gradual increase m the ii>idl 
potential membership of the political parlies o\' lingland and the Uniicd 
States. The fact that individuals without property and women now 
share in the activities of the parlies means that their present symbolic 
significance is different from what it originall\ was. I:xamples ol the 
second type of change are proxided b\ the uni\ersal tendency for 
groups which have a well defined function to lose their original function 
but to linger on as symbolically reinterpreted groups. I'hus a political 
club may lose its significance in the realistic world o\' politics but may 
nevertheless survive significantly as a social club in uhich membership 
is eagerly sought by those who wish to acquire a \aluable symbol of 
status. The third type of change is illustrated by the recent histt>r\ of the 
American family, in which on account of many disintegrating inlluenccs 
direct and intense participation has become less pronounced. .-Vs far 
as the relation of brothers and sisters is concerned, for inslancx*. the 
participation frequently amounts to hardl\ miMc than a colorle-^ 
ness of the fact of such kinship. Dexelopments in the famiK 
the general tendency in modern life of secondary and vohinlai.. , , - 
ings to assume the dominant role as against the primary and involun- 
tary ones. Closely connected with this is the greater mobilii> • :^ 
membership due to a variety o\' factors, among which arc r I 
facilities of transportation, the gradual breakdown o\ the can 
bolic sanctions and an increasing tendencs to conceive of a group as 
fundamentally defined by one or more specific purposes. Gn« 
are relatively permanent because they are needed to carr\ out ii- ' 
purposes tend to become more and more insiitulionali/ed. Hikn , 
for instance, have replaced the more casual association ol three oi 
men for the purpose of walking together in the countr\ 

In the discussion of the fundamental ps>cholog\ (IS-i ^m ' 
such terms as gregariousness, consciousness of kind and group 
little more than give names to problems to uhich ihcy arc in • 



300 III Culture 

a solution. The psychology of the group cannot be fruitfully discussed 
except on the basis of a profounder understanding of the way in which 
ditTerenl sorts of personalities enter into significant relations with each 
other and on the basis of a more complete knowledge of the importance 
to be attached to directly purposive as contrasted with symbolic motives 
in human interaction. The psychological basis of the group must rest 
on the psychology of specific personal relations; no matter how imper- 
sonally one may conceive the behavior which is characteristic of a given 
group, it must either illustrate direct interaction or it must be a petrified 
"as if of such interaction. The latter attribute is, however, not the 
peculiar property of group psychology but is also illustrated in the rela- 
tions of single human beings toward one another. It is only an apparent 
contradiction of this point of view if the individual, as he so frequently 
does, allows himself to be controlled not by what this man or that man 
says or thinks, but by what he mystically imputes to the group as a 
whole. Group loyalty and group ethics do not mean that the direct 
relationship between individual and individual has been completely 
transcended. They mean only that what was in its origin a relation of 
individual dominance has been successively transferred until it is now 
attributed to the group as a whole. 

The psychological realities of group participation will be understood 
only when theorizing about the general question of the relation of the 
individual to the group gives way to detailed studies of the actual kinds 
of understanding, explicit and implicit, that grow up between two or 
three or more human beings when they are brought into significant 
contact. It is important to know not only how one person feels with 
reference to another but how the former feels with reference to the latter 
when a third party is present. A latent hosfility between two persons 
may be remedied by the presence of the third party, because for one 
reason or another he is an apt target for the conscious or unconscious 
hostility of both. His presence may serve to sharpen hostility between 
the persons because of his attractiveness for both and the consequent 
injection of a conscious or unconscious jealousy into the relations that 
obtain between them. Precise studies in the psychology of personal rela- 
tions are by no means immaterial for the profounder psychological un- 
derstanding of the group, for this psychology can hardly be other than 
the complex resultant of the pooling, heightening, cancelling, transfer 
and symbolic reinterpretation of just such specific processes. As 
psychology recognizes more and more clearly the futility of studying 
the individual as a self-contained entity, the sociologist will be set free 



One Culrniv. Sociciy. unJ the ItuiivUtual 301 

{o study the rationale of group 101111. iinuip lunclion, group changes 
and group uitcnclalionships IVcmii a ronnal or cultural poinl of Me\^. 

Consult: Macl\ci, R. M., Society. Its Structures ami C'lumf^es (New 
York 1931); Kollctt, M. P.. The Xcu State (New York 19IS); Freud. 
Sigmund, Massenpsyc/io/oi^ie uiul Ich-Annlyse (Lcipsic 1921). ir. b\ 
James Strachey (London 1922); l.indenian. E. C, Sociul Discovery an 
Approiich to the Study 0/ i'unctionul (iroups (New York 1924); Coylc. 
Grace Longwell. Social Process in Ori^anizcil (iroups (New York I" 
Bernard, L. L., An Intnxhution to Social Psycholoi^y (New York T'-'m 
chs. xxvi, xxix-xxxi; Persotuility ami the Social (iroup. ed. by I:. W. Bur- 
gess (Chicago 1929); Park. R. E.. and Burgess, E. W . luiroductum to 
the Science of Sociology (2nd ed. Chicago 1924); Cooley. Charles M . 
Social Organization (New York 1909) ch. iii; Allport. Floyd M.. Sot lul 
Psychology (Boston 1924) ch. xi; Ginsberg. Morris. Psychology of Soil- 
ety (London 1921) ch. i\; Giddings, F-. H., Studies in the Pheory of Hu- 
man Society (New York 1922) ch. x; Sprowels. Jesse W.. Sociul Psychol- 
ogy (Baltimore 1927) chs. v, ix; Young. Kimball. Social Psvchohtgy 
(New York 1930) chs. ii, xii-xiii; Folsom. Joseph K., Social Ps\choli>gv 
(New York 1931) chs. vii-viii; Vierkandt. A., "I^ie Theorie der (Jruppc" 
and Lehmann, G., "Zur Charakterislik iniimcr Gruppen" in Archiv fur 
angewandte Soziologie, vol. ii (1929-30) 111 and 19s :i)g 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in Edwin R. A. Seligman (ed). / /;. XilopacJia 
of the Social Sciences 7, 178-182 (New ^'ork: Macmillan. 1^.^21 ( op>. 
right 1932, renewed 1960, by Macmillan Publishing Companv. Re- 
printed by permission o\^ the publisher. 



The Emergence of the Concept o( IVmsoiki1ii\ 
in a Sliidy ofC'iilliircs ( \')}4) 

Editorial inlroduclioii 

Originally prepared for a National Research Council conference on 
child de\elopment held in Chicago in 1933, this paper apjXMred in the 
interdisciplinar) Jour/uil of Siuiiil Psycholoi^y the foUounig Near. In 
keeping with the conference theme, the paper focused on siKiali/alion. 
linking it to cultural patterns and lo ihc emergence o\' the indi\idual 
personality in childhood. 

Sapir's opening claim - that the same hit of a child's beha\ior could 
be interpreted both in cultural terms and in terms of indi\idual psNchi>- 
dynamics - recalls methodological arguments he iiaJ been making 
since his critique of Kroeber's "superorganic " in 1917. Whether an 
analysis concerned personality or culture was a mailer o\' the anahsl's 
perspective on the same beha\ior. not a matter of dilVereni beha\uMN. 
In the present paper, however, he turned the emphasis to dynamkN 
that is. to the emergence o( pcrsonalil\ iii ihc child's inleraclion with 
culturally-patterned experiences, and the emergence o\' culture \i\ the 
child's developing integration of meanings. If personalil) began lo ^how 
itself with the child's increasing independence from parental coniroj and 
increasing awareness of his/her own j^otcniial \ov action, so were cul- 
tural patterns emerging in the child's creative understanding 

This process had a crucial relationship to cultural dvnanii. 
argued. Overemphasis on cultural pallerns, observed in ihe Ivi 
adults, had led most sociologists aiui anihropologisls lo a misleading 
notion of cultural conservatism and cultural delermmism; but cullure 
could not be fully understood solely in terms of adult inK 

meaning. Since that integration actually deveU>ped onl> _ 

through socialization, it was neither static nor coniplelel) dclcrmin.: 
of individual action. Dyiuinui was the kev word, widely u.Ncd in ihe 
psychology and psychiatrv of the dav 

Personality, as a structure, had to be seen as having an inlcrnal organ- 
ization; so too did culture. In this paper Sapir pn^^i^sed that ihc s,imc 



304 III Culture 

kind o( inicgialion that might be seen in personality would be found in 
culture also. The analogy is abstract, however. It derives only from the 
fact that both arc integrated organizations that develop in individuals' 
experience of a meaningful world. Sapir in 1934 had moved away from 
stereotyping whole cultures as personality types, a characterization he 
still appears to suggest in his 1926 Hanover presentation (this volume). 



The Emergence of the Concept of Personality 
in a Study of Cultures 

Our natural interest in human behavior seems always to vacillate 
between what is imputed to the culture of the group as a whole and 
what is imputed to the psychic organization of the individual himself. 
These two poles of our interest in behavior do not necessarily make use 
of different materials; it is merely that the locus of reference is different 
in the two cases. Under familiar circumstances and with familiar people, 
the locus of reference of our interest is likely to be the individual. In 
unfamiliar types of behavior, such as running a dynamo, or with in- 
dividuals who do not readily fit into the normal contexts of social habit, 
say a visiting Chinese mandarin, the interest tends to discharge itself 
into formulations which are cultural rather than personal in character. 
If I see my little son playing marbles I do not, as a rule, wish to have 
light thrown on how the game is played. Nearly everything that I ob- 
serve tends to be interpreted as a contribution to the understanding of 
the child's personality. He is bold or timid, alert or easily confused, a 
good sport or a bad sport when he loses, and so on. The game of 
marbles, in short, is merely an excuse, as it were, for the unfolding of 
various facts or theories about a particular individual's psychic constitu- 
tion. But when I see a skilled laborer oiling a dynamo, or a polished 
mandarin seating himself at the dinner table in the capacity of academic 
guest, it is almost inevitable that my observafions take the form of 
ethnographic field notes, the net result of which is likely to be facts or 
theories about such cultural patterns as the running of a dynamo, or 
Chinese manners. 

Ordinarily one's interest is not so sharply defined. It tingles with both 
personal and cultural implications. There is no awareness of the con- 
stantly shifting direction of interest. Moreover, there is much of that 
confusion which attends all experience in its initial stages in childhood, 
when the significant personality is interpreted as an institution and ev- 



One: Culture. Socielv. and the Imliviilual 305 

cry CLilUiral pdllcrn is incicl) a niL'iiu)r\ uluhai this or ihal pcrM>n ha^ 
[409] actually done. Now aiul then, il is inic, llicrc arises in the llow of 
adult experience a certain mliution ol \shat \souUl Ix* the significant 
eventual formulation, personal or cultural, ola guen Iragnicni ot beha- 
vior. '"Yes. that is just like John," or "But we mustn't make loo much 
o'i this tritle. Presumably all Chinamen do the same ihmg under ihc 
circumstances."" arc iliuslralixc s\mhols for ctMilrasiing interprelalions. 
Naturally the confusion o\' interests is not merely one of the mingling of 
directions hut also of an actual transposition or inversion. A stubbornly 
indi\idual \ariation ma\ be misinterpreted as a cultural datum. Iliis 
sort of thing is likcl\ to hapjXMi when we learn a foreign language from 
a single individual and are not in a position to distinguish between whal 
is characteristic of the language and what is peculiar to the teacher's 
speech. More often, perhaps, the cultural pattern, when sigmt'icanily 
presented in experience, tends to allocate to itself a far too intimate 
meaning. Qualities of charm or quainlncss. for instance, are notoriously 
dangerous in this regard and tend to be not so much personal as cultural 
data, which receive their especial contextual \alue from the inabilii> o^ 
the observer to withhold a strictly personal interpretation 

What is the genesis of our duality o\' interest in the facts of behavior? 
Why is it necessary to discover the contrast, real or fictitious, between 
culture and personality, or, to speak more accurately, between a seg- 
ment of behavior seen as a cultural pattern and a segment o\ beha\ior 
interpreted as having a person-defining \aluc.' \\'h\ cannot our interest 
in behavior maintain the undifferentiated character which it ; ^ 

in early childhood? The answer, presumably, is that each t\pe o\ muusl 
is necessary tor the psychic preservation of the indi\idual m an euMron- 
ment which experience makes increasingly complex and unassimilable 
on its own simple terms. The interests connoted by the terms culture 
and personality are necessary for intelligent and helpful growth be^^ause 
each is based on a distinctive kind o\ imaginati\e participation b> the 
observer in the life around him. Ihe obser\er ma\ dramali/e such beha- 
vior as he takes note o^ in terms o\' a set o\ \alues. a conscience whK'h 
is beyond self and to which he must conform. actualK or i- '\. 

if he is to preserve his place in the world o\' aulhorils t»; .. d 

social necessity. Or, on the other hand, he ma> feel the behaM* '• 

expressive, as defining the reality o\' individual consciousnev* av- 
the mass of environing social determinants. Obserxatio- 
the framework of the former of these two kinds i^l pai'u.^. 
tute our knowledge of culture, fhose which come within tl.. 



306 /// Culture 

of the latter constitute our knowledge of personality. One is as sub- 
jective or objective as the other, for both are essentially modes of pro- 
jection o\' personal experience into the analysis of social phenomena. 
Culture may be psychoanalytically reinterpreted [410] as the supposedly 
impersonal aspect o( those values and definitions which come to the 
child with the irresistible authority of the father, mother, or other in- 
dividuals o( their class. The child does not feel itself to be contributing 
to culture through his personal interaction but is the passive recipient 
of values which lie completely beyond his control and which have a 
necessity and excellence that he dare not question. We may therefore 
venture to surmise that one's earliest configurations of experience have 
more of the character of what is later to be rationalized as culture than 
o\^ what the psychologist is likely to abstract as personality. We have all 
had the disillusioning experience of revising our father and mother 
images down from the institutional plane to the purely personal one. 
The discovery of the world of personality is apparently dependent upon 
the ability of the individual to become aware of and to attach value to 
his resistances to authority. It could probably be shown that naturally 
conservative people find it difficult to take personality valuations seri- 
ously, while temperamental radicals tend to be impatient with a purely 
cultural analysis of human behavior. 

It may be questioned whether a dichotomy which seems to depend 
so largely on the direction of one's interest in observed behavior can be 
an altogether safe guide to the study of behavior in social situations. 
The motivations of these contrasting directions of interest are uncon- 
scious, to be sure, yet simple enough, as all profound motivations must 
be. The study of culture as such, which may be called sociology or 
anthropology, has a deep and unacknowledged root in the desire to lose 
oneself safely in the historically determined patterns of behavior. The 
motive for the study of personality, which we may term indifferently 
social psychology or psychiatry, proceeds from the necessity which the 
ego feels to assert itself significantly. Both the cultural disciplines and 
the psychological disciplines are careful to maintain objecfive ideals, 
but it should not be difficult to see that neither the cultural pattern as 
such nor the personality as such, abstracted as both of these are from 
the directly given facts of experience, can, in the long run, escape from 
the peculiarly subtle subjectivism which is implicit in the definitions of 
the disciplines themselves. As preliminary disciplines, whose main pur- 
pose is to amass and critically sift data and help us to phrase significant 
problems of human behavior, they are of course invaluable. But sooner 



One: Culture. Society, and the ImUvuhuil 307 

or lalcr iheir obscure opposituMi ol spun iiuisi be iraiisecndcd for an 
objecti\il\ which is noi inercl\ torinal ;iiid non-evalualivc but uhich 
boldly essays to bring every ciihiual pattern back to the living context 
from which it has been abstracted in the tlrst place and. m parallel 
fashion, to bring e\er\ fact o\' personaiit> lorniation back to its siKial 
matrix. The problems herewith suggested are, of course, neither simple 
nor eas\. The social psychologs into which the conventional cultural 
[411] and psychological disciplines must e\enluall> be resoKed is related 
to these paradigmatic studies as an iinestigation into lising speech as 
related to grammar. I think lew cultural disciplines are as exact, as 
rigorously configurated, as self-contained as grammar, but if it is de- 
sired to have grammar contribute a significant share to i>ur understand- 
ing o\^ human behavior, its definitions, meanings, and classifications 
must be capable of a significant restatement in terms o\a si>cial psNchol- 
ogy which transcends the best thai we ha\e \ei been able to ofler in this 
perilous field of investigation. What applies to grammar applies no less 
significantly, of course, to the study of social organization. religii>n. art, 
mythology, technology, or any segment, large or small, or groups of 
segments which convenience or tradition leads us to carve out of the 
actual contexts of human beha\ior. 

There is a very real hurt done our understanding of culture when wc 
systematically ignore the individual and his types o\ interrelatuMiship 
with other individuals. It is no exaggeration to say that cultural anal>MS 
as ordinarily made is not a study of behavior at all but is essentially the 
orderly description, without evaluation or, at best, with certain implicit 
evaluations, of a behavior to be hereinafter defined but which, in the 
normal case is not, perhaps cannot be. defined. Culture, as it is i>rdinar- 
ily constructed by the anthropologist, is a more or less mechanical sum 
of the more striking or picturesque generalized patterns of beh. 
which he has either abstracted for himself out o\' the sum total i-i u.n 
observations or has had abstracted for him b> his inlormanis in verbal 
communication. Such a "cullure." because generally constructed of un- 
familiar terms, has an almost unavoidable picturesqueness aKnit it. 
which suggests a vitality which it does not. as a matter o\ s«.; 
psychological fact, embody. Ihe cultures so carefull) descriK.: 
ethnological and sociological monographs are not. and cannot be. the 
irulv obieclive enlilies they claim to be. No matter how atxurate their 
individual itemization, their integrations \n\o suggested n' c 

uniformly fallacious and unreal. This cannot be helivd sv .- i-' 

confine ourselves to the priKcdures recognized as sound by ^ v 



308 /// Culture 

ethnology. It'vve make the test of imputing the contents of an ethnologi- 
cal monograph to a known individual in the community which it de- 
scribes, we would inevitably be led to discover that, while every single 
statement in it may, in the favorable case, be recognized as holding true 
in some sense, the complex of patterns as described cannot, without 
considerable absurdity, be interpreted as a significant configuration of 
experience, both actual and potential, in the life of the person appealed 
to. Cultures, as ordinarily dealt with, are merely abstracted configura- 
tions oi' idea and action patterns, which have endlessly different mean- 
ings for the various individuals in the group and which, if they are to 
build up into any kind of significant psychic structure, whether for the 
individual or the [412] small group or the larger group, must be set in 
relation to each other in a complex configuration of evaluations, inclu- 
sive and exclusive implications, priorities, and potentialities of realiza- 
tion which cannot be discovered from an inquiry into the described 
patterns. 

The more fully one tries to understand a culture, the more it seems 
to take on the characteristics of a personality organization. Patterns 
first present themselves according to a purely formalized and logically 
developed scheme. More careful explorations invariably reveal the fact 
that numerous threads of symbolism or implication connect patterns or 
parts of patterns with others of an entirely different formal aspect. Be- 
hind the simple diagrammatic forms of culture is concealed a peculiar 
network of relationships, which, in their totality, carve out entirely new 
forms that stand in no simple relation to the obvious cultural table of 
contents. Thus, a word, a gesture, a genealogy, a type of religious belief 
may unexpectedly join hands in a common symbolism of status defini- 
tion. If it were the aim of the study of culture merely to list and describe 
comprehensively the vast number of supposedly self-contained patterns 
of behavior which are handed on from generation to generation by 
social processes, such an inquiry as we have suggested into the more 
intimate structure of culture would hardly be necessary. Trouble arises 
only when the formulations of the culture student are requisitioned 
without revision or criticism for an understanding of the most signifi- 
cant aspects of human behavior. When this is done, insoluble difficulties 
necessarily appear, for behavior is not a recomposition of abstracted 
patterns, each of which can be more or less successfully studied as a 
historically continuous and geographically distributed entity in itself, 
but the very matrix out of which the abstractions have been made in 
the first place. All this means, of course, that if we are jusdfied in speak- 



One: Culture. Socivty. uiul tin InJiviJuul 309 

ing o\' the giDwih o\' culluic dt all. ii imist be in ihc spinl. nol ol a 
composite history made up ot the pnsate hislorics of parlicular pal- 
terns, but m tiie spun of the (.lexeiopment ol" a pcrsonalily. 'I"hc com- 
plete, impersonali/ed ■culture" of tlie anlhrt)poli)LMsl can rcalls be lilllc 
more than an assembly or mass o\' loosely o\erlappmg idea and action 
systems which, through verbal habit, can be made to assume the appear- 
ance of a closed system o\' bcha\ioi. What leiuK to be forgotlen is that 
the functioning of such a system, if it can be said to have an\ n- 

able function at all, is due to the specific functionings and inu.,,... . of 
the idea and action systems which ha\e actually grown up in the minds 
of gi\en indi\iduals. In spite of the oft asserted im|x*rsonalily of culture. 
the humble truth remains that \ast reaches o\ culture, far from bcmg 
in any real sense "carried" by a community or a group as such, arc 
discoverable only as the peculiar property of certain indiMduals. who 
cannot but give these cultural goods the impress t>f their own personal- 
ity. With the disappearance [413] of such key indi\iduals, the light, "ob- 
jectified" culture loosens up at once and is e\enluall\ seen ti> K- a con- 
venient fiction o( thought. 

When the cultural anthropologist has llnished his necessary prelimi- 
nary researches into the overt forms of culture and has gained for them 
an objectivity of reference by working out their forms, time sequences 
and geographical distributions, there emerges for him the nii>re difficult 
and significant task of interpreting the culture which he has isolated 
and defined in terms o( its rele\ance for the understanding of the per- 
sonalities of the very individuals from whom he has obtained his infor- 
mation. As he changes his informant, his culture necessaril> changes. 
There is no reason why the culturalist should be afraid of the ci>ncepl 
of personality, which must nol. howexer. be thought of, as one meviia- 
bly does at the beginning of his thinking, as a mysterious entit- -ig 

the historically given culture but rather as a distinctive ciV- ■ v»f 

experience which tends always to form a ps\chologicall\ m^ uI 

and which, as it accretes more and more symbols to itself, creates finally 
that cultural microcosm of which i^fficial •'culture*' is little more than • 

metaphorically and mechanicalK expanded copy. U\c ■■'"' " ' "he 

point o( view which is natural in the study o( the gene , ^y 

to the problem of culture canmn but force a revaluation of the maienab 
of culture itself. Man\ pri^blcins which are now in the forct "V- 

tigation sink into a secondary position and patterns ol K h 

seem so obvious or universal as not to K- worthy ol ii.. -c 

attention of the ethnologist leap into a new and une.xpecled m c. 



310 /// Culture 

The ethnologist may some day have to face the uncomfortable predica- 
ment o^ inquiring into such humble facts as whether the father is in the 
habit of acting as indulgent guide or as disciplinarian to his son and of 
reiiarding the problem of the child's membership inside or outside of 
his father's clan as a relatively subsidiary question. In short, the applica- 
tion o'i the personality point of view tends to minimize the bizarre or 
exotic in alien cultures and to reveal to us more and more clearly the 
broad human base on which all culture has developed. The profound 
commonplace that all culture starts from the needs of a common hu- 
manity is believed in by all anthropologists, but it is not demonstrated 
by their writings. 

An excellent test of the fruitfulness of the study of culture in close 
conjunction with a study of personality would be provided by studies 
in the field of child development. It is strange how little ethnology has 
concerned itself with the intimate genetic problem of the acquirement 
of culture by the child. In the current language of ethnology culture 
dynamics seems to be almost entirely a matter of adult definition and 
adult transmission from generation to generation and from group to 
group. The humble child, who is laboriously orienting himself in the 
world of his society, yet is not, in [414] the normal case, sacrificing his 
forthright psychological status as a significant ego, is somehow left out 
of the account. This strange omission is obviously due to the fact that 
anthropology has allowed itself to be victimized by a convenient but 
dangerous metaphor. This metaphor is always persuading us that cul- 
ture is a neatly packed-up assemblage of forms of behavior handed over 
piece-meal, but without serious breakage, to the passively inquiring 
child. I have come to feel that it is precisely the supposed "givenness" 
of culture that is the most serious obstacle to our real understanding of 
the nature of culture and cultural change and of their relationship to 
individual personality. Culture is not, as a matter of sober fact, a 
"given" at all. It is so only by a polite convention of speech. As soon 
as we set ourselves at the vantage point of the culture-acquiring child, 
the personality definitions and potentials that must never for a moment 
be lost sight of, and which are destined from the very beginning to 
interpret, evaluate and modify every culture pattern, sub-pattern, or 
assemblage of patterns that it will ever be influenced by, everything 
changes. Culture is then not something given but something to be grad- 
ually and gropingly discovered. We then see at once that elements of 
culture that come well within the horizon of awareness of one individual 
are entirely absent in another individual's landscape. This is an impor- 



One: Culture. Society, ami the Indnulual 3|| 

lain lad. s\slciiialicall> ignored h\ the Liillural aiuhropologisi. It niay 
be propeM- for the systematic eliinologisi to ignore such pallcrn dilTcr- 
ences as these, but for the theoretical aiitliropologisl. who wishes to 
place cuhiire in a general view i-tf human behavior, such an «> " • is 

inexcusable, lurlhermore, it is obvious that the child will umca ..^v.. ..sly 
accept the \aricuis elements of culture with entirely dilTcrcnl mcaiungs. 
according to the biographical coiKlilii>ns that attend their introduction 
to him. It ma\. and uiukuibtedly does, make a prtifound difTercncc 
whether a religious ritual ciMiies with the sternness of the lather's au- 
thoritv or with the somewhat playful indulgence ol' the mother's 
brother. We have not the privilege of assuming that it is an irrelevant 
matter how musical stimuli are introduced to the child. Tlie fact thai 
the older brother is already an admired pianist in the little household 
may act as an elTective barrier to the devekipment ol interest in an) 
form of musical expression. Such a child mav grow up curiously obtuse 
to musical values and may be persuaded \o think that he was bom 
w ith a naturally poor ear and is therefore debarred from sharing in the 
blessings o'i one important aspect o^ the cultural life o\ the community. 
If we take the purely genetic point of view, all the problems which 
appear in the study of culture reappear with a startling freshness which 
cannot but mean much for the rephrasing o^ these problems. Problems 
of symbolism, of superordination and subordination of patterns, of rel- 
ative strength of emotional character, of transformabilitv and transmis- 
sibility, of [415] the isolability of certain patterns into relatively closed 
systems, and numerous others o^ like dynamic nature, emerge at once. 
We cannot answer any of them in the abstract. All o^ them demand 
patient investigation and the answers are almost certain to be 
multiform. We may suggest as a difficult but crucial problem of invesli- 
gation the following: Study the child minutely and carefully from birth 
until, say, the age often with a view to seeing the order in which cultural 
patterns and parts of patterns appear in his psvchic world, studv the 
relevance of these patterns for the development of his personality; and. 
at the end o{ the suggested period, see lunv much o{ the total ofTicial 
culture of the group can be said to have a significant e\isten«.\ * - '-m. 
Moreover, what degree o{ systemati/ation. conscious or un^ its, 

in the complicating patterns and svmbolisms of culture will have been 
reached by this child' This is a dillicult problem, to be sure, but il is 
not an impossible one. Sooner or later it will have to b ' ' by 

the genetic psychologists. I venture to predict that the con^,, ire 

which will then emerge, fragmentarv and confused as it will undoubl- 



312 /// Culture 

ediy be, will turn out lo have a tougher, more vital, importance for 
social thinking than the tidy tables of contents attached to this or that 
group which we have been in the habit of calling "cultures." 

Reference: Sapir, E. Cultural anthropology and psychiatry. / Abn. & 
Soc. P.sve/wl.. 1932,27,229-242. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in the Journal of Social Psychology 5, 408-415 
(1934). 

A footnote to the title of the publication notes: "Based on a paper 
presented to the National Research Council Conference on Studies in 
Child Development at Chicago on June 22, 1933." 



PersonalilN ( 1934) 
Editorial iiUri>(.lLiclion 

The entry on "Personality" for the /Juvilopci/iu of tlic Sm uit s. /, m. v\ 
summarizes arguments Sapir had earlier made at the American INschi- 
atric Association colloquia, A. P. A. II in parlieular I he same argu- 
ments are further elaborated, too, in The PsyclufUti^y of Culture (ihis 
\olume). especially chapter 7. In all these presentations. Sapir compared 
concepts o\^ personalitv in ditTerent disciplmes to arrive at fue detlni- 
tions of the term. These ditTerent conceptions must not be confused 
with, or reduced to, one another: the sociologist's emphasis on social 
role, for example, was quite independent of the psychiatrist's emphasis 
on individual biography. Although Sapir e\identl\ leaned touard a psy- 
chiatric conception, he rejected the particular systems oi hreud and 
Jung, which did not adequatel\ lake account o\' cultural symbolisms 
and differences in social arrangements. 

In accord with his long-standing interest in the qualii\ of life uhich 
ditTerent societies presented to individuals. Sapir insisted that, although 
each culture had a psychological bias buih into its socialization pro- 
cesses, ditTerent personality types responded dilTerently. Tlie tit betvvccn 
individual and culture could not be taken for granted. C'rosscultural 
comparison along these lines was a responsibility of the stKial sciences, 
whether or not most practitioners o\' tliese disciplines acknowledged il. 

In The Psyehology of Culture, the chapter on "Personalit>" is fol- 
lowed by chapters discussing .lungs approach to |X'rsonalit>. placing 
that approach in cultural context, and considering problems o\ indivi- 
dual adjustment in culture and sociels. 



Persian. ilit\ 

The term personality is too variable in usage to be m 

scientific discussion unless its meamng is very carcfulK "-a 

given context. Among the various understandings which lo ihe 

term there are Tive detuiitions which stand out as usefulK distinci from 



314 /// Culture 

one another, corresponding lo the philosophical, the physiological, the 
psychophysical, the sociological and the psychiatric approaches to per- 
sonality. As a philosophical concept, personality may be defined as the 
subjective awareness o\^ the self as distinct from other objects of obser- 
\ation. As a purely physiological concept, personality may be consid- 
ered as the individual human organism with emphasis on those aspects 
o'^ behavior which differentiate it from other human organisms. The 
term may be used in a descriptive psychophysical sense as referring 
lo the human being conceived as a given totality, at any one time, of 
physiological and psychological reaction systems, no vain attempt being 
made lo draw a line between the physiological and the psychological. 
The most useful sociological connotation which can be given to the 
term is an essentially symbolic one; namely, the totality of those aspects 
of behavior which give meaning to an individual in society and dif- 
ferentiate him from other members in the community, each of whom 
embodies countless cultural patterns in a unique configuration. The psy- 
chiatric definition of personality may be regarded as equivalent to the 
indi\idual abstracted from the actual psychophysical whole and con- 
ceived as a comparatively stable system of reactivity. The philosophical 
concept treats personality as an invariant [86] point of experience; the 
physiological and psychophysical, as an indefinitely variable reactive 
system, the relation between the sequence of states being one of conti- 
nuity, not identity; the sociological, as a gradually cumulative entity; 
and the psychiatric, as an essentially invariant reactive system. 

The first four meanings add nothing new to such terms as self or 
ego, organism, individual and social role. It is the peculiarly psychiatric 
conception of personality as a reactive system which is in some sense 
stable or typologically defined for a long period of time, perhaps for 
life, which it is most difficult to assimilate but important to stress. The 
psychiatrist does not deny that the child who rebels against his father 
is in many significant ways different from the same individual as a mid- 
dle-aged adult who has a penchant for subversive theories, but he is 
interested primarily in noting that the same reactive ground plan, physi- 
cal and psychic, can be isolated from the behavior totalities of child 
and adult. He establishes his invariance of personality by a complex 
system of concepts of behavior equivalences, such as sublimation, affec- 
tive transfer, rationalization, libido and ego relations. The stage in the 
history of the human organism at which it is most convenient to con- 
sider the personality as an achieved system, from which all subsequent 
cross sections of individual psychophysical history may be measured as 



One Culture, Society, ami the Imlmduul 315 

minor or c\cn inclcxanl \ai lalioiis. is Mill uiidclcrinmcd. ITicrc is no 
way o\' telling how tar hack in the lite ol the individual ihc conccpl of 
an essentially iinanant reaeti\e system mav usclully be pushed without 
too disturbing a clash uith the manilest and apparently unhniiled vari- 
ability ot^ individual behavior, it this conception of (XTsonahl) is lu hi>ld 
its own. it must in some wa> contradict etTeeli\eiy ihe notion of that 
cumulative growth ot personality to which our practical inielhgencc 
must chietly be directed. The psychiatrist's concept ol" person. iliis is to 
all intents and purposes the reactive system exhibited b\ the preciiltural 
child, a total conllguration ot" reacti\e tendencies determined b> hcred- 
it\. and b\ prenatal and postnatal conditioning up to the pt>inl where 
cultural patterns are conslanlls modilying the child's behasior. Die per- 
sonality may be conceived of as a latent s\stem ol reaction paltern> and 
tendencies to reaction patterns tlnished slu>rtl\ alter birth or well into 
the second or third year olthe life of the mdi\idual. With all the uncer- 
tainty that now prevails with regard to the relati\e permanence or moili- 
luibility o\^ lite patterns in the indi\idual and in the race il is unuisc, 
however, to force the notion of the fixation of personalits m lime. 

The genesis of personality is in all probabilit\ determined largely by 
the anatomical and physiological makeup ol" the indixidual but cannot 
be entirely so explained. Conditioning factors, which ma\ ri>ughlN be 
lumped together as the social psychological determinants of childhinnl, 
must be considered as at least as important in the de\elopment of per- 
sonality as innate biological faciois. It is entireh \am in the present 
state of knowledge to argue as to the relati\e importance oi these two 
sets of factors. No satisfactory technique has been de\eU>ped tor keep- 
ing thetn apart and it is perhaps safe to take for granted thai there is 
no facet of personality, however miiuile. which is nctt from the genetic 
standpoint the result of the prolonged and subtle mierpla> of K>ih. 

It is unthinkable that the build and other ph\sical charade'-"- -^f 
an individual should bear no relation to his personality. Il is ii. ' 

to observe, however, that physical features ma\ be o{ genetic siv 
cance in two distinct respects. Hies may be orgamcalh. '» 

certain psychological features or tendencies or lhe> m.is ^ 
sciously or unconsciously evaluated s\mbols of an indiNuh. -^ 

to others, belonging properly to the sphere of social detemiinatu» ■^ 
example of the former class o\' ph\sical determinants would he the 
ciation, according to Kretschmer. ol the stocks. si>-called psknic. b 
with the cyclothermic type o\' personalits. which in lis psvchohc • 
shows as manic depressise insanity, the so-called asthenic and athkrtK 



316 /// Culture 

builds being associated with the schizothymic type of personality, 
which, under the pressure of shock and conflict, may disintegrate into 
schizophrenia. An example of the latter type of determination, stressed 
by Alfred Adler and his school of individual psychology, would be the 
feeling o^ secret inferiority produced in a person who is of abnormally 
short stature, and the ceaseless effort to overcome this feeling of inferi- 
ority by developing such compensatory mechanisms as intelligent ag- 
gression or shrewdness, which would tend to give the individual a sec- 
ondary ego satisfaction denied him by his sense of physical inferiority. 
It is highly probable that both of these genetic theories of personality 
have a substantial core of value although too much has doubtless been 
claimed for them. [87] 

The most elaborate and far-reaching hypotheses on the development 
of personality which have yet been proposed are those of Freud and his 
school. The Freudian psychoanalysts analyze the personality topo- 
graphically into a primary id, the sum of inherited impulses or cravings; 
the ego, which is thought of as being built upon the id through the 
progressive development of the sense of external reality; and the super- 
ego, the socially conditioned sum of forces which restrain the individual 
from the direct satisfaction of the id. The characteristic interplay of 
these personality zones, itself determined chiefly by the special pattern 
of family relationships into which the individual has had to fit himself 
in the earliest years of his life, is responsible for a variety of personality 
types. Freudians have not developed a systematic theory of personality 
types but have contented themselves with special hypotheses based on 
clinical evidence. There is no doubt that a large amount of valuable 
material and a number of powerfully suggestive mechanisms of person- 
ality formation have been advanced by the Freudian school. Even now 
it is abundantly clear than an unusual attachment to the mother or 
profound jealousy of the older or younger brother may give the person- 
ality a slant which remains relatively fixed throughout life. 

Various classificafions of personality types have been advanced, some 
of them based on innate factors, others on experiential ones. Among 
the typological pictures the one worthy of special note is perhaps that 
of Jung. To him may be attributed the popular contrast between intro- 
verts and extraverts, the former abstracting more readily from reality 
and finding their sense of values and personal idenfification within 
themselves, while the latter evaluate experience in terms of what is im- 
mediately given by the environment. This contrast, it is true, means 
something substantial, but it is unfortunate that a host of superficial 



One Culture. Society. unJ the InJiviJtml 3I7 

ps\clu)louists ha\c allcniptcd lo fix Jung's meaning wiih the aid of shal- 
low criteria of all soils. Junii lurlher divides personality into four main 
funclit>nal t\pes ihe uso tornicr heinii called rational, the two lallcr 
irrational. I or these soniewhal misleading terms, organized and un<" • 
nized may fitly be substituted. The classitlcation aeei>rding \o funclw'u.ii 
types is believed by Jung to intercross with the intro\ert-exlra\crl di- 
chotomy. The validity and exact delimitation ot these terms present 
many ditHcult problems of analysis. There is much that is suggestive in 
his classification o( personality and it ma\ be possible to integrate it 
with the dynamic theories of Freud and .Xdler. What is needed at the 
present time, however, is the ever more minute analysis and comparist^n 
of indi\idual personality types. 

There is an important relation between culture and personalitv. On 
the one hand, there can be little doubt that distinctive persiMialits !*•:-■ 
may have a profound intluence on the thmighl and action of the t :: 
munity as a whole. Furthermore, while cultural anthropologists and 
sociologists do not consider that ihc forms o\' social interaction are in 
themselves definitive of personalit\ t\pes, particular forms c^f bchaMi>r 
in society, however Hexibly the indi\idual ma> adapt himself to them, 
are preferentially adapted to specific personality types. .AggressiNc mili- 
tary patterns, for instance, cannot be equally congenial to all personali- 
ties; literary or scientific refinement can be developed onl> by indiMd- 
uals of highly differentiated personalities. The failure o( siKial science 
as a whole to relate the patterns of culture to germinal personalit> pal- 
terns is intelligible in view of the complexity o\' social phenomena and 
the recency of serious speculation on the relation o\' the individual to 
society. But there is growing recognition o\' the fact that the intimate 
study of personality is oi" fundamental concern to the si>cial scientist 

The socialization of personality traits may be expected to lead cumu- 
latively to the development of specific psychological biases in ihe cul- 
tures o\' the world. Thus l-skimo culture, contrasted with most North 
American Indian cultures, is extraverted; Hindu culture on the \shok 
corresponds to the world o\' the thinking inlro\ert; the culture of the 
United States is definitely extraverted in character, vulh a greater em- 
phasis on thinking and intuition than on feeling; and sensational cval- 
uati^Mis arc more clcarl\ c\idciil iii the cultures of the Medilv 
area than in those of northern l-.urope. Social scientists have b 
tile to such psychological characterizations o\' culture bui m 
run they are inevitable and necessars. 



318 /// Culture 

Consult: 

Allport, G. W., and Vernon, P. E., "The Field of Personality" in Psy- 
choloi^lcal Bulletin, vol. xxvii (1930) 677-730; Roback, A. A., A Bihliog- 
raphy [88] of Character and Personality (Cambridge, Mass., 1927); Mur- 
phy, G., and Jensen, F., Approaches to Personality (New York 1932); 
Young, K., Social Psychology (New York 1930) pts. iii-iv; Folsom, J. K., 
Social Psychology (New York 1931) chs. iv-vii; Problems of Personality, 
ed. by C^ M. Campbell and others (New York 1925); Gordon, R. G., 
Personality {Ncvj' York 1926); Kretschmer, E., Korperhau und Charakter 
(4th rev. ed. Berlin 1925), tr. from the 2nd German ed. by W.J. H. 
Sprott as Character and Physique (London 1925); Adler, A., Praxis und 
Theorie der Individual-Psychologie (4th ed. Munich 1930), tr. by 
P. Radin (New York 1924), and Uber den nervosen Charakter (4th ed. 
Munich 1928), tr. by Bernard Glueck and J. B. Lind as The Neurotic 
Constitution (New York 1921); Kraepelin, E., and Lange, J., Psychiat- 
ric, 2 vols. (9th ed. Berlin 1927), tr. and adapted by A. R. Diefendorf 
from 7th German ed. as Clinical Psychiatry (rev. ed. New York 1907); 
Bleuler, E., Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie (5th ed. Berlin 1930), tr. by A. A. 
Brill (New York 1924); Freud, S., Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neuro- 
senlehre, 3 vols. (lst-3rd ed. Leipsic 1906-13), tr. by J. Riviere as Col- 
lected Papers on Psychoanalysis, 4 vols. (New York 1924—25); Jung, 
C. G., Psychologische Typen (Zurich 1921), tr. by H. G. Baynes (New 
York 1923); Sapir, E., "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry," in 
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. xxvii (1932) 229-42; 
Hinkle, B., The Re-creating of the Individual (New York 1923); Benedict, 
Ruth, "Configuration of Culture in North America" in American 
Anthropologist, vol. xxxiv (1932) 1-27. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in Edwin R. A. Seligman (ed.), Encyclopaedia 
of the Social Sciences 12, 85-88 (New York: Macmillan, 1934). Copy- 
right 1934, renewed 1962, by Macmillan Publishing Company. Re- 
printed by permission of the publisher. 



Symbolism ( 1^)34) 
Editorial liiirodiicuMi 

In his entr\ on "Symbolism" for the i'junlopcdia oi iiu S< 

ciicc.s. Sapir expanded the seope of his diseiission well beyond i ;i 

linguistic territory into a consideration o( a wide range of symbolic 
modalities. Indeed, he insisted thai all human heha\ii>r was inhcrcnlly 
symbolic, although the balance between cultural and perst>nal ingredi- 
ents in an indixidual's symbolic constructs and interpretations migh! 
vary. Symbolic constructs were the mediimi o\' si>cial inieraclion and 
hence formed the building-blocks of society iisell". In that consiruclion. 
which built symbol upon symbol, "\ery few bricks touch the grtnind " 
In The P.sych(>l()i!:y of Culture (chapter 9), Sapir took this metaphor 
further, even suggesting a model for contlicl and social disorder: ihc 
bricks crash down if the tuncliondl iiitcrpki\ of nuli\idual and cultural 
symbolisms is distorted. 

In 1933-34. the period in which Sapir wrote this essas. his lectures 
for Tlic Psychology of Culture also included a presentation (sec chapter 
12) that evidently followed the text o\' his encyclopedia article almost 
word for word, even though, as far as we know, he did not normally 
rely on extensive written notes in his teaching. In the lecture •'• ' m 
on symbolism was followed by a discussion of etiquette, as an . • , o 
of seemingly trivial behaviors that are aciualK sulTused with rich sym- 
bolic content. 

Sapir's ideas on types o\^ symbolisms, especial!) his diNtiiKn." 
tween referential symbolism and "condensation ssmbolism." 
proved especially stimulating to scholars o\' a later generalion. NV • 
in what became known as •■s\nibolic anthropology" has been much 
inlluenced b\ this essav. 



S\niholisin 

The term symbolism covers a great \anet> of appareniK ihsMmit.ir 
modes of behavior. In its oriuinal sense it was reslricled i 



320 /// ('u I lure 

marks mlLMidcd lo recall or to direct special attention to some person, 
object, idea, e\enl or projected activity associated only vaguely or not 
at all with the symbol in any natural sense. By gradual extensions of 
meaning the terms symbol and symbolism have come to include not 
merely such trivial objects and marks as black balls, to indicate a nega- 
tive attitude in voting, and stars and daggers, to remind the reader that 
supplementary information is to be found at the bottom of the page, 
but also more elaborate objects and devices, such as flags and signal 
lights, which are not ordinarily regarded as important in themselves but 
w hich point to ideas and actions of great consequence to society. Such 
complex systems of reference as speech, writing and mathematical nota- 
tion should also be included under the term symbolism, for the sounds 
and marks used therein obviously have no meaning in themselves and 
can have significance only for those who know how to interpret them 
in terms of that to which they refer. A certain kind of poetry is called 
symbolic or symbolistic because its apparent content is only a sugges- 
tion for wider meanings. In personal relations too there is much beha- 
vior that may be called symbolic, as when a ceremonious bow is directed 
not so much to an actual person as to a status which that person hap- 
pens to fill. The psychoanalysts have come to apply [493] the term sym- 
bolic to almost any emotionally charged pattern of behavior which has 
the function of unconscious fulfilment of a repressed tendency, as when 
a person assumes a raised voice of protest to a perfectly indifferent 
stranger who unconsciously recalls his father and awakens the repressed 
attitude of hostility toward the father. 

Amid the wide variety of senses in which the word is used there seem 
to emerge two constant characterisdcs. One of these is that the symbol 
is always a substitute for some more closely intermediating type of be- 
havior, whence it follows that all symbolism implies meanings which 
cannot be derived directly from the contexts of experience. The second 
characteristic of the symbol is that it expresses a condensation of energy, 
its actual significance being out of all proportion to the apparent trivial- 
ity of meaning suggested by its mere form. This can be seen at once 
when the mildly decorative function of a few scratches on paper is com- 
pared with the alarming significance of apparently equally random 
scratches which are interpreted by a particular society as meaning "mur- 
der" or "God." This disconcerfing transcendence of form comes out 
equally well in the contrast between the involuntary blink of the eye 
and the crudely similar wink which means "He does not know what an 
ass he is, but you and I do." 



One: Culture. Society, and the hultvuiual 321 

II sccnis useful U> Jisliuiiuisti iwo nuiiii l\|X's ot symbi>lism P^-- ''"M 
o{ ihcsc. which max he called rctcrcnlial symbolism, cmbr.u .» 

forms as oral speech, writing, the telegraph code, national (lags, flag 
signaling and other organizations o\' sunbols which arc agreed upon 
as economical devices for purposes o\' reference. Ihe scc<*"' •• •-• ••' 
symbolism is equall\ economical and may be termed conde: 
holism, for il is a highly condensed form o\' substitutive behavior for 
direct expression, allowing for the reads release of emotional tension in 
conscious or unconscious form. Telegraphic ticking is \irtually a pure 
example o\' referential symbolism; the apparently meaningless washing 
ritual o\' an obsessive neurotic, as interpreted b\ the psychoanalysis. 
would be a pure example o^ condensation symbolism. In actual beha- 
vior both types are generally blended. Thus specific forms o\ writing. 
conventionalized spelling, peculiar pronunciations and verbal slogans. 
while ostensibly referential, easiK lake on the character of emotional- 
ized rituals and become highl\ impt>riani to both individual and society 
as substitutive forms of emotional expression. Were writing mercK ref- 
erential symbolism, spelling reforms would not be so ditHculi to bring 
about. 

Symbols of the refercnlial ivpe undouhicdlv developed later as a class 
than condensation symbols. It is likelv that most referential svi^ " n 

go back to unconsciously evolved symbolisms saturated with cr... . d 

quality, which gradually took on a purely referential character as the 
linked emotion dropped out of the behavior m question. ITius shaking 
the fist at an imaginary enemy becomes a dissociated and fmallv a r^ ' 
ential symbol for anger when no enemy, real or imaginary, is ■ ■ 
intended. When this emotional denudation takes place, the sv 
comes a comment, as it were, on anger itself and a preparation for 
something like language. What is ordinarily called language ma> hax-c 

had its ultimate root in just such dissociated and emi>tuMi.i"- ' ' ^ 

cries, which originally released emotional tension. Once relc 
holism had been established as a by-product of behavior, more v 
scious symbols of reference could be evolved by the copying in 
ated or simplified form o\' the thing referred to. as in if. 
graphic writing. On still more sophisticated levels reteu:.. 
may be attained by mere social agreement, as when a nun 
is arbitrarily assigned to a maifs hat. The less primary and .■• 
the symbolism, the more dissociated from its original . 

less emotionalized it becomes, the more it takes on the ^ .- - 

reference. A further condition for the rich development ol re I 



322 /// Ciiliurc 

symbolism must not be overlooked - the increased complexity and 
homogeneity of the symbolic material. This is strikingly the case in 
language, in which all meanings are consistently expressed by formal 
patterns arising out o\' the apparently arbitrary sequences of unitary 
sounds. When the material of a symbolic system becomes sufficiently 
varied and yet homogeneous in kind, the symbolism becomes more and 
more richly patterned, creative and meaningful in its own terms, and 
referents tend to be supplied by a retrospective act of rationalization. 
Hence it results that such complex systems of meaning as a sentence 
form or a musical form mean so much more than they can ever be said 
to refer to. In highly evolved systems of reference the relation between 
symbol and referent becomes increasingly variable or inclusive. 

In condensation symbolism also richness of meaning grows with 
increased dissociation. The chief developmental difference, however, be- 
tween [494] this type of symbolism and referential symbolism is that 
while the latter grows with formal elaboration in the conscious, the 
former strikes deeper and deeper roots in the unconscious and diffuses 
its emotional quality to types of behavior or situations apparently far 
removed from the original meaning of the symbol. Both types of sym- 
bols therefore begin with situations in which a sign is dissociated from 
its context. The conscious elaboration of form makes of such dissoci- 
ation a system of reference, while the unconscious spread of emotional 
quality makes of it a condensation symbol. Where, as in the case of a 
national flag or a beautiful poem, a symbolic expression which is appar- 
ently one of mere reference is associated with repressed emotional mate- 
rial of great importance to the ego, the two theoretically distinct types 
of symbolic behavior merge into one. One then deals with symbols of 
peculiar potency and even danger, for unconscious meanings, full of 
emotional power, become rationalized as mere references. 

It is customary to say that society is peculiarly subject to the influence 
of symbols in such emotionally charged fields as religion and politics. 
Flags and slogans are the type examples in the field of politics, crosses 
and ceremonial regalia in the field of religion. But all culture is in fact 
heavily charged with symbolism, as is all personal behavior. Even com- 
paratively simple forms of behavior are far less directly functional than 
they seem to be, but include in their motivation unconscious and even 
unacknowledged impulses, for which the behavior must be looked upon 
as a symbol. Many, perhaps most reasons are little more than ex post 
facto rationalizations of behavior controlled by unconscious necessity. 
Even an elaborate, well documented scientific theory may from this 



Oni'. Cult nil'. Society, ami the huiividuul 32 J* 

slandpoiiil he litllc iiu>ic than a s\iiibol ol the unknovvn ntvt-^" 
the ego. Scicnlisls fiyht tor ihcir theories not because thes KM, 
\o be true but beeaiise llie\ uish tliein li> be so 

It will be useful \o give examples of some ot the less ob\iou^ |. 

isms in socialized beha\ior. I-lic|uetle has at least tvM> lasers p; i- 

ism. On a relali\el\ obvious plane of symbolism elit|uelle pr» ic 

members of sociel\ with a set o\' rules uhich. \\\ ci>ndenscd and thor- 
oughly conventionalized form, express society's concern for its members 
and their relation to one another. There is another level ol" enqueue 
s\nibolism. ho\ve\er. which lakes little or no account ol" such specific 
meanings but inteii-iiels etic|uetle as a whole as a pi>werrul symbohsm 
of status. From this standpoint to know the rules of etiquette is impor- 
tant, not because the feelings o\' friends and strangers are becomingly 
obser\ed but because the manipulator o\' the rule prmes that he is a 
member of an e.xclusixe group. By reason ol ihe richK dexelopcd mean- 
ings which inhere in etiquette, both posili\e and negati\e. a sensitive 
person can actuallv express a more bitter hostility thnnigh the frigid 
observance of etiquette than b\ llouling it on an obsious wave of hostil- 
ity. Etiquette, then, is an unusually elaborate ssnibolic play in uhich 
individuals in their actual lelaiionships are the pla\ers and society is 
the bogus referee. 

Education is also a thoroughls s\mbiMic field of behaMor. Mu»... vi 
its rationale cannot be tested as to direction or \alue. No one knous or 
can discover just how much Latin. I lench. mathematics or history is 
good for any particular person to acc|uire. The tests of the ailammeni 

of such knowledge are themsehes little more than svmbolic •• 

For the social psychologist education, whatever else it mas iv 
stands out as a peculiarly massive and well articulated set of symK^ls 
which express the needs of the individual in siKiely and sshich ■ 
to orient himself in his relations with his fellow men. Hial an inor. 
possesses the bachelor's degree may or may not prose that he kii' 
or once knew, something about Roman history and irigonomeir)'- The 
important thing about his degree is that it helps him lo secure a posilion 
which is socially or economically more desirable than some i>i' - 

tion which can be obtained without the aid o\ this degree s. 
misgivings about the functicMi of specific items in the eduv 
cess and has to make svmt^i^lic aionemeni b> mvcnimg such notion* as 
the cultivation o[' the mind 

It is important to observe that svmbolic meanings can often be recog- 
nized clearly for the first time when the svmbolic saluc. gcncralls un- 



324 /// Culimc 

conscious or conscious only in a marginal sense, drops out of a social- 
ized pattern o\' behavior and the supposed function, which up to that 
time had been believed to be more than enough to explain it and keep 
it going, loses its significance and is seen to be little more than a paltry 
rationalization. Chairmanship of a committee, for instance, has sym- 
bolic value only in a society in which two things are believed: that 
administrati\e functions somehow stamp a person as superior to those 
who are being directed; and that the ideal society is a democratic one 
and that [495] those who are naturally more able than others somehow 
automatically get into positions of administrative advantage. Should 
people come to feel that administrative functions are little more than 
symbolic automatisms, the chairmanship of a committee would be rec- 
ognized as little more than a petrified symbol and the particular value 
that is now felt to inhere in it would tend to disappear. 

An important field for investigation is that of personal symbolisms 
in the use of cultural patterns. Personal symbolisms are often the more 
valuable as they are hidden from consciousness and serve as the springs 
of effective behavior. Interest in a particular science may be an elabo- 
rately sublimated symbol of an unconscious emotional attachment to 
what a man who is significant in one's personal development is believed 
to be linked up with, such as the destruction of religion or the discovery 
of God, these grandiose preferences in turn serving as symbols of re- 
pressed hate or love. Much charitable endeavor is animated by an un- 
conscious desire to peer into lives that one is glad to be unable to share. 
Society itself, perfecting its rigid mechanisms of charitable activity, can- 
not in every case or even in the vast majority of cases subject the chari- 
table act to a pragmatic critique but must rest content for the most 
part with charity organization as its symbolic gesture toward alleviating 
suffering. Thus individual and society, in a never-ending interplay of 
symbolic gestures, build up the pyramided structure called civilization. 
In this structure very few bricks touch the ground. 

Consult: Bally, Charles, Le langage et la vie (Paris 1926); Markey, 
John F., The Symbolic process and Its Integration in Children (London 
1928); Ogden, C. K., and Richards, I. A., The Meaning of Meaning (3rd 
ed. London 1930); Sapir, Edward, "Language as a Form of Human 
Behavior" in English Journal, vol. xvi (1927) 421-33, and "A Study in 
Phonetic Symbolism" in Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. xii 
(1929) 225-39; Buhler, Karl, Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes (6th 
ed. Jena 1930); Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (New York 
1922); Hollingworth, H. L., The Psychology of Thought (New York 



One: Culture. Society, ami the InJivuhuil 325 

1926) ch. \i; Kaiiloi. J. K.. \ii Analysis o\ Psychological language 
Data ■ 111 P.svcholosiiidI Review, vol. \\i\ ( 1922) 261 ~M\^). Mead. (ici»rgc 
Herbert, "A Beha\iiMistic Account of the Signillcant Symbol" in Jour- 
mil of Philosophy. \ol. \i.\ (1922) 157-63; Semon. R. W.. /)/,• Mncme 
(lis erhiilfe/hles Priiizip iiu W'eehsel Jes or\'imiselien (iesehelwns (3rd cd. 
Leipsic 191 1 ), tr. h\ Louis Simon as The \tt\eme (London 1921); Sicrn. 
Clark J. and William. Die Kinder.spruehe. Ntonographienubcr die scc- 
lische Lntuicklung dcs Kindes. \ol. i (4th ed. Leipsic 192S); Ncuman, 
Stanley S., "Lurther Lxperiments in l^honetic Symbolism" in Amcruan 
Journal of Psyeholoiry, vol. xlv (1933) 53-75. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in l-dwin R. A. Seliuman (ed). Encyclopaedia 
of the Social Sciences 14, 492-495 (New York: Macnnllan. 1934). Copy- 
right 1934, renewed 1962. by Macmillan F^iblishing Companv Re- 
printed by permission of the publisher. 



Proceedings of the Conference on IVrsonalii) and 
Culture, convened by the National Research Council, 
March 1935, together with extracts from the minutes 
of the 1936 and 1938 meetings o\' the N. R ( 

Committee on Personality in Relalh)ii to Cuhuic 

Early in 1935 Sapir, who was ilicii Chairman o\' ihc Division of Anthropologv and 
Psychology of the National Research Council, propt>se«.l that the N R ( a 

conference on personality and culture. "The conference. '" Sapir wrote to M .i.ile 

Bniien. secretary o\' the Division, "would interest itself in var>'ing human behavior 
against ditTerenl cultural backgrounds." and formulate a research program (Sapir lo 
Britten, 8 Feb. 1935). The conference was dul\ hcKI mi \ln\ h ^ P)'> .ii ihr \rnrfi..in 
Museum of Natural History in New York. 

Those present were: Edward Sapir. Chairman. Madison liciitlcv I' -4 

Psychology. Cornell University; Francis G. Blake. Chairman. OiMsion oi M.. ...ac. 
N. R. C. and Sterling Professor of Medicine. Yale University; A. Irving Hallow-cll. De- 
partment of Anthropology. Uni\ersity o\' Pennsyhama: Mark A M »f 
Psychology and Director of the Institute o\' Human Relations, ^ale I ; . If 
Meyer, Johns Hopkins Hospital; W. Lloyd Warner. Professor of Anthropt>logv and S*>- 
ciology. University of Chicago; Clark Wissler. Curator of Anthropoloii). \r ' 'i- 
seum of Natural History, and Professor of Anthropology, Yale Lniscrsii'. I i 
Sullivan, practicing psychiatrist; R. W. Woodworlh. Professor of Psych 
University; and W. V. Bingham. Others invited, but unable to attend, wcic 1 I. l]:< ::. 
dike. J. McKean Cattell. H. A. Murray, and Stanley Cobb. 

Much of the discussion focused on defining key terms -culture, siviciy. and pcruw- 
ality - and how specific projects bore upon the relatiiMis amon^- 
also given to the problem of units and levels o\' analssis, Sapir : 
unwieldy a unit for studies concerned with personality. His allusion lo Krocbcf 
on the "superorganic." and (implicitly) lo his own critique, shows ihe conlinuil) m lus 
thinking on these issues since 1917. 

From the unpublished transcript of the conference, we reproduce Sapir^ 
remarks and summarize the rest of the discussion. Wc ha\i 
minutes of the 1936 and 193S meetings i>f tin- r"..mmiii(.-c nn 1' 
Culture, established by the 1935 conference 

A Subcommittee on Training Jellowships. ul \UiiJ» ^ '^ 

in December 1935 and produced a proposal (apparentl> ai "• 

ing selected cultural anthropology students in psychiainc method*. For i '• 

mation ou that meeting and its proposal, which was not funded, lec Darnci 
322-26). 



328 /// Culture 

1935 meeting 

Sapir, as Chair, opened the meeting, stating that there would be no set agenda, but 
he hoped that the discussion would be quite free; and that the purpose of the meeting 
was to discuss and possibly outline a program for research in the subjects included. He 
gave as his reasons for calling the group together his own interest in a project of grow- 
ing importance to students of culture, and the interest of Dr. Bowman, then Chairman 
of the Council, in "borderland fields." 

SAPIR. - This field seemed particularly well suited for discussion by bordering 
sciences, since it involves the cooperation of psychology, psychiatry and medicine. It 
seemed to me that anthropology and medicine had not engaged in any large re- 
searches joining their interests, and that this is an obvious one for such cooperation. 
Of course it is a wide field, and we will want to define it a little more closely. In view 
of Dr. Bowman's interest, it would seem to be up to us to discuss the feasibility of 
a distinctive program which we might present to the foundations with some hope of 
being given a hearing. The objectives that I would like to suggest in a tentative way 
are two: (1) From the anthropological standpoint, there is a great deal of material 
that goes to waste in the ethnological field. The ethnologist is trained to select those 
types of behavior that throw light on his totality of pattern of behavior in a group. 
Individual variations seem more like interferences with his discipline. Only a small 
minority of anthropologists in this country or any other are tangibly interested in 
the facts of individual behavior that are included in patterns of culture. A book like 
Crime and Custom in Savage Society, by Malinowski, has been remarkably successful, 
and this seems to indicate a real interest in such individual variations. For instance, 
in the primitive society of the Plains Indians, all males were ready for warfare: but 
what effect would this have on individuals, particularly, sensitive individuals? We 
can see variations of individual behavior in primitive society better than we can in 
our own, perhaps, because these patterns are woven into our own lives. This seems 
of the greatest interest to anthropology and to psychology, giving them a common 
ground. 

[2] From the psychological standpoint it seems to me we suffer from the projection 
of our own habits into the wide open field of humanity. For instance, ambition is 
often spoken of as universal, but this is part of the actual program or ideal of the 
group. Individuals may overcompensate to the extent of being more ambitious than 
the group standard. This seems to me of the greatest interest to psychologists - the 
problems coming up from the tendencies of the individual and the intention of ma- 
ture demands of the culture upon him. 

We have now to present some sort of more definite scheme. This is a preliminary 
group of people interested in the field, and the theme is open to you for discussion. 
Perhaps Dr. May will begin by giving us a statement as to the history of this project 
in the S. S. R C. [Social Science Research Council]. 

May reported that the S. S. R C. had formed three working subcommittees: a group 
of psychologists, working on "cooperative and competitive habits:" a group working 
on acculturation; and a group of sociologists whose agenda he did not know. The 
"habits" group had sponsored research assistants' work on various research projects, 
approaching its topic among children and adults, locally and cross-culturally, and from 
the perspectives of psychology, anthropology, and sociology. 



One Culture, Society, and the Individual 329 

Mcycr noted the importance of cultural dilTcrcnccs in rcp»rtl to %\ich pff>Wcm» u 
alcoholiNni. Sullivan commented on cultural lactors in v ^ 

of socialization in pcrsonalil> development. Benllcy su^^\ >^^. >,,.,. ...^ >iuu> wi imiiw 
dual psychology and of cultural dilTerences was not quite enough; 

BENTLEY. - ... Not very much has been done to relate behavior lo what m« nu) 

call culture, but the social psychologists will discover that ' m 

the realm of impersonal beha\ior. By that I mean he mu- ,{H 

of culture: consider the individual not as of a given culture but as tx. tto 

specific, highly specified place in that culture. Here there may be w»'r». un 
do. but that is as far as I have gone at the moment. 

SAPIR. - 1 am struck with your statement that the terms "personal" and "culturt" 

are a useful first approximation of something that is not - ■ -- 

me think oi the meaning of "culture."' It is clear that we u^. 

when we actually go on with a subject to a definite concept. Bui thai is noi vaywf 

that our concept is one that the psychologist or psychiatrist mu ' " 

body of knowledge goes on. but the concepts are being constan; 

we as a group might penetrate into that field where the term culture is a 

There are three of these concepts: (1 ) society. (2) culture and (3) behavior It ^uiturc 

is something that society has actually, to which the individual must adapt him^lf. 

- but this is probably only a metaphor, and useful as a metaphor. .Another example 

of this is Dr. Kroeber's concept of the superorganic. .Anthropologists" ' •• ■ ■ ^tlc 

alluring, is perhaps not very useful lo psychologists, because it is a litr . uc 

for someone who is dealing with an individual as an individual 

BENTLEY. - I am not sure that the anthropologist should 'us 

cultural terms, but keep his own point of view, and then try to V ct 

WARNER. - I am interested in what Dr. Sapir has said about the terms '•bch«\-iof." 
"society" and "culture." and his reference to Kroebers article I 

not use culture at all, but used the word social entirely. /Mso h^ 

lead lo another plane. This seems a paradox, because man is not ihc ooI> social 
creature... 

There continued a discussion of terminology and ol units ot analysis, such a> • 
race, family, individual, or some unit within the individual. 

SAPIR. - It seems to me this insi.stence on a definition of unit a sound, and il 
makes me feel doubtful of studying a single characteristic ' '< 

as defined would be so much saturated with cultural inllu.:. *< 

difficulty in picking it out. Also. I think we should have a smaller unit than "v. 

It seems to me a study of an individu.il or a very sm ■ * 

particular family, would be more hopeful Tins kind '•' -^ 

up. 

WARNER. - ... It is quite necessary that we put a greater emphasts o« ihc s* 

within the culture or the society. 

SAPIR - Do you mean deviation from a given norm, or n crrtsm «Mmito 

Take a certain activity: se.xual relations between men 

tyr>e of relation, but among the individuals you mav i.... 

norm and the others varying from it. Is there a norm' 



330 /// Culture 

SULLIVAN. - Sexual inlcrcoursc in marriage might approach the irrelevant, but 
in the individual it would be of great importance, particularly to the psychiatrist. 
We do find people who are entirely incapable to adapt to the circumstances, but 
most of the indi\iduals do get along... 
WARNER. - You still have two groups segregated out. 

SULLIVAN. - It seems to me rather a vast individual variation. You discover peo- 
ple who are startled by the unusual in sexual relations, but in that group you have 
a slowly mounting change from the other group. 

MAY. - In regard to the size of the unit, we must have a manageable unit, small 
enough for that, but still large enough to be scientifically useful. Here we may ask 
for a unit that is most relevant to what we are trying to find. We may have to go 
beyond what is involved actually physically, but instead to comprehend all that is 
relevant we choose a distinct unit for the purpose. 

SAPIR. - There is a certain danger in being sure that verbally comparable terms 
are actually comparable. In the matter of marriage, if you start from the large scale 
of marriage, you are going to have an entirely different concept from that of psychol- 
ogy. Still we can classify them as examples of the same kind of a process. But whether 
they really are at all the same? In one it may be an adjustment to society, and in 
another an utterly individual type from the standpoint of the other pair. If you are 
to talk about the kind of marriage as being a certain type of event, there is not a 
single type of culture that can be taken for granted. All culture is due for a grilling 
review from this point of view. 

MAY. - Is there any hope that we can arrive at an agreement upon terms; for 
instance, as marriage may be only the number of documents signed, or you can 
discuss it as a psychological relationship. Is there any hope of agreeing on a set of 
categories with which we can work? 

SAPIR. — It seems to me the categories are of small importance except as we agree 
to use them by a consensus. The variability of meanings and therefore of cultures in 
the long run is due to break down. I hope some investigations can be made of the 
ideal world that will lend color to this development of culture. You can take nothing 
for granted, once you ask questions about the meanings of terms in culture, the 
operations of speaking are exact, but what objective validity this has cannot be 
answered. I don't see why culture should escape this kind of analysis. Therefore we 
must address ourselves to the very definite task of descriptive consideration of ideas 
and cultures in definite individuals. We will eventually arrive at culture as a tendency 
toward a larger grouping of ideas. We have said nothing so far about the types of 
personality, and the relevance of that concept for a study of culture. 

BENTLEY. - Is there some group of problems that grows out of these two terms 
as grouped? Why were the terms put together? Do you mean nothing more than 
culture and the individuals concerned in it? 

SAPIR. - More than that, I should think - the tidying up of genesis of this sort of 
problem. If the term "the individual" has the same connotations for you as for me, 
nothing is gained. But I find there is a great deal of variation in the use of the terms. 
They both have all sorts of overtones. 



One Culture. SocU'ty. anJ the Itutivtdual 

Ihc discussion uiiiK-d lo tin.- icrm ■■[XTsonaliiy." Sullivun prupi>«cd thai ihu unit 
involves "'biology plus meaning" - the meaning bcmg dependent on. and manifest 

in, the individiiaTs social environment. Not everyone found t!. ' ' c 

Bingham suggested thinking about these terms m relatii>n to , >». 

lems, siicii as iIk- sIlk1\ oI ui>ikcrs nu>\ing mio the Tennessee Vallcs 

SAPIR. In other words \ou wi>uld want these definitions pn>\al b\ •■ .|. 

ness in a certain project. What we call culture ma> be the dillusum ol ; ^. 

Or you would ask uiiai arc (he elTeels of personality of individuals on if n 

the Tennessee \allcy, I think, though, that the skeptical remarks ar tt 

bringing forward the need of concentration on some one lorm t»f dcp.i. »a 

that we test ilic \aluc o\ the terms in terms of their usefulness lo ihc indiMdual 
worker. Ma\ 1 also suggest that we set up sets o\' pri>blems ' ( I ) We i- v 

an indi\idual in his placement, but \\o\ study the cultures from a ps>^- il 

o\' \iew all o\er again, but siud\ the group as to the genesis of his ch.i' \. 

going out into his group il nccessar\. I'hen take together interrclalionshi|)s ot (tuac 
indixiduals with others. ... 

SL'LLIVAN. - In your remarks is inherent the fact that wc arc not so much inlcf- 
ested in extreme dilTerences but the smaller differences that we might be aWe lo 

actually do something with. 

SAPIR. - Yes. My guess is thai it would not be very fruitful lo contrast violently 
dilTerent societies as such. As an example: the West Coast Indians arc spoken o{ as 

the businessmen o^ the primitive Americans. But when we study this we ' *»c 

does entirely dilTerent things than we do with the gold or mone> ihal he n— . A. 

The "status" that he reaches is quite dilTerent from ours. Thus, there is no direct 

ci>niparison. 

The afternoon session of the conference focused on administrati\e w n 

noted that the Division had always preferred very specific research ; 
maintained that the conferees were not yet in a position lo undertake .1 
but wore now "'discussing the possibility of framing and continui; 
ral." Il was proposed that the conference carry on as a pcrmanei;; - ^ 

might later propose specific projects or subcommittees for support from it I 

The size and name of a permanent committee was discussed I'- c 

study of personality among American Indians, in China, li '^ 

brielly mentioned. After calling for ain further prop<.)sals. Sapir asked 

SAPIR. - Is it the consensus of the group that we should undertake the 

the individual as the unil, not to dodge the mslilulion as such, but appi 

the point of view o!" the mdiMdual.' 

WARNER. - I agree, though m> own inleresls have been quite oppimie Tht%«cfm 

to me very important, particularly at the present moment I dt^ ■ 

come a time when we shall have to consider ihe problem i>l i. 

that has been diMie in the other field to what wc shall be allcmplinf; I l» 

we should emphasi/e rather ci>ncrete projects 

SAPIR. This sounds \er\ encouraL'ing lo me, iv 

general opinion ol social anthrojiologisis who arc 



332 /// Cult lire 

WOODWORTH. - II seems to me that where the anthropologists are studying 
would be a very good plaee to eome in - places that are already pretty well known 
from the institutional side - and undertake there the individual side. 

With this general agreement on the basic approach, the conference participants for- 
mally \oted to recommend the establishment of a permanent Committee on Personality 
in Relation to Culture, with a subcommittee to canvass projects already underway in 
the field and prepare an agenda for the first meeting of the full committee. 

1 936 meeting 

A Committee on Personality in Relation to Culture, chaired by Sapir, was duly 
formed, as was a Subcommittee on Fellowships, chaired by Harry Stack Sullivan. In 
February 1936 the Subcommittee, in which Sapir participated ex officio, presented to 
the Division a "Proposal for Training of Four Cultural Anthropologists and Others in 
the Methods of Personality Study." The proposal was not approved by the Division's 
Executi\e Committee, partly because it had been submitted by the Subcommittee with- 
out ratification by the full Committee, and partly because of its strong emphasis on 
psychoanalysis. 

At a meeting of the Committee on October 25. 1936, Dr. W. S. Hunter. Chairman 
of the Division, explained why the proposal had been rejected. Sapir commented that 
"the Subcommittee had intended this psychoanalytical training of anthropologists as 
merely a beginning." The group agreed that the topic was of sufficient interest to war- 
rant a modified project, with a less specialized beginning. After a discussion of financial 
issues, the committee voted to try to form interdisciplinary seminars in their own insti- 
tutions. Post-doctoral students would be nominated by committee members as deserv- 
ing of special training, and the committee would try to help them obtain funding. 

1938 meeting 

The Committee on Personality in Relation to Culture had also set up a Subcommit- 
tee whose task was to develop a "Handbook of Psychological Leads for Ethnological 
Field Workers." This subcommittee was chaired by A. Irving Hallowell. At the full 
committee's meeting on January 29, 1938, Hallowell reported on the progress of his 
project and raised once again the matter of the training program which had been disap- 
proved by the Division. The Committee members commended Hallowell's efforts. They 
agreed that the idea of a training program should not be abandoned, but postponed 
any definite plans until after a survey of existing institutional programs, especially inter- 
disciplinary efforts, should have been made. 

Sapir's health did not permit him to attend the 1938 meeting of the committee. 
Before the meeting, however, the committee's Chair (now Lloyd Warner) had called on 
all members to submit written statements on what general policies and specific actions 
the Committee should adopt for the future. Sapir's response is recorded in the minutes 
of the meeting as follows: 

Mr. Sapir believed that in all stages of the work the emphasis of our Committee 
"should be on the individual, not on culture or society as such." 

That "we should encourage an exhaustive study of individual cases that have a 
bearing on cultural or social problems, but would manifest little interest in wholesale 
statistical studies of behavior patterns in selected societies." 



One: Culture. Society, and the InJivuhuil 333 

Thai il was advisable lo keep in close louch wnh psychuitru ur Jc% m ..fvlcf (.> 
encourage community of interesi between social scicntx and ps 

That this might mean practically encouraging "adequate p^)vhutIu. iramm^ oi 
sociological and anthropological students." 

He believes that the original traming program, perhaps in a nuHlified fonn, %ht>uld 
be continued by the larger committee and that the Chairman of •' • ,^ 

should continue to be in touch with such agencies as ma> help i .rl 

o\' that program. 

He lelt it imporlanl that llallouell go on with his bi)t)k •■- ?»■>»•■' ■ | -. • 

for Ethnological Field Workers." 



The Application of AnlhropoloLiN Id lliiiiian KcLiiiuns 

(1936) ^' 

EdiUnial InlroduclKMi 

This essay was written for The American Way, a \oIuinc cdilcJ by 
N. D. Baker, C.J. H. Hayes and R. W. Strauss, concerning relations 
among Catholics, Protestants and Jews in the Iniied States. In ihc 
1930's, pubHc discussion o\^ those relaiicuis ol'tcii invoked a concept of 
race - inappropriately, in Sapir's view. In this paper he defended the 
Boasian position that race is a biological category which cannot anal\/c 
social relations; he tlatly denied that there was ans evidence for the 
existence of an Aryan race, a pseudo-categors that had become increas- 
ingly important with the rise of the Nazi government in Cierman>. Sapir 
proposed a more scientific as well as a more humane notion o\ * 'y 

in human history, focusing on culture rather than race. He cl.....v....d 
social scientists to intluence public opinion, revising group sterct^ispcs 
and acknowledging the power of cultural tradition 

Sapir's historical dynamic relied on the dilTerent ■siani" ol various 
cultures in history. Projection o[^ cultural values from one system of 
meaning to another was meaningless. Appreciation o^ other cultures 
was possible only in their own terms. In the course oi making this 
argument, Sapir offered a definition of culture that cryslalii/cd some of 

the ideas he had been working with in presentations for r " s- 

sional audiences. His statements in this essay can be comp^; . ;> 

discussions in other papers on culture theory, as well as Part I of The 
Psyc/ioloi^y of Culture. 



The Application of Anihropologv to Human Relations 

In a concept o[' race the view o\ the anthropologist will be seen to 
differ from the view of the man on the street. 

To the scientist, grouping o\' human beings according to race may be 
contrasted with nonracial types o\' grouping. For example, cultural 



336 /// Culture 

groups (composed of individuals having common interests), national 
groups, political groups, religious groups, and linguistic groups, are not 
racial di\ isions. These groups have social existence. Race is not a social 
concept but a biological concept. Race is a biological fact which gives 
the mind o\' man or spirit of man a chance to operate. 

All the tangible groups with which we have to deal are social groups. 
There is no such thing as a French, German, Russian, Anglo-Saxon or 
Jew ish race. The so-called Anglo-Saxon race, for example, is a mixture 
o( Celts, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Normans and pre-Nordic 
stocks. Therefore, to talk of the Anglo-Saxon race is sheer nonsense. 
All that one can say is that here is a group of people of diverse biologi- 
cal inheritance tied together by cultural bonds and rationalizing their 
cultural commonality by the [122] inventing of a physical basis for it. 
It is like giving a genealogy to the physical basis of an idea. 

Nevertheless, the anthropologist by observation and measurement is 
able roughly to divide the people of Europe into three more or less 
typical biological types: (1) the Nordic, which predominates in the 
north; (2) the Alpine, which predominates in the central part of Europe, 
and (3) the Mediterranean, which inhabits the southern part. But even 
here the anthropologist can make only a rough classification because 
of the effect of climate, food and other prevailing forces in the environ- 
ment. The Nordic stock, for instance, predominates in Scandinavia, 
Scotland and north Germany. But a majority of Germans, particularly 
in the south, belong to the Alpine stock, to which group the French 
people also largely belong. 

So far as the so-called Aryan race, of which we hear much today, is 
concerned, it was not talked of until 100 or 150 years ago. Sanskrit was 
discovered and studied by western scholars who were impressed by its 
close kinship with the Armenian, Greek, Latin, Slavic, Baltic, Germanic 
and Celtic languages. From the Sanskrit word meaning "one of noble 
birth" the adjective Aryan was derived and applied to these languages. 
Then it was conjectured that a race once existed which spoke the primi- 
tive Aryan language and to this imagined race was given the name Ar- 
yan. There followed, of course, much vain speculation regarding the 
place where such a race originally lived. There is no more evidence that 
such a race lived in central Europe than there is that it lived in Armenia, 
or in other places. 

Thus it is seen that the anthropologist, who works with objective 
data, is forced to class together peoples of radically different cultural 
ideals and even those who regard each other with intense hatred. [123] 



O/w: Culture. Sociciy. anJ the Indivuluul 337 

Contrariwise, ihcic exists a popular notion of race, in ihc familv 
relationship we learn to think of those who are nearest us and mow like 
us as being related to us h\ ties o\' hKuul i he popular notion of race is 
an extension of this feeling to those with whom we share a common 
eulture, so that we come to feel that we are hound together b\ c' 1 

biological ties. This is the notion o\' race uhkh is m \.mmi,- h;.,, ,. 

masses today. 

Many people believe that lhe> can icll what race a |>erson belongs lo 
by looking at him. But this may be easily refuted by the reflcx-lion thai 
a good actor may cleverly imitate members o\' other groups in a con- 
vincing manner without lengthening the head or changing the color of 
the eye. The truth is that what are popularly taken as racial charactens- 
tics are really cultural. They are social, luu biological at all. No racial 
group has functional unity. Social groupings furnish the basis for func- 
tional unity. Race is a biological concept and cuts across all t>pr-- -•»■ 
social groupings. As a matter of fact, it is not race that draws p. 
together but a common culture. 

The term culture is ambiguous. It has one meaning in goixl l.ngliNh 
usage but quite a different meaning when used as a technical term by 
the anthropologist. In ordinary speech it refers to the higher things of 
life such as education, music and good manners: in short, to things 
upon which we put value. The anthropologist, however. ust*s the term 
to refer to the results of human history without implsing \alue as a 
distinguishing characteristic. Cultural acti\it>, scientil'icallN speaking, i* 
(1) any type of behavior historically transnniied b\ the action of mind 
on mind, or (2) any activity which is the pri>perty oi the group rather 
than of the individual. 

An example of the first meaning o[ cultural acii\it> ma> • .• 
found in the way in which a person gives expression lo his cr.. .. ■> 
What would be a very extreme expression of emotion for a cultivated 
Japanese gentleman would he oiil> a mild expression for most Ameri- 
cans. Therefore, before estimating the meaning o\ behasuu owe nuisi 
know something about the cultural backgnnmd o\ the indiMdual vUu»se 
behavior is being interpreted. 

The second meaning of cultural acti\ii> ma\ be illustrated b> lan- 
guage. Take the word ■•lahle." An i!idi\idual cannot own the word 
ble" as he can own a luhlc The \\o\\\ is the prt>peri> ol ^ 
activities of an individual may help to change, but can nc-.. >.. 
determine the fate o\' ihimzs which belong to s^Kiety as a whole. (> • 



338 /// Culture 

social acli\ily can do this and more often than not the unconscious 

influences are more powerful than the conscious. 
The conclusions from these observations are: 

- 1 . An event or element of culture can be understood and rightly inter- 
preted only in the light of its historical and cultural context; 

-2. The meaning of an individual's behavior can be correctly estimated 
only by reference to the ways of expression which are characteristic 
of the group of which he is a part; 

-3. There is a tendency to overestimate what can be done to accom- 
plish cultural changes by conscious educational processes; 

-4. It is impossible to judge one culture by values which are imported 
from another. 

Early anthropology was not interested in individuals. Spencer, and 
those who followed him, spoke of cultural or social evolution and re- 
garded the development of culture as passing naturally through certain 
inevitable stages. The [125] fact that in North America the aborigines 
developed agriculture without passing through the pastoral stage is only 
one example of many facts which discredit such a theory. The emphasis 
on the social determination of cultural development was important as 
a corrective of an older point of view which regarded culture as fash- 
ioned by great individuals, but needs now to be again corrected by 
recognizing the importance of the contributions of individuals. 

In a well-integrated form or part of culture the individual is to a 
large extent subordinated to influences from without but all institutions 
inevitably change because no individual will or can reproduce a cultural 
pattern exactly as he learned it. 

Changes in the cultural pattern, therefore, inevitably appear and are 
communicated through the influence of social suggestion. Psychology 
is therefore tremendously important in the study of culture. And due to 
this influence of the individual in cultural development the impersonal- 
ity of culture must be tempered by the recognition and harmony both 
of individual influence and the influence of fortuitous events. 

Cultures do not refer to actual groups of human beings but to imagi- 
nary groups. For example, there is no culture of the United States of 
America as a whole. Of course, for some purposes there are cultural 
facts which can be referred to such a geographical entity - such as the 
use of the post office. But there are always groupings within any larger 
group which are not entirely at home in the life of the whole and are 
at least in some if not in many respects at odds with other groups. 



One C 'ulturc. Socicly. and ilw huiivUluul 339 

The analysis o{ ihc siniplcsi kiiiJ o\ luiinaii bcha\u>r uould lead \o 
ihc tarlhcsl p<irl o\ ilic iilobc aiul Id ihc most (126] ancicnl human 
practices. Cultures arc lun dc\ clopcil in packets but arc now undcp»tiHKl 
to be more universal. Springuii: Worn a few centers cultures become 
speciahzed and through cross-terlili/alion are agani transformed. 

The arts o\^ chipping stone, o\' niching metals, ol" nu>klmg poller); 
o{ domesticating animals, of growing grains, were ne\er the exclusive 
property o\' any race or group but were borrowetl and used by all or 
nearly all primiti\e peoples. Even folk tales, which are among the mosl 
stubborn cultural traits, show the inlluence o{ people ow pci>ple. An 
example o{ this is the fair) tale o\' the magic flight episode which is to 
be tbund among the folk tales o^ primitive peoples form Japan acro^ 
the Bering Straits to the Amazon Ri\er. 

Therefore, to ask who created wluit. is relati\el> unuiiportanl. To 
push a button and turn on an electric light requires no more intelligence 
than to give a war whoop and lun so much as to make a fire with flinl 
and stone. But he who pushes the button the electrician, ilu- t 

and the physicist, all alike - use onl\ the tools and the accu. .J 

wisdom of the group. 

In summary, then: ( 1 ) The kind o\' phssical ov intellectual tools which 
a group uses at a given time is no indication o\' racial intelligence The 
technology which is the proud boast of man\ modern \sesiern nations 
is the product, not of nations, but o\' h\s\ov\ o{ the whole of human- 
ity. Nations of the West arc the temporal) custodians of loots which 
may pass into the keeping o\^ what arc now regarded as ver> b I 

peoples. And it is conceivable that lhe\ ma\ m^t i\o so badly wm^ .wciu 
as we. It is an outright impertinence to ascribe the cumulaii\e culture 
of the whole race to the genius t^f one culture. \\y\ 

(2) The planning of a culture is not so easy as the planning of hn/ 
This is because our emotions are in\c>l\ed. The intelligence in r' • 

is only a small fraction o\^ the determining facti>rs. Hk- un.. i^ 

intluences in cultural change arc more powerful than the conscious. We 
need more knowledge and some da> ue may have it. Meantime wc musi 
seek it. 

(3) A new kind o\^ history teaching is needed lo tell children of the 
little battles o\' the American Revolution is so much less important • 

to teach them the origin o\' poilcr> and the relation of I heir gamo lo 
the life of primitive man. Ihc function of education is not ' 
or that kind o\' ideal citizen but to deliver men from pro\..- 
trace the history o\~ human culture from its beginnings lo ihc 



340 /// Culture 

to show ihal no idea and no technique exists that does not involve the 
whole history of the race. 

Cultures dilTer not only in details but in general slant, or meaning in 
the psychological sense. Therefore they may be classified not only on 
the basis of detailed characteristics, but on the basis of controlling ideas. 

Examples of controlling ideas in cultures are as follows: 

( 1 ) Tinu'-Sctisc, according to Spengler, is one of the master ideas of 
western culture. We have an amazing sense of time. It is a pattern of 
living. It is illustrated by an Institute of Human Relations which, while 
it is primarily intended to promote understanding and good will among 
those who are gathered together, nevertheless is organized according to 
the strictest time schedule. And, of course, this interferes with the free- 
dom and spontaneity of the life of the spirit in making its discovery of 
others. 

Moreover, this involves a philosophy of society. We say that the 
North American Indian wastes time. He knows [128] the value of time 
because he can hurry if he needs to. But according to our standards he 
wastes time. His culture does not include in the same way as ours what 
for us is the controlling idea of time. Hence we have a clash of funda- 
mental feelings as we pass from our culture to another. The guests, and 
particularly the hostess, do not look at their watches at tea. The good 
administrator sometimes breaks the rules of the time game - he wastes 
a lot of time. The prince and the peasant meet in their defiance o{ the 
master idea of bourgeois society. 

(2) The idea of measure, so fundamental in the life of the ancient 
Greeks, so important in the culture o'i modern France, so characteristic 
of the life of the Far East, is not honored in our Anglo-Saxon culture. 
It is not possible for an American business man to understand the 
iMcnchman who retires from business even while he is a young man and 
has every chance to "make a killing." It conllicts with the urge of duty 

the desire to go on, to work, to use his powers in his chosen field o^ 
labor. But the American cannot conimimicate his sense of the value o^ 
work to one who docs not understand the American culture with this 
master idea. 

(.^) ///(• lilca oj Holiness is a third example of a controlling idea. The 
.lewish culture is saturated with the itiea of holiness. It is like a collecti\e 
phobia that if you <\o not behave yourself every minute of the day you 
cannot come into the presence o^ the Almighty. This idea can be con- 
veyed to the more strict Christian but it is mere madness to the Chinese, 



One: Culture. Society, and the Individual jl4 1 

just as iwo minutes more or two minutes less is madness to the North 
American Indian. 

(4) The Jazz Stotif. "pepping it up." the sense of exciting, tingling 
pleasure is another master idea of American [12^] culture. Some people 
cannot enjoy music without "jazzing" it. This tendency is seen in the 
sensationalism o\' all the arts and of literature. 

(5) The Idea of Democracy is necessarily a controlling idea in a culture 
where democracy is also a master idea. Because of this idea quality has 
to be sacrificed to increase quantitati\e participation. 

In sum, then, cultures will be vastly ditTerent according to the kind 
o\^ \alues which are served by their master ideas. A rule o\' intergroup 
conduct might be stated this way: If you do not understand another do 
not project your own values and judge him by them at once, but seek 
to understand his behavior in the light of his culture, its histor\ and its 
master ideas. This is a bit chillx. It ma\ postpone activity. It gives pa- 
tience to understand. It means appreciation. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in Baker, Newton Diehl. J. II. Hayes, and Roger 
Williams Strauss (eds.), 7 he American Way: A Siudv of Human Rcla- 
lions among Protestants. Catholics and Jews (Chicago and Nevs York: 
Willett, Clark, 1936), 121-129. 



The Conlribulion of Psychialr\ lo an rndcisuindini: 
o( Behavior in St>ciel\ ( 1937) 

Editc^rial lmroducnc)ii 

This paper appeared in a special issue oi liic Anuruan J 7 

Sociology (based in the University of C'hieagc) sociology dc{\.... i) 

addressing the relationship between sociology and psychiatry. Most of 
the contributors were psychiatrists; Sapir, along with Chicago social 
psychologist Herbert Blunier. represented thesi>cial sciences, ft ' t 

papers both Sapir and Bluiner nia\ be seen as s>nibolic inlcra^; .*. 

showing clear conceptual links to other scholars of that school such as 
George Herbert Mead, as well as ccMitinuiiies \o a Liter symbohc and 
interpretive anthropology. 

This paper's connection w ith symbolic interaclionisis is pcrhapN most 
clearly evidenced in the concluding passage, with its suggestion that 
culture and society emerge from - or at least are alTcvlcd by - ihc use 
of symbols in social interaction. Sapir developed this 

what further in his 1937 lectures for The Psychohiiy <»/ ( f 

10; this volume), where he linked it with Harry Stack Sulli\ar. 
personal relations," as the middle iiround tvt\seen cultural an(hropt>l- 
ogy and psychiatry. 

Much of the present paper, howexer. uas de\iMed \o cautioning ukuI 
scientists against hasty applications o\' psychiatric concepts to whole 
societies and cultures. Sapir lauded some o\ the steps psschialn- and 
social science had taken in the direction ol mutual inter 

atry had liberated itself from a rigidly biological to a; ., -^ 

point of view, while ethnographers, for their part, had Icarncil t. 
scribe other cultural worlds in ways that would permit p^ychlat^^• 
appreciate the relativity of customs and meanings Mm. h 

trists and social scientists were inclined \o characlen/c wl. • - - 

in the same terms as the psycholog) o{ particular indi\idu.iU S»K-h 
short-cuts credulously confused le\els of analysis and failed to i 
that society consisted o\' the actual relationships o\' m.c 

Implicitly, Sapir was attacking the sMMk o\ Rulh Ik;.... 
garet Mead, in a critique he made explicit in his kvlurcs on 



344 IJJ Culture 

oiiv of Culture, as well as in correspondence (see his letter to Philip 
Selznick, this volume). Despite the 'literary suggestiveness" of their 
mode of equating individual and group psychology, individual and soci- 
ety were not reconcilable by such superficial metaphors and inapplicable 
psychological generalizations. 

The omission of this paper from the 1949 collection of Sapir's works, 
Selected Writins^s of Edward Sapir, has perhaps obscured the difference 
between Sapir's approach and that of Benedict, Mead, and their succes- 
sors in the "culture and personality" school. 



The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding 
of Behavior in Society 

Abstract 

Psychiatrists are becoming more aware of the social component in conduct while 
social scientists are becoming more aware of the concerns of psychiatry. The concept 
of "interpersonal relations" constitutes a good meeting-ground. Psychiatrists, largely 
due to the problems with which their science began, have been excessively individualistic 
and have tended to regard as universal and invariant, modes of conduct found only in 
certain cultures. In the rebound from this view it is necessary to avoid the dangers of 
"sociologism" which would disregard the true task of psychiatry which is the under- 
standing of the fundamental and relatively invariable structure of the personality. Psy- 
chiatry will be of assistance to social analysis to the extent that it aids in revealing the 
intricate symbolic network which binds individuals together into collectivities. 

It is with great pleasure that I accede to the request to comment in a 
general way on the present symposium on psychiatry and the social 
sciences. The relation between the two suggests many interesting and 
complicated problems, both of definition and interpretation. It is a bold 
man who would venture to speak with assurance about such abstruse 
entities as "individual" and "society," but where it is difficult for any 
intelligent person to withhold a theory or an opinion, I may be par- 
doned for not doing so either. I have read the seven psychiatric papers 
with great interest. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the language used in 
these contributions as a whole is measurably nearer the terminology 
used by social scientists than was formerly the case in psychiatric litera- 
ture. I doubt if this is entirely due to the fact that the psychiatrists have 
felt under a compulsion to be courteous to the sociologists responsible 
for the journal to which they now find themselves a collective contrib- 



One: Culture. SocU'ty. and the Indivuhuil 345 

utor. I finJ no ■"pussyfoolinu " here; lalhcr a sincere recognition of the 
importance, perhaps even ihc reality. o\ the things connoted by ihc 
words "society" and "ciiliure." I'ven if these vsords still remain largely 
unanalyzed in terms that ought to be completely satisKing to .1 — - '-.i. 
irisl, it is a great gain to have them given a hearing. The exlu ii. 

vidualism of earlier psychiatry is evidently passing. Even the pages of 
Freud, with their haunting imagery of society as (S6.'^) censor and of 
culture as a beautiful extortion from the sinister depths o{ dcMrc. arc 
beginning to take on a certain character of quaintness; in other vu»rds, 
it looks as though psychiatry and the sciences devoted to man asconsii- 
tutive of society were actually beginning to talk about the same events 
- to wit, the facts of human experience. 

In the social sciences, too, there has been a complementar> mosemeni 
toward the concerns o[^ the psychiatrist. .At long last the actual human 
being, always set in a significant situation. ne\er a mere biological il- 
lustration or a long-sutTering carrier of cultural items, has been caught 
prowling about the premises of society, of culture, o{ histor\. It is true 
that long and anonymous confinements within the narrou columns of 
statistics has made him a timid subject for iiK|un\. He seems always to 
be slinking off into anxiety-dri\en fiesh and bone or else, at the oddest 
moments, unexpectedly swelling himself up into an institution. But it is 
easy to see that the firm hand o^ the psychiatric sociologist will some 
day nab him in one o\' his less rapid niomenls o\ transition. 

Of these seven papers, it is chiefiy Dr. Sulli\an*s and I)r A! s 

that gi\e me the most comfortable housing. The> seem to K ^..iii.j-^-d 
somewhere about the crossroads leading to pure ps\chiatr\ and pure 
sociology and 1 confess that 1 find the uncertaint\ of their location \ery 
agreeable indeed. In an atmosphere of mollified contrasts one m.i> hope 
to escape the policemen of rival conceptual headquarters Ni»l being 
bothered by too strict a loyalty to aristocratic coiuenlions. i>ne may 
hope to learn something new. I am particularly fond of Dr. Sullivan's 
pet phrase of "interpersonal relations." The phrase is not as innocent 
as it seems, for, while such entities as societies, indivuli: ' '* .il 
patterns, and institutions logically impl> interpersonal u... y 

do little to isolate and define them. loo great agility has bci :d 

o\er the years in jumping from ihe mdiMdual to the collectivity and 
from the collectivity via romantic anthropological paths b 

the culture-saturated individual. Refiection suggests that tli. .- ... 

dual was never alone, that he ne\er marched in line with a colIecli\il>. 
except on literal state occasions, and that he ne\er signcxJ up for a 



346 /// Culture 

culture, riicrc was always someone around to bother [864] him; there 
were always a great many people whom his friends talked about and 
whom he never met; and there was always much that some people did 
that he never heard abt)ut. He was never formed out of the interaction 
t)f individual and society but started out being as comfortable as he 
could in a world in which other people existed, and continued this way 
as long as physical conditions allowed. It is out of his manifold experi- 
ences that different kinds of scientists derived their tips for the invention 
of two or three realms of being. 

I or a long time psychiatry operated with a conception of the indivi- 
dual that was merely biological in nature. This is easy to understand if 
we remember that psychiatry was not, to begin with, a study of human 
nature in actual situations, nor even a theoretical exploration into the 
structure of personality, but simply and solely an attempt to interpret 
"diseased" modes of behavior in terms familiar to a tradition that was 
operating with the concepts of normal and abnormal physiological 
functioning. It is the great and lasting merit of Freud that he freed 
psychiatry from its too strictly medical presuppositions and introduced 
an interpretative psychology which, in spite of all its conceptual weak- 
nesses, its disturbingly figurative modes of expression, and its blindness 
to numerous and important aspects o'l the field of behavior as a whole, 
remains a substantial contribution to psychology in general and, by 
implication, to social psychology in particular. His use of social data 
was neither more nor less inadequate than the use made of them by 
psychology as a whole. It is hardly fair to accuse Freud of a naivete 
which is still the rule among the vast majority of professional psycholo- 
gists. It is not surprising that his view o^ social phenomena betrays at 
many points a readiness to confuse various specific patterns of behavior, 
which the culturalists can show to be derivative of specific historical 
backgrounds, with those more fundamental and necessary patterns of 
behavior which proceed from the nature of man and of his slowly ma- 
turing organism. Nor is it surprising that he shared, not only with the 
majority of psychologists but even with the very founders of anthropo- 
logical science, an interest in primitive man that did not address itself 
to a realistic understanding of human relations in the less sophisticated 
societies but rather to the schematic task of finding in the patterns of 
behavior reported by the [865] anthropologist such confirmation as he 
could of his theories of individually "archaic" attitudes and mecha- 
nisms. If the contemporary anthropologist is scandalized by the violence 
with which Freud and his followers have torn many of the facts of 



Oni'. Culiuiw S(Hh'tv. iiful the hiJivithuil 347 

|iiiniiti\c bch.iNUM oiil ol iIkmi ii.iiiii.il ciiltui.il scHiiig. he shi>uki rcvall 
dial iiisl such Miilcncc u.is the halhn.nk o\ the most appriucd kinds oi 
llunking ahoiil ethnological Jala iiol so long ago When all is saul aiul 
di>nc. and in spite ol the enormous doeuinentation o\ the eulluies ol 
priniiti\e gunips, how eas\ is it to get esen an inkling, in slnetK psscho- 
logieal leniis. of the lcnipt\ llie ielali\e llexibihty. the indi\idual van- 
abihlN. the relative openness or hiddenness olindiMdual expiession. the 
eharaeteristie emotional cpialities, which are implied or ■camed" h\ 
e\en the most pencil. iting cultural anaKses that ue possess orpiimiliNe 
comniuiiitics' li seems uiic\peclcdl\ diHicull lo coniiue up the image 
ol li\c people m inlelligihK li\e relationships located withm areas dc- 
lined as i-tnmiliNC, Ihe personalities that inhabit oui ethnological nh>no- 
graphs seem alnu">sl schi/iMcl m then imcmoiional accept.ince ol the 
heavy colors, tapestries, and ruiiuluic ol iheu ethnological stage. Is it 
any wonder that actors so vaguely conceived, so absent-miiuledK t\pi- 
cal of something or other, can be bludgeoned b\ .1 more persistent intel- 
ligence than theirs into sawing wooti \o\ still remoter stages. s.i\ that 
dread drama t>r the slain father and the birth of totemism' 

At the iiiesenl lime the ad\.mce guard ol ps\chialiic thinking is 
rapidly discovering the Iruitlulness ol the conceits ol societ\ iind cul- 
ture lor a richer and a nu^re realistic anal\sis ol personalitN. The cli>se 
relation of personal habit ssslems to the general patterning of culture 
— that \ery insight which has \oi so long been the special pride o\ 
anthiopology - comes lo psychiatry as something essentialls new Sup- 
posedl) unisersal feelings and altitudes, sentiments about parents aiul 
children and se\ males, are found U> be almost as relative ti> a cultuie n 
set patterns o( behavior as fashions in clothes or tyjX's o\ arlihuiN 
/\l am lale. this formula o\' ihe ielali\il\ of custi>m has long been a 
commonplace in anlhii)polog\ ou puielv descriptive giouiuis and is in- 
vading psychiatry as a new basis for the philosophv o\ behavior 

An age-old blindness lends \o be corrected bv (>pened eves that arc 
|K661 loo conlideni ami undiscrimmatmg. .ind one wi>nders vshelher ihc 
special vievvpt)int of psychiatry is not lending lo vield loo reailiK lo the 
enlighlened prejudices of anlhr»^pologv and sociology. The presumptive 
or "as if psvchological character of a culture is highlv delerminalive. 
no doubt, ol MHich m ihe e\lei nali/eil svsiem of attitudes and habils 
which loiins Ihc visible ••|UMsonalilv "" of a given individual, and. unlil 
Ins special social frame o\ reference is clearlv established, anals/ed. .nul 
applietl \o his behavior, we are necess.irilv at a loss to assign him .1 
place in a more general scheme oi human behavior It diK's nol lollow. 



348 Hf Culmrc 

hovvcNcr. iliat siricily social determinants, tending, as they do, to give 
visible form and meaning, in a ciiiliiral sense, to each of the thousands 
of modaliiies oi' experience which sum up the personality, can define 
the fundamental structure of such a personality. If culture and its pre- 
sumptive psNchology were all that is needed to explain what we dimly 
reach out for and call "indi\ idual personality," we should be put in the 
position o\' a man who claimed, for instance, that the feeling called 
love could not have started its history until the vocabulary of a specific 
language suggested realities, values, and problems hitherto unknown. 
All of which would be true in a sense which matters more to the cultur- 
alist than to the closer student of behavior. A culture which is constantly 
bemg invoked to explain the necessities and the intimacies of individual 
relations is like an ex post facto legalization of damage done. The bio- 
logical and implied psychological needs of individuals are continuous 
and primary. If we think, not of culture in the abstract nor of society 
as a hypoihetically integrating concept in human relations, but rather 
of the actual day-to-day relations of specific individuals in a network 
o'( highly personalized needs, we must see that culture is the inevitable 
coin o\^ the realm of behavior but that it is far from synonymous with 
those actual systems of meaning, conscious and unconscious, which we 
call personalities, and that the presumptive psychology of a culture as 
a \s hole is not equatable with any actual personalized psychology. Cul- 
tural analysis is hardly more than a preliminary bow to the human 
scene, giving us to know that here are people, presumably real, and that 
it is here rather than there that we must observe them. 

It is the privilege of psychiatry to be always looking at individuals 
[X67| and to think of society as merely a convenient term to cover the 
manifold possibilities of actual human relationships. It is these actual 
relationships that matter, not society. This simple and intuitively neces- 
sary viewpoint of the psychiatrist is shared, of course, by the man in 
the street. He cannot be dislodged from it by any amount of social 
scientific sophistication. It is to be hoped that no psychiatrist will ever 
surrender this naive and powerful view of the reality of personality to 
a system of secondary concepts about people and their relations to each 
other which fiow from an analysis of social forms. The danger of a too 
ready acquiescence in the social formulations of the anthropologist and 
the sociologist is by no means an imaginary one. Certain recent 
attempts, in part brilliant and stimulafing, to impose upon the actual 
psychologies of actual people, in continuous and tangible relations to 
each other, a generalized psychology based on the real or supposed 



One: Culture. Society, ami the liulivuluul 349 

psychological iniiilicalions ot culiiiial forms, show clearly what confu- 
sions in mil ihinkiiig arc likcl\ lo result when social science turns psy- 
chiatric without, HI the process, allowing its own historically determined 
concepts to dissoKe into those larger ones which have meaning for 
psychology and psychiatry. We then discover thai uhole cultures or 
societies are paranoid or h\ sterical or obsessive! Such characterizations, 
however brilliantly presented, have the value of literary suggestiveness. 
not of close personality analysis. At best they help us to see a ne\s facet 
o\^ the problem of personality. If they do not help us to see the indi\i- 
dual. in however exotic a societv. with thai quiet sharpness of gaze 
which makes the true student of personality something other than a 
discourser on "interesting" facts about people, the psychiatrist will have 
essentially little to learn from them beyond the fact, which he might, of 
course, have suspected all along, that human motivation has expressed 
itself in far more varied forms and through far more complex channels 
of transformation than he had believed possible on the basis of his 
limited ethnic experiences. This in itself is a far trom unimportant in- 
sight, but it does not constitute the true basis of a science o\' psychologv, 
or of a science of psychiatry, which may be defined as that science o{ 
man which undertakes to grasp the [868] fundamental, and relatively 
invariable, structure of the individual personality with as great a con- 
ceptual economy as our still inadequate psychologies allow. 

It is the obvious duty of psychiatry, once it has enriched its interpreta- 
tive techniques with the help of the social sciences, to be always return- 
ing to its original task of the close scrutiny of the individual personalit). 
Not what the culture consists of or what are the values it .seems to point 
to will be the psychiatrist's concern, but rather how this culture lends 
itself to the ceaseless need o{ the individual personality tor symbols o'i 
expression and communication which can be intelligentiv read bv line's 
fellow-men on the social plane, but whose relative depth or shallowness 
of meaning in the individual's total economy of symbols need never be 
adequately divined either by himself or bv his neighbor. It should K- 
the aim of the psychiatrist to uncover just such meanings as these. He 
must be too little satisfied with a purely social view o{ behavior lo 
accept such statements as that A's reason for joining the orchestra is 
the same as B's, or that the motive ol cither can ever be strictly defined 
in terms of a generalized pleasure which socialized human beings derive 
from listening to music or participating in the production o^ it. Such 
blanket explanations as these are useful in that lhe\ enable people lo 
join hands and give each other an elleciive hearing, lo the culturalisi 



350 tff Culture 

joining an orchestra is a valuable illustration of an important social 
pattern. To the psychiatrist it is as irrelevant as the interesting biograph- 
ical fact that this 'Mover of music" first met his future wife at the corner 
o\ liflh A\enue and Forty-second Street. What the psychiatrist can get 
out K^^ the orchestra-joining pattern depends altogether on what sym- 
bolic work he can discover this behavior to accomplish in the integrated 
pcrsonaliis systems of A and B. To the culturist A's joining the orchestra 
IS "like" B's joining the orchestra. To the psychiatrist the chances of 
these two events being in the least similar are quite small. He will rather 
find that A's joining the orchestra is "like" his earlier tendency to waste 
an enormous amount o\^ time on trashy novels, while B's apparently 
similar behavior is more nearly "like" his slavish adherence to needlessly 
exacting table manners. The psychiatrist cares little about descriptive 
similarities and dilTerences, for, in his view of [869] things, all manner 
of fioisam and jetsam of behavior rush into an individual vortex of few 
and necessary meanings. He does well to leave the study of the scheme 
o\' society to those who care for unallocated blueprints of behavior. 

I ha\e. perhaps, overstressed the fundamental divergence of spirit 
between the psychiatric and the strictly cultural modes of observation. 
I have done so because it is highly important that we do not delude 
ourselves into believing that a lovingly complete analysis of a given 
culture is ipso facto a contribution to the science of human behavior. It 
is, of course, an invaluable guide to the potentialities of choice and 
rejection in the lives of individuals, and such knowledge should arm 
one against foolish expectancies. No psychiatrist can afford to think 
that love is made in exactly the same way in all the corners of the globe, 
yet he would be too docile a convert to anthropology if he allowed 
himself to be persuaded that that fact made any special difference for 
the primary differentiation of personality. With every individual of 
whom the psychiatrist essays an understanding he must of necessity 
reanalyze the supposedly objective culture in which this individual is 
said to play his part. When he does this he invariably finds that cultural 
agreement is hardly more than terminological, and that, if culture is to 
be saddled with psychological meanings that are more than superficial, 
we shall have to recognize as many effective cultures as there are in- 
dividuals to be "adjusted" to the one culture which is said to exist "out 
there*" and to which we are supposed to be able to direct the telescope 
of our intelligent observafion. 

It^ would appear from all this that the psychiatrist who has become 
sutTiciently aware of social patterning to be granted a hearing by the 



One: Cullurc. Society, uml tlw /ni/ivlihuil 351 

social scientist has at least as iiuich to gi\c as to receive. It is true that 
he cannot be given the privilege o( making a psychological analysis of 
society and cultuie as such. He cannot tell us what any cultural pattern 
is "all about" in psychological terms, for we cannot allow hnii to indulge 
in the time-honored pursuit of identifying society with a personality, or 
culture with actual behaxior. He can. of coiuse. make these identifica- 
tions in a metaphorical sense, and it would be harmful to his freedom 
of expression if he were denied the use of metaphor. In his particular 
case, however, metaphor is more [870] than normally dangerous. An 
economist or historian can talk o\' the soul of a people or the structure 
of society with very little danger of turning anybody's head, it is gen- 
erally understood that such phraseology means something but that the 
speed of verbal communication is generally too great to make it seem 
worthwhile to try to conveit the convenient metaphor into its realisti- 
cally relevant terms. But the psychiatrist deals with actual people, not 
with illustrations of culture or with the functioning of society, it is our 
duty, therefore, to hold him to the very strictest account in his use of 
social terms. If he, too, is the victim of slipshod metaphor, we have no 
protection against our own credulity. We cannot be blamed if we tend 
to read out of the society and culture which the necessities of verbal 
communication have conjured into a ghostly reality of their own an 
impersonal mandate to behavior and its interpretation. 

So far the psychiatrist has had too many superstitions of his own to 
help us materially with the task of translating social and cultural terms 
into that intricate network of personalistic meanings which is the only 
conceivable stuff of human experience., in the future, howe\er. we must 
be constantly turning to him for reminders of what is the true nature 
of the social process. The conceptual reconciliation i>f the life of society 
with the life of the individual can never come from an indulgence in 
metaphor. It will come from the ultimate implications o( Dr. Sulli\an's 
"interpersonal relations." Interpersonal relations are not linger exer- 
cises in the art of society. They are real things, deser\ing o\' the niosi 
careful and anxious study. We know very little about them as \et. If we 
could only get a reasonably clear conception of how the li\es of A and 
B intertwine into a mutually interpretable complex of experiences, we 
should see far more clearl\ than is at present the case the extreme im- 
portance and the irrevocable necessity o\' the concept o\' personalit>. We 
should also be moving forward to a realistic instead of a metaphorical 
defmition o\' what is meant by culture and societ\. One suspects that 
the symbolic role of words has an importance for the solution o\' our 



■^S") /// Culture 



problcniN thai is tar greater than we might be willing to admit. After 
all, it" A calls B a 'liar," he creates a reverberating cosmos of potential 
action and iiidgnicnt. And if the fatal word can be passed on to C, the 
iriangulalion of society and culture is complete. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in the American Journal of Sociology 42, 
862-870 (1937). Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago 
Press. 



Note 

I TTic necessity of disentangling it from problems of personality value in a given society. 



Why Cultural Anthropology Needs 
the Psychiatrist (1938) 

Editorial Introduction 

The initial issue of Harry Stack Sullivan's journal Psycliiatry \n 1938 
was perhaps the ideal sympathetic environment tor the views Sapir had 
developed in his conversations with Sullivan and political scientist Harold 
Lasswell. In his paper for that issue, Sapir chose to focus not on psvchia- 
try but on modifying the impersonal character of traditional ethnology by 
introducing personal (and interpersonal) considerations. The argument 
opens anecdotally, citing J. Owen Dorsey's quotation of Omaha elder 
Two Crows denying a statement made by another Omaha. Such state- 
ments, too often ignored by ethnologists intent on leaping to some level 
of communal cultural patterning, were actually incontrovertible evidence 
of intracultural variability. Insofar as every individual's version of his/her 
culture was legitimately unique, no individual's statement of culture could 
possibly be wrong. The methodological consequence of Two Crows' de- 
nial, however, was that the ethnologist must test all apparent cultural pat- 
terns against the statements and behaviors o[^ \arious indi\ iduals. Tlic 
longstanding assumption that any normal individual might equall\ well 
represent a homogeneous culture was untenable. Instead, culture could 
be approached only through its documented variations. 

Although Sapir had no plans to test his model in the Held, his theoret- 
ical position uas clear and grounded in culliiral aiuhropolog\. The the- 
ory of personality had not yet developed to the point where it could 
explain the variability of human behavior. Sapir wanted to persuade an 
audience of psychiatrists o\^ the promise to be fmrnd in the social sci- 
ences, particularly anthropology. Implicillw however, his paper ad- 
dresses anthropologists above all. Of Sapir's anthropological writings, 
this essay has been one of the most widely cited within the discipline. 



Why Cultural Anthropology Needs the Psvchialrist 

Until not so many years ago cultural aiUhropologv and psychiatry 
seemed miles apart. Cultural anthropology was conceived of as a social 



354 ^'^ Cult lire 

science which concerned itself Httle. if at all with the individual. Its 
pros nice was rather to emphasize those aspects of behavior which be- 
liMiged to society as such, more particularly societies of the dim past or 
exouc societies whose way o^ life seemed so different from that of our 
own people that one could hope to construct a generalized picture of 
the life o^ societN at large, particularly in its more archaic stages of 
development. There was little need in the anthropology of a Tylor or 
Fra/er to ask questions w hich demanded a more intimate knowledge of 
the individual than could be assumed on the basis of common experi- 
ence. Ihe important distinctions were felt to be distinctions of race, of 
geographical setting, o\^ chronology, of cultural province. The whole 
temper o\' cultural anthropology was impersonal to a degree. In this 
earlier period o\^ the development of the science it seemed almost indeli- 
cate, not to say indecent, to obtrude observations that smacked of the 
personal or anecdotal. The assumption was that in some way not in the 
least clearly defined as to observational method it was possible for the 
anthropologist to arrive at conclusive statements which would hold for 
a gi\en society as such. One was rarely in a position to say whether 
such an inclusive statement was a tacit quotation from a primitive 
"John Doe" or a carefully tested generalization abstracted from hun- 
dreds of personal observations or hundreds of statements excerpted 
from conversations with many John Does. 

Perhaps it is just as well that no strict methodology of field inquiry 
was perfected and that embarrassing questions as to the factual nature 
o'i the evidence which led to anthropological generalizations were cour- 
teously withheld by a sort of gentleman's agreement. I remember being 
rather shocked than pleased when in my student days I came across 
such statements in J. O. Dorsey's "Omaha Sociology" as "Two Crows 
denies this." This looked a little as though the writer had not squarely 
met the challenge of assaying his source material and giving us the kind 
of data that we, as respectable anthropologists, could live on. It was as 
though he "passed the buck" to the reader, expecting him by some 
miracle of cultural insight to segregate truth from error. We see now 
that Dorsey was ahead of his age. Living as he did in close touch with 
the Omaha Indians, he knew that he was dealing, not with a society 
nor with a specimen of primitive man nor with a cross-section of the 
history of primitive culture, but with a finite, though indefinite, number 
of human beings, who gave themselves the privilege of differing from 
each other not only in matters generally considered "one's own busi- 
ness" but even on questions which clearly transcended the private in- 



One Cullurc. Society, iiml the Imliviiiiuil 355 

dividuaTs concern and were, by ihe anlliropologisl's defniition, implied 
in the conception of a detlnitely delimited society with a defmitely dis- 
co\erabIe culture. Apparently Two [S] C'rows. a perfectly good and au- 
thoritati\e Indian, could presume to rule out of court the \ery existence 
of a custom or attitude or belief vouched for by some other Indian, 
equally good and authoritative. Unless one wishes to dismiss the nn- 
plicit problem raised by contradictory statements by assuming that 
Dorsey, the anthropologist, misunderstood one, or both, of his infor- 
mants, one would have to pause tor a while and ponder the meaning 
o^ the statement that 'Two Crows denies this." 

This is not the place to introduce anything like a complete anahsis 
of the meaning of such contradictory statements, real or supposed. The 
only thing that we need to be clear about is whether a completely imper- 
sonal anthropological description and analysis of custom in terms 
which tacitly assume the unimportance of individual needs and prefer- 
ences is, in the long run, truly possible for a social discipline. There has 
been so much talk of ideal objectivity in social science and such eager 
willingness to take the ideals of physical and chemical workmanship as 
translatable into the procedures of social research that we really ought 
not to blink this problem. Suppose we take a test case. John Doe and 
an Indian named Two Feathers agree that two and two make four. 
Someone reports that "Two Crows denies this." Inasmuch as we know 
that the testimony of the first two informants is the testimony o'i all 
human beings who are normally considered as entitled to a hearing, we 
do not attach much importance to Two Crows' denial. We do not e\en 
say that he is mistaken. We suspect that he is crazy. In the case of more 
abstruse problems in the world of natural science, we narrow the field 
of authority to those individuals who are known, or believed, to be in 
full command of techniques that enable them to interpret the imper- 
sonal testimony o'i the physical universe. Everyone knows that the his- 
tory of science is full of corrective statements on errors of judgment but 
no value is attached lo such errors beyond ihe necessity o^ ruling ihem 
out of the record. Though the mistaken scientist's hurl feelings may be 
of great interest to a psychologist or psychiatrist, they are nothing fc>r 
the votaries of pure science to worry about. 

Are correspondingly ruthless judgments p^issible in ihe Held of sik'kiI 
science? Hardly. Let us take a desperately extreme case. All the members 
of a given community agree in arranging the letters o\' the alphabet in 
a certain historically determined order, an order so fixed and so thor- 
oughly ingrained in the minds of all normal children who go to school 



356 



/// Culture 



that ihc ailcmpl to tamper with this order has, to the man in the street, 
the same ridiculous, one might almost say unholy, impossibility as an 
attempt to have the sun rise half an hour earlier or later than celestial 
mechanics decree to be proper. There is one member of this hypothetical 
siKiety who takes the liberty of interchanging A and Z. If he keeps his 
strange departure from custom to himself, no one need ever know how 
queer he really is. if he contradicts his children's teacher and tries to 
tell them that they should put Z first and A last, he is almost certain to 
run foul o\^ his fellow beings. His own children may desert him in spite 
o\' their natural tendency to recognize parental authority. Certainly we 
should agree that this very peculiar kind of a Two Crows is crazy, and 
we mav e\en agree as psychiatrists that so far as an understanding of 
his aberrant fantasies and behavior is concerned, it really makes little 
dilTerence whether what he is impelled to deny is that two and two are 
four or the order of the letters of the alphabet as a conventionally, or 
naturally, fixed order. 

At this point we have misgivings. Is the parallel as accurate as it 
seems to be? There is an important difference, which we have perhaps 
overlooked in our joint condemnation. This difference may be expressed 
in terms of possibility. No matter how many Two Crows deny that two 
and two make four, the actual history of mathematics, however re- 
tarded by such perversity, cannot be seriously modified by it. But if we 
get enough Two Crows to agree on the interchange of A and Z, [9] we 
have what we call a new tradition, or a new dogma, or a new theory, 
or a new procedure, in the handling of that particular pattern of culture 
which is known as the alphabet. What starts as a thoroughly irresponsi- 
ble and perhaps psychotic aberration seems to have the power, by some 
kind of "social infection," to lose its purely personal quality and to take 
on something of the very impersonality of custom which, in the first 
instance, it seemed to contradict so flatly. The reason for this is very 
simple. Whatever the majority of the members of a given society may 
say, there is no inherent human impossibility in an alphabet which starts 
with a symbol for the sound or sounds represented by the letter Z and 
ends up with a symbol for the vocahc sound or sounds represented by 
the letter A. The consensus of history, anthropology, and common sense 
leads us to maintain that the actually accepted order of letters is "neces- 
sary" only in a very conditional sense and that this necessity can, under 
appropriate conditions of human interrelationship, yield to a conflict 
of possibilities, which may ultimately iron out into an entirely different 
"necessity." 



One Culture. Society, din/ flu- hu/ividuul 357 

The iriilh o\' the mailer is ihal if \sc think long enough about Two 
Crows and his persistent denials, we shall have to admit that in some 
sense Two Crows is never wrong. It may not be a very useful sense for 
social science but in a strict methodology of science in general it dare 
not be completely ignored. The fact that this rebel. Two Crows, can in 
turn bend others to his own view of fact or theory or to his own prefer- 
ence in action shows that his divergence from custom had, from the \ery 
beginning, the essential possibility o( culturalized behavior, it seems, 
therefore, that we must regretfully admit that the rebel who tampers 
with the truths of mathematics or physics or chemistry is not really the 
same kind of rebel as the one who plays nine-pins with custom, whether 
in theory or practice. The latter is likely to make more of a nuisance o( 
himself than the former. No doubt he runs the risk of being condemned 
with far greater heat by his fellow men but he just cannot be proved to 
contradict some mysterious essence of things. He can only be said, at 
best, to disagree completely with everybody else in a matter in which 
opinion or preference, in however humble and useless a degree, is after 
all possible. 

We have said nothing so far that is not utterly commonplace. What 
is strange is that the ultimate importance of these commonplaces seems 
not to be thoroughly grasped by social scientists at the present time, if 
ihe ultimate criterion of value interpretation, and even "existence." in 
the world of socialized behavior is nothing more than consensus of 
opinion, it is difficult to see how cultural anthropology can escape the 
ultimate necessity of testing out its analysis of patterns called "social" 
or "cultural" in terms of indi\ idual realities. If people tend to become 
illiterate, owing to a troubled political atmosphere, the "reality" o( the 
alphabet weakens. It may still be true ihai ihe order of the letters is. in 
the minds of those relatively few people who know an\ thing about the 
alphabet, precisely what it always was, but in a cultural atmosphere o\' 
unrest and growing illiteracy a Two Crows who interchanges A and Z 
is certainly not as crazy as he would have been at a more foriunaie lime 
in the past. We are quick to see the importance of the individual in 
those more flexible fields of cultural patterning that are referred to as 
ideals or tastes or personal preferences. A trul> rigorous analysis of any 
arbitrarily selected phase of individualized "social behavior" or "cul- 
ture" would show two things: First, that no mailer how llexible. how 
individually variable, it may in the first instance be thought \o be. it is 
as a matter o\' fact the complex resultant o\' an incredibls elaborate 
cultural history, in which many diverse strands intercross at that point 



358 /// Culture 

in place and iinic at which the individual judgment or preference is 
expressed (this terminology is ciiltural)\ second, that, conversely, no 
matter how rigorously necessary in practice the analyzed pattern may 
seem to be. it ^s always possible in principle, if not in experiential fact, 
for the lone individual to etTect a [10] transformation of form or mean- 
ing which is capable of communication to other individuals (this termi- 
nology \s psvchiairic or pcrsoualistic). What this means is that problems 
o{ social science differ from problems of individual behavior in degree 
of specificity, not in kind. Every statement about behavior which throws 
the emphasis, explicitly or implicitly, on the actual, integral, experiences 
o^ defined personalities or types of personalities is a datum of psychol- 
ogy or psvchiatry rather than of social science. Every statement about 
behavior which aims, not to be accurate about the behavior of an actual 
individual or individuals or about the expected behavior of a physically 
and psychologically defined type of individuals, but which abstracts 
from such behavior in order to bring out in clear relief certain expec- 
tancies with regard to those aspects of individual behavior which vari- 
ous people share, as an interpersonal or "social" pattern, is a datum, 
however crudely expressed, of social science. 

If Dorsey tells us that "Two Crows denies this," surely there is a 
reason for his statement. We need not say that Two Crows is badly 
informed or that he is fooling the anthropologist. Is it not more reason- 
able to say that the totality of socialized habits, in short the "culture," 
that he was familiar with was not in all respects the same entity as the 
corresponding totality presented to the observation or introspection of 
some other Indian, or perhaps of all other Indians? If the question 
asked by the anthropologist involved a mere question of personal affir- 
mation, we need have no difficulty in understanding his denial. But 
even if it involved the question of "objective fact," we need not be too 
greatly shocked by the denial. Let us suppose that the anthropologist 
asked the simple question, "Are there seven clans or eight clans in moi- 
ety A of your tribe?", or words to that effect. All other Indians that he 
has asked about this sheer question of "fact" have said eight, we will 
assume. Two Crows claims that there are only seven. How can this be? 
If we look more closely to the facts, we should undoubtedly find that 
the contradiction is not as puzzling as it seems. It may turn out that 
one of the clans had been extinct for a long time, most of the infor- 
mants, however, remembering some old man, now deceased, who had 
been said to be the last survivor of it. They might feel that while the 
clan no longer exists in a practical sense, it has a theoretical place in 



One: Culture. Society, and the huliviiiunl 359 

the ordered dcscriplit>n ofllic liibe's social organization. Perhaps there 
is some ceremonial fimclion oi placement, properls belonging to the 
extinct clan, which is remembered as such and which makes it a little 
dirficiilt to completely overlook its claims to "existence." Various tilings, 
on the other hand, may be true of Two Crows. He may have belonged 
to a clan which had )i.O(k\ reason lo detest the extinct clan, perhaps 
because it had humiliated a relative ot his in the dim past. It is certainly 
conceivable that the factual non-existence o\' the clan coupled with his 
personal reason for thinking as little about it as possible might gi\e him 
the perfectly honest conviction that one need speak of only seven clans 
in the tribe. There is no reason why the normal anthropological investi- 
gator should, in an inquiry of this kind, look much beneath the surface 
of a simple answer to a simple question. It almost looks as though 
either seven clans or eight clans might be the "correct" answer to an 
apparently unambiguous question. The problem is very simple here. By 
thinking a little about Two Crows himself, we are enabled to show that 
he was not wrong, though he seemed to disagree with all his fellow 
Indians. He had a special kind of rightness, which was partly factual, 
partly personal. 

Have we not the right to go on from simple instances o'i this sort and 
advance to the position that any statement, no matter how general, 
which can be made about culture needs the supporting testimony o^ a 
tangible person or persons, to whom such a statement is of real value 
in his system o\^ interrelationships with other human beings? If this is 
so, we shall, at last analysis, have to admit that any indi\idual o^ a 
group has cultural definitions which do not apply to all the [II] mem- 
bers of his group, which even, in specific instance, apply to him alone. 
Instead, therefore, of arguing from a supposed objectivity of culture lo 
the problem of individual variation, we shall, for certain kinds of analy- 
sis, have to proceed in the opposite direction. We shall ha\e to operate 
as though we knew nothing about culture but were interested in analyz- 
ing as well as we could what a given number o\' human beings accus- 
tomed to live with each other actuallx think and do in their da\ to day 
relationships. We shall then find that we are drisen. wilK-nilK. tc^ the 
recognition of certain permanencies, in a relati\e sense, in these interre- 
lationships, permanencies which can reasonabl\ be counted on to per- 
dure but which must also be recognized to be elernalls subject to serious 
modification of form and meaning with the lapse of lime and with those 
changes of personnel which are unaxoidable in the histiMA of an\ group 
of human beings. 



3^ /// Cuhurc 

This mode of ihinking is, of course, essentially psychiatric. Psychia- 
trists ma\, or ma\ noi. believe in cultural patterns, in group minds, in 
historic tendencies, or even missions: they cannot avoid believing in 
particular people. Personalities may be dubbed fictions by sociologists, 
anthropologists, and even by certain psychologists, but they must be 
accepted as bread and butter realities by the psychiatrist. Nothing, in 
short, can be more real to a psychiatrist than a personality organization, 
lis modification from infancy to death, its essential persistence in terms 
o{ consciousness and ego reference. From this point of view culture 
cannot be accepted as anything more than a convenient assemblage, or 
at best total theory, of real or possible modes of behavior abstracted 
from the experienced realities of communication, whether in the form 
of overt behavior or in the form of fantasy. Even the alphabet from this 
standpoint becomes a datum of personality research! As a matter of 
fact, the alphabet does mean different things to different people. It is 
loved by some, hated by others, an object of indifference to most. It is 
a purely instrumental thing to a few; it has varying kinds of overtones 
of meaning for most, ranging all the way from the weakly sentimental 
to the passionately poetic. No one in his senses would wish the alphabet 
to be studied from this highly personalistic point of view. In plain Eng- 
lish, it would not be worth the trouble. The total meaning of the alpha- 
bet for X is so very nearly the same as that for any other individual, Y, 
that one does much better to analyze it and explain its relation to other 
cultural patterns in terms of an impersonal, or cultural, or anthropolog- 
ical, mode of description. The fact, however, that X has had more diffi- 
culty in learning the alphabet than Y, or that in old age X may forget 
the alphabet or some part of it more readily than Y, shows clearly 
enough that there is a psychiatric side to even the coldest and most 
indifferent of cultural patterns. Even such cold and indifferent cultural 
patterns have locked in them psychiatric meanings which are ordinarily 
of no moment to the student of society but which may under peculiar 
circumstances come to the foreground of attention. When this happens, 
anthropological data need to be translated into psychiatric terms. 

What we have tried to advance is little more than a plea for the 
assistance of the psychiatrist in the study of certain problems which 
come up in an analysis of socialized behavior. In spite of all that has 
been claimed to the contrary, we cannot thoroughly understand the 
dynamics of culture, of society, of history, without sooner or later ta- 
king account of the actual interrelationships of human beings. We can 
postpone this psychiatric analysis indefinitely but we cannot theoretic- 



One: C'lilftiiv. Sodciv. iiiul the Imliviiliuil 361 

ally eliminate il. Willi the iiiodcni LH\)\\lh ol mlcicsi in ihc slud\ ot 
personality and with the growing conviction of the enormous flexibility 
ot^ personality adjustment to one's fellow men, it is dinicult to see how 
one's intellectual curiosity about the prc^^lems of lumian intercourse can 
be forever satisfied by schematic stateiiieiiis about society and its stock 
of cultural patterns. The very variations and uncertainties which the 
earlier anthropologists ignored seem to be the very aspects o\' human 
behavior that future students of [12] society will have to look to with a 
special concern, for it is only through an analysis of variation that the 
realil) and meaning o\^ a norm can be established at all. and it is only 
through a minute and sympathetic study of individual beha\ ior in the 
state in which normal human beings find themselves, namely in a state 
of society, that it will ultimately be possible to say things about societ> 
itself and culture that are more than fairly convenient abstractions. Sur- 
ely, if the social scientist is interested in effective consistencies, in tend- 
encies, and in values, he must not dodge the task of studying the etTects 
produced by individuals of varying temperaments and backgrounds on 
each other. Anthropology, sociology, indeed social science in general, is 
notoriously weak in the discovery of effective consistencies. This weak- 
ness, it seems, is not unrelated to a fatal fallacy with regard to the 
objective reality of social and cultural patterns defined impersonally. 

Causation implies continuity, as does personality itself. The social 
scientist's world of reality is generally expressed in discontinuous terms. 
An effective philosophy of causation in the realm of social phenomena 
seems impossible so long as these phenomena are judged to ha\e a \alid 
existence and sequence in their own right. It is only when they are 
translated into the underlying facts of behavior from which the\ ha\e 
never been divorced in reality that one can hope to ad\ ance to an under- 
standing of causes. The test can be made easily enough. We ha\e no 
difficulty in understanding how a given human being's experiences tend 
to produce certain results in the further conduct o^ his life. Our know 1- 
edge is far too fragmentary to allow us to understand full), but there is 
never a serious difficulty in principle in imputing to the stream o^ his 
experiences that causative quality which we take for granted in the 
physical universe. To the extent that we can similarls speak of causati\e 
sequences in social phenomena, what wc are reall\ iloini: is \o puamid. 
as skilfully and as rapidly as possible, the sorts o^ cause and etVect 
relations that we are familiar with in indi\idual experience, imputing 
these to a social reality which has been constructed out of our need for 
a maximally economical expression o\' t\picall\ human e\ents. It will 



3(>2 /// Culture 

be ihc tuturc lask o\ the psychiatrist to read cause and effect in human 
history. \\c cannot do it now because his theory of personahty is too 
weak and because he tends to accept with too httle criticism the imper- 
sonal mode o\ social and cuUural analysis which anthropology has 
made fashionable. If, therefore, we answer our initial question, "Why 
cultural anthropology needs the psychiatrist," in a sense entirely favor- 
able to the psychiatrist, that is, to the systematic student of human 
personality, we do not for a moment mean to assert that any psychiatry 
that has as yet been evolved is in a position to do much more than to 
ask intelligent questions. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in Psychiatry 1, 7-12 (1938). Reprinted by per- 
mission of Psvchialrv. 



Letter to Philip S. Selznick. 25 October 1938 
Editorial Introduction 

Philip Selznick, on his own initiative, sent his honors essay from City 
College o( New York to Sapir for comments. Sapir's reply, written only 
a few months before his death, offered an informal view of the emerging 
field of "culture and personality," and summarized some aspects of his 
own approach. Sapir was impressed by the young man's understanding 
o\^ the conceptual basis of the distinction between culture and indivi- 
dual, but he cautioned him against some potential pitfalls - excessive 
cultural relativism, and false analogies between individual personality 
and culture - into which, Sapir suggested, Ruth Benedict and Margaret 
Mead had fallen. He referred to his own planned book. The P.sycho/oi^y 
of Culiuiw as the work that would properly explicate his point of view, 
although he must have realized that he would not live to complete ii. 

This letter, with commentary by George W. Stocking, Jr.. was pub- 
lished in 1980 in the History of Anthropology Newsletter, under the title. 
"Sapir's last testament on culture and personality." 

Letter to Philip Selznick (1980) 

October 25, 1938 
Mr. Philip S. Selznick, 
3099 Brighton 6th Street 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Dear Mr. Selznick, 

I have read your essay with very great interest and am rcturnnig ii to 
you under another cover. I believe that you have assimilated the culture 
and personality point of view very successfully. I find myself in substan- 
tial agreement with you at practically every pomt and I sincerely hope 
that you are planning to deepen your acquaintance with the problems 
suggested. 

While the point of view which you discuss has largely been advanced 
by what might be described as the radical wing o\' anthropologv, I be- 
lieve that further work in this Held, if it is to be trulv siiznillcanl and 



354 f^^ Citlturc 

noi merely philosophical in lone, is destined to come largely from those 
thai arc immediately concerned with psychiatric reality, that is from 
people \sho lake seriously problems of personality organization and 
de\elopmeni. Practically, this means that the younger people like your- 
>eiruho aim to contribute significantly to a clarification of problems of 
personality and culture should plunge boldly into personality problems. 
Specific cultural problems are of course of the greatest value, but I have 
come to feel that the law of diminishing returns operates rather quickly 
in anthropology. I mean to say that such ideas as cultural relativity and 
psychological reinterpretation of cultural forms are assimilated readily 
enough by an intelligent person on the basis of a comparatively slight 
knowledge o'( the ethnographic field. An extended knowledge of exotic 
cultures deepens of course our sense of cultural history, but it does not, 
after a certain point of sophistication has been reached, help very much 
with the clarification of the more fundamental quesfion of the meaning 
o'i personality organization in cultural terms. Psychiatric insight can, I 
feel, not be obtained by the mere reading of a great deal of literature. 
Clinical experience and a patient analysis of actual case material are 
indispensable. 

I Judge from a number of passages in your essay that you share my 
feeling that there is danger of the growth of a certain scientific mythol- 
ogy in anthropological circles with regard to the psychological inter- 
pretation of culture. I believe this comes out most clearly in Ruth Bene- 
dict's book. "Patterns of Culture." Unless I misunderstand the direction 
of her thinking and of the thinking of others who are under her influ- 
ence, there is altogether too great readiness to translate psychological 
analogies into psychological realities. I do not like the glib way in which 
many talk of such and such a culture as "paranoid" or what you will. 
It would be my intention to bring out clearly, in a book that I have 
still to write, the extreme methodological importance of distinguishing 
between actual psychological processes which are of individual location 
and presumptive or "as if psychological pictures which may be ab- 
stracted from cultural phenomena and which may give significant direc- 
tion to individual development. To speak of a whole culture as having 
a personality configuration is, of course, a pleasing image, but I am 
afraid that it belongs more to the order of aesthetic or poetic constructs 
than of scientific ones. 

The only critical reaction that I have had in reading your pages is a 
certain misgiving as to whether you were not stretching the idea of 
cultural relativity too much. Like many young people who are obvi- 



One Culture. Society, luul the hu/lvidunl 365 

ousl> cxliilaratcd b\ ssmbols o\' rc\oll and sccni [o iciul lo tear ihc 
establishment o\' iiniversals in bclia\iiM\ ymi lend [o hold otT the estab- 
lishment o[' the 'Miormal" as much as possible. 1 am sure that this is a 
healthy tendency at the beginning of one's scientific career, but I think 
you will fmd that it may lead in the long run to superficiality. In this 
very sphere patient psychiatric work is destined to gi\e us a more aiul 
more protbund respect for the recognition of certain fundamental nor- 
malities regardless of cultural differences, meanwhile it is perfectly true 
that anthropology has had a healthy effect in forcing the psychiatrist 
not to identify his ill-defined conception oi'^ normality with specific cul- 
tural forms. It will be our not too easy task to redefine normality on a 
broader cultural and psychiatric basis. There is one point that may pos- 
sibly not have escaped your observation, and that is that there is often 
an unconscious or at least an unacknowledged motive for the denial ol' 
normalities which transcend the compulsions of culture. ... One ccnild 
write a very interesting paper on the usefulness of the concept of cul- 
tural relativity as a sophisticated form of what the psychiatrist some- 
what brutally refers to as a fiight from reality. Certainly this is not the 
whole story, but I have come to feel that there is far more in it than a 
liberal intelligence might wish to grant in the first place. 

Anyway, I want to congratulate you on your intelligent grasp o\^ the 
problems that you discuss and to thank you for giving me the opportu- 
nity of reading your interesting essay. Under another cover I am sending 
you a few reprints that you may be interested in. 

Yours sincerely, 

Edward Sapir 



Editorial notes: 

This letter was published in 1980 in .-/ /li.slory oj Amhropoloi^v .\e\\\lct- 
tcr 7(2):8-10 under the heading, "Sapir's Last Testament on Culture 
and Personality." George Stocking, editor of the Newslciicr. luned that 
the letter was reproduced (with the elision i^f one personal passage) "by 
the kind permission of Professor Sel/nick and I'ri^fessiM" J. Daxid Sapir. 



Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business 
ot^ Getting a Living (1939) 

Editorial Introduction 

This paper appeared as the lead article in Mcntdl Health, a publica- 
tion o'i the American Association for the Ad\ancenient o\^ Science, dis- 
cussing what physical and cultural environment might be most condu- 
ci\e to mental well-being. Ruth Benedict contributed a paper on cross- 
cultural studies of personality; Harold Lasswell wrote about politics and 
psychiatry; and Harry Stack Sullivan served as discussant. This was 
Sapir's final entry in the interdisciplinary arena that consumed much of 
his energy during the 1930's. 

Assigned the topic of mental health's relation to the economic struc- 
ture of American society. Sapir enlarged his focus to include biological 
and psychological determinants o'i behavior. He then turned to a fa\ or- 
ite topic, the methodology of the social sciences. While economics relied 
on a conception of an idealized individual, "economic man." uhose 
behaviors in aggregate were supposed to result in economic trends, psy- 
chiatry offered case histories of actual individuals, and anthropology 
offered a view of the cultural conditions and symbolisms in which in- 
dividuals' behavior was framed. What was needed, howe\er, was to put 
these insights together. Psychiatry, for example, had ignored the social 
and economic forces that placed some indixiduals in difficult) regard- 
less of personality. 

This paper turned the tables on Sapir's usual emphasis on inJi\iduaI 
cognition and creativity. The argument that indi\Kiuals" emotional reac- 
tions must be understood in relation to an exterior econonnc context 
and structure shows, perhaps more conspicuoush than in any other 
paper, that Sapir was not the methodological indi\idualist some have 
thought him. 

One of the paper's examples that o{ the psychological etVect o\' 
economic insecurity on the college professoi hiMc an e\ ident relation 
lo Sapir's personal circumstances. During the last \ear of his life he had 
to return to leaching at Yale in spite of a serious heart condition. But 



368 III Culture 

although this last cssav rellects his depression and precarious health, 
in theoretical terms it marks a further development in the innovative 
perspective on culture, society, and the individual which began with his 
critique of the ""superorganic" in 1917. 



lN\chiairic and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business 
o\' Getting a Living 

All special sciences of man^s physical and cultural nature tend to 
create a framework of tacit assumptions which enable their practitioners 
to work with maximum economy and generality. The classical example 
o'i this una\oidable tendency is the science of economics, which is too 
intent on working out a general theory of value, production, flow of 
commodities, demand, price, to take time to inquire seriously into the 
nature and variability of those fundamental biological and psychologi- 
cal determinants of behavior which make these economic terms mean- 
ingful in the first place. The sum total of the tacit assumptions of a 
biological and psychological nature which economics makes gets petri- 
fied into a standardized conception of "economic man," who is en- 
dowed with just those motivations which make the known facts of eco- 
nomic behavior in our society seem natural and inevitable. In this way 
the economist gradually develops a peculiarly powerful insensitiveness 
to actual motivations, substituting Hfe-like fictions for the troublesome 
contours of life itself 

The economist is not in the least exceptional in his unconscious pro- 
cedure. Any one who deals habitually with what man makes and thinks, 
not because he is interested in man directly but because he wishes to 
find law and order in what man makes and thinks, slips, by insensible 
degrees, into the assumption that such regularities of form and process 
as he finds in selected categories of man's behavior are fundamentally 
due to a peculiar quality of self-determination in those categories rather 
than to the ceaseless, eternally shifting, balancing of concretely defin- 
able motivations of particular people at particular times and in particu- 
lar places. The very terminology which is used by the many kinds of 
segmental scientists of man indicates how remote man himself has be- 
come as a necessary concept in the methodology of the respective sci- 
ences. Thus, in economics, one speaks of "the flow of commodities," 
without special concern for a close factual analysis of modifications of 
demand which, if studied in their full realism, might be shown to be 



One Cn/ftnr. Society, ami l he hu/ivli/iuil 369 

due to such factors as hatred of an ahen s:i\>Lip. jjrouth of superstition. 
increased interest in ha\\d\ shows, or dechne o\' jTrestigc ol hotel lite, 
each of these motivational categories, in turn, opening up a series of 
inquiries into intricate problems o\' interpersonal relations, direct and 
s\nibolic. In aesthetics, one can speak ol" "necessary balances of lines o\' 
tone masses" almost as though one were the Demiurge of the uni\erse in 
whispered conversation with the law of gravitation, apparentl\ without 
a suspicion that defects of eye and ear structure or highly indirect im- 
putations of "meaning" due to the vacillations of fashion ha\e anything 
to do with the ""aesthetic" problem o\' how to create "satisfactory bal- 
ances" of an ""aesthetic order." In linguistics, abstracted speech sounds, 
words and the arrangement of words have come to have so authentic a 
vitality that one can speak of "'regular sound changes" and "loss oi 
genders" without knowing or caring who opened their mouths, at what 
time, to communicate what to whom. 

Science vs. Man. - The purpose of these remarks is simply to indicate 
that science itself, when applied to the field of normal human interest, 
namely man and his daily concerns, creates a serious dilTicully for those 
of us who find it profitable to envisage a true "'psychiatric science" or 
"science of interpersonal relations."' The nature of this difficulty may 
be defined as follows. Inasmuch as science has greater prestige in our 
serious thinking than daily observation, however shrewd or accurate, 
or than those obscure convictions about human beings which result 
from a ceaseless experiencing of them, there tends to grow up in the 
minds of the vast majority of us a split between two kinds o\' "know I- 
edge" about man. Every fragmentary science of man, such as economics 
or political science or aesthetics or linguistics, needs at least a minimum 
set of assumptions about the nature of man in order [o house the partic- 
ular propositions and records of events which belong to its selected 
domain. These fragmentary pictures of man are not in intelligible or 
relevant accord with each other nor do the\. when wilfulK integrated 
by a sort of philosophic fiat. gi\e us an\ thing remoteK resembling the 
tightly organized and fatefully moving individuals that we cannot but 
know and understand up to a certain point. hinve\er much it ma\ be 
to our advantage not to know and understand them at all. A student o\' 
aesthetics finds it very much to his advantage to make certain sweeping 
assumptions about the ""aesthetic nature" of man in order to gi\e him- 
self maximum clearance for the de\elopment oi those propositions and 
for the record and explanation o\' those e\ents which professionalK 
interest him, those that work with him and those that have preceded 



370 ^'^ Culture 

him in A prcsiige-ladcn tradition. Random observations about "beauti- 
ful" thinus or Mrudurcs, such as arrangements of ideas, such observa- 
tions as might be made by a child or by any naive person who cannot 
define aesthetic terms and who has no conscious place for them in that 
personally useful \ocabulary which defines his universe, tend to be dis- 
missed as marginal to the proper concern of aesthetics, as untutored, 
as oi impure conceptual manufacture. The aesthetician is amused or 
annoyed, as the case may be. He has to be almost a genius to be in- 
structed. The less fateful is the split between his professional conception 
oi man as a beauty-discerning and beauty-creating organism and his 
humble perceptions of man as a psychobiological organism, the less 
dilTiculty will he have to surrender the rigid outlines of his science to 
the fate of all historical constructs. Such a synthetist is secretly grateful 
for anything that jars him out of the certainties and necessities of his 
ghost-inhabited science and brings him back to the conditionaHties of 
an experience that was too hastily and magnificently integrated 
("cured." the psychiatrist might say) by his science in the first place. 

It is not really difficult, then, to see why anyone brought up on the 
austerities of a well-defined science of man, must, if he is to maintain 
his symbolic self-respect, become more and more estranged from man 
himself. Economic laws become more "real" than certain people who 
try to make a living; the necessities of the "State" get to outweigh in 
conceptual urgency the desire of the vast majority of human beings to 
be bothered as little as possible; the laws of syntax acquire a higher 
reality than the immediate reality of the stammerer who is trying lo 
"get himself across"; the absolute beauty, or lack of it, of an isolated 
picture or isolated poem becomes a more insistent item in the diary of 
the cosmos than the mere fact of whether there is anybody around who 
is moved by it or not. 

Now fantasied universes of self-contained meaning are the very finest 
and noblest substitutes we can ever devise for that precise and living 
insight into the nooks and crannies of the real that must be forever 
denied us. But we must not reverse the arrow of experience and claim 
for experience's imaginative condensations the primacy in an appeal to 
our loyalty, which properly belongs to our perceptions of men and 
women as the ultimate units of value in our day-to-day view of the 
world. If we do not thus value the nuclei of consciousness from which 
all science, all art, all history, all culture, have flowed as symbolic by- 
products in the humble but intensely urgent business of establishing 
meaningful relationships between actual human beings, we commit per- 



Otic: Culture. Society, uiul the Individuul 371 

sonal suicide. Ihc theology of economics ov aeslhelics or ol liii\ other 
ordered science of man weighs just as hea\il\ on us. whether we know 
it or not, as the outmoded theologies of gods and their worshippers. 
Not for one single moment can we allow ourselves to forget the experi- 
enced unity of the indixidual. No formulations about man and his place 
in society which <\o not pro\e strictly and literally acciuate when tested 
by the experience of the individual can have more than a transitcny or 
technical authority. Hence we need ne\er fear to modify, prune, extend, 
redefme, rearrange, and reorient our .sciences of man as social being, 
for these sciences cannot point to an order of nature that has meaning 
apart iVom the directly experienced perceptions and \ allies of the indi\i- 
dual. 

"Economic Man. " — Let us consider the meaning oi" the problem of 
"earning a living." It is not a simple problem, though it is relatively so 
for the economist. If the economist hears that A gets a salary of 
$1500.00 a year, his scientific curiosity does not go much beyond trying 
to ascertain if this income is a normal one for the services that A is said 
to be rendering. Should he discover that A is a "full professor" at a 
"university," he will note the fact that the salary is well below the 
average fee paid in America for the kind of work that "Mull professors" 
do. Beyond such observation he will have nothing to otTer, though, if 
he is himself a professor or the son of a professor, he may allow himself 
a twinge of concern at the imperilment of the economic status o\' a 
peculiarly valuable class of person in the cultural scene of contemporary 
America. But, strictly speaking, A's salary of $1500.00 a \ear must be 
interpreted as an item in the strictly economic process o\' balancing the 
demand for such services as A is rendering, or is supposed to be render- 
ing, with the supply of individuals capable of rendering them at as low 
a figure as A is willing to accept. It will not be important for the econo- 
mist to try to find out if A's salary is as low as it is because he is a 
member of a poor religious sect which is not in a position lo pa\ more 
for the full professors of its sectarian uni\ersit\ or um\ersities (such 
curiosity is as unseemly for an economist as would be the desire o\' a 
physicist to know whether his falling body was blue ov bright red, 
though the economist might alU>w his less austere colleague, ihe sociolo- 
gist, to indulge in a few musings on the subject) or because A is. as a 
matter of fact, a millionaire with an educatiiMial hobby which he feels 
he ought to give his fellow citizens the benefit of at small cost to "soci- 
ety." You can't get any more of a personality sketch o\' A out o\' the 



372 JJ^ Culture 

economist than thai A just does happen to illustrate a somewhat unu- 
sual equilibration o\' the law of supply and demand. 

In fairness to the economist it must be stated that just as he fails to 
be seriously perturbed over the singularly low economic standard of A, 
iiuii full professor, so he fails to be greatly saddened by the spectacle of 
B's elTorts to get along on $500.00 a year, even if it can be proved that 
B is married, has three or four children, and is not a millionaire in 
disguise. Should B also prove to be a full professor, the economist might 
be pardoned if there grows up in him a more serious uneasiness as to 
the uiiperilment o\' the economic status of a class in which, being a 
member o'i it. he has after all a little more than a merely mathematical 
interest. But no. B is not a full professor, he is merely a farmer and the 
economist is quickly reassured that all's well with B, or, if B really is 
having a desperately hard time of it, at least all's well with B qua farmer, 
for he finds that B's income is snugly within the normal limits of income 
earned by American agriculturists - among the most useful of our vari- 
ous classes of citizens, he is quite wilhng to add. Here too the economist 
is very skillful in placing B at any one of those strategic corners of space 
and lime in which certain factors of supply and demand get properly 
equilibrated. Anyway, if his irrelevant "personalistic," not to say hu- 
manitarian, interests are too greatly aroused, he can take quick comfort 
in the fact that the average income of the American farmer is well above 
S500.00 a year, so that B, a member of the farmer class, ought not to 
be too greatly discouraged. Or, if B is not easily reassured, at least those 
who tend to be worried about B should cease to be so. Of course B may 
be a peculiarly shiftless person, but the economist will not press that 
point. It is better to be statistically magnanimous and to content oneself 
with reflecting that B just does happen to stand at one of the less re- 
warding corners of space and time. There is no need to develop an 
essentially ''unscientific" interest in B's personality, in his "cultural" 
background, and in the nature of the value judgments and "symbol- 
isms" of society re B that add up to so trifling an emolument for this 
particular farmer. 

In still further fairness to the economist it should be said that not 
only is he prepared to accept as "normal" or "natural" incomes that an 
ordmary person or even a sociologist might describe as "subnormal" or 
"unnatural." from an angle of observation that subtends much more 
than the field of operation of "economic laws," but he is also prepared 
to accept as entirely "normal" or "natural" incomes that are fantasti- 
cally beyond the ability of anyone to "handle" except by way of the 



One: Cullurc. Society, iiml the Itulividual 373 

most peculiar, remote, picliiresqiie, symbolic, in shcMl. dream-like or 
make-believe, extensions of the personalities of the recipients o\' such 
incomes. Should any impertinent, thoroughly unscientific, snooper 
whisper to the economist that, so far as he can see, C's $500. ()()(). 00 
income (in virtue of his vice-presidency of the X bank plus sharehold- 
ership in the \' compain plus imeslmenl in the Z oil-fields o\' Mexico 
plus a long list of other services rendered his fellowmen) seems to be 
strangely unaffected by the tissue of physical and psychological perfor- 
mances o( the psychophysical entity or organism called C. it making 
apparently little ditTerence whether C is on hand to instruct one o'( his 
secretaries to cut his coupons or is resting up in the Riviera, the econo- 
mist loses patience. If he then speaks at all, it is to point out that, 
regardless of C's to him unknown and forever unknowable personality, 
C does, as a matter of fact, render just such services as society is 
"agreed" naturally How form the rendering of these services and that 
the supposed "facts" about C are of no more interest to him than are, to 
a professor of alphabetology, certain reports about bad boys scrawling 
obscene words on a brick wall instead of turning out Shakespearian 
plays. 

In desperation, then, let us admit that the economist is right and 
reflect, once and for all, that the economist is no more interested in 
human beings than the alphabetologist is interested in literature, the 
numismatist in the morality of the kings of Bactria, or the theologian 
in the chemical rationalization o'i miracles; that is to sa\. respectively 
ciua economist, qua alphabetologist, qua numismatist, qua theologian. 
These various scientists have their "universes o\^ discourse" that they 
are extremely proud of, through the instrumentality o[' w hich the\ se- 
cure valuable definitions of their egos and at least partialh earn their 
living, and there's an end of it. The necessarily fragmentary, philosophi- 
cally arbitrary "universe of discourse" gets provided with an excellent 
terminology, more or less self-contained and self-consistent principles, 
and some insight, however tangential, into a highl\ selccii\e phase o\' 
human behavior (including human opinion about dnine behavior). 

There is no mischief in all this, once it is clearly underslocui that the 
scientist of man has chief concern for science, not for man, and that all 
science, partly for better and partly for worse, has the self-feeding vo- 
racity of an obsessive ritual. We must gi\e up om nai\e faith in the 
ability of the scientist to tell us anything about man that is not expressi- 
ble in terms of the verbal definitions and operations that pre\ail in his 
"universe of discourse" - a beautiful, dream-like domain that has fitful 



374 ^^^ Culture 

reminiscences o\' man as an experiencing organism but is not, and can- 
not be, immersed m ihc wholeness of that experience. Hence, while 
economics can tell us much about the technical operations that prevail 
in the conceptually well-defined "economic field," a specific type of 
-universe o\' discourse" which has only fragmentary and, at many 
points, c\cn a fictional relation to the universe of experienced behavior, 
it cannot give us a working conception of man even in his abstracted 
role o\' earning a living, for the experiential implications of earning a 
living are not seen by the economist as part of his scientific concern. 

Man us Man. - But it is precisely these experienfial implications that 
we non-economists are interested in. We want to know what making a 
living (just about making it or failing to make it or making it a hundred 
times o\er) does to A and B and C. To what extent is the specific eco- 
nomic functioning of A and B and C of importance, not only to them- 
selves and those immediately dependent on them, but to all human 
beings who come in contact with them and, beyond these empirical 
kinds of importance, to the eye of science? Not, to be sure, to the eye 
of any safely ticketed science that has its conceptual vested interests to 
conserve but to an inclusive science of man, one that does the best it 
can to harbor the value judgments of experiencing human beings within 
its own catholic "universe of discourse." Such a science will perhaps be 
called a dangerous or treacherous congeries of opinions, ranging all the 
way from the feeble aspirations of theologically or classically tinctured 
humanism to the sentimental, direct-action interferences of mental hy- 
giene. But we need not be so pessimistic. For centuries the only escape 
from fragmentarism was into the too ambitious dream-worlds of philos- 
ophy, worlds defined by the assumption that the human intelligence 
could behold the universe instead of twinkling within. Now that philos- 
ophy is being progressively redefined as a highly technical critique of 
the validity or conditionality of judgments, it is interesting to see two 
disciplines - each of them highly apologetic about its scientific creden- 
tials - which are taking on the character of inclusive perception of 
human events and personal relations in as powerfully conceptualized 
form as possible. These condensafions of human experience are cultural 
anthropology and psychiatry - both of them poorly chosen terms, but 
we can do no better for the moment. 

Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry. - Each of these disciplines has 
its special "universe of discourse" but at least this universe is so broadly 
conceived that, under favorable circumstances, either of them can take 
on the character of a true science of man. Through the sheer weight of 



One: Culfnrc. Society, cinil i/ic Imliviiliuil 375 

cultural detail and. more tlian that, through the far-reaching pcrsonal- 
it\-conditi(ining iiiiplicalitMis o\' \arialit>ns iii the lornis of sociahzed 
behavior, the cultural anthropologist may; if he chooses, advance from 
his relatively technical problems of cultural definition, distribution, or- 
ganization, and history to more intimate problems of cultural meaning, 
both for individuals and Tcm- significantly defmable groups of individ- 
uals. And the psychiatrist may. if he chooses, advance from theories 
of personality disorganization to theories of personality organizatitMi. 
which, in the long run, have little meaning unless they are buttressed 
by a comprehension of the cultural setting in which the individual cease- 
lessly struggles to express himself The Anthropologist, in other words, 
needs only to trespass a little on the untitled acres of psychology, the 
psychiatrist to poach a few o\^ the uneaten apples of anthropology's 
Golden Bough. 

So far the great majority of both kinds of scientists - if that proud 
classification be granted them - have feared to advance very far into 
the larger fields that lie open before them, and for a good reason. The 
fear of losing the insignia of standing in their respective disciplines, still 
dangerously insecure in the hierarchy of science, leads to an anxious 
snobbery which is easily misunderstood as modesty or self-restraint. 
But at least they have this great advantage, so far as the study of man 
is concerned: neither, in his heart of hearts, believes that the economist 
or the political scientist or the aesthetician or any other sort of technical 
expert in conceptually isolated realms or aspects of man's behavior is 
in a position to talk real sense about that behavior. An anthrtipologist 
knows that you can't talk economics without talking about religion or 
superstition at the same time; the psychiatrist knows that you can't talk 
economics without dropping some rather important hints about mental 
health and disease. On the whole, it seems safest to keep such knowl- 
edge in one's heart of hearts and to act as though one were content to 
carry on from where the economist left otT Therefore, as culturalists, 
let us not be too much concerned with what sorts of cultural universes 
A and B and C are living in; as psychiatrists, let us not be too much 
concerned with what the play o[^ "economic forces" is doing to A and 
B and C and be satisfied to nuimhlc. as occasion arises, something quite 
discreet about how an income of $500. 00 a year would not seem to 
discourage B\s paranoid trends or about how poor C"s Don Juanism. 
with its secret unhappiness. might possibly have been mitigated if he 
had only had an income of $5000.00 a year to play with. It is so easy 



376 l^^ Culiurc 

to be paranoid on S5{K).0() a year and it is so difficult to be a Don Juan 
- and C". b\ the way, is not an Apollo - on $500.00 a year. 

Ecoiwnuc hiutors in Personal Adjustment. - Everybody really knows 
a good deal about what economics has to do with the personal distribu- 
tion oi -cultural patterns" and with mental health. The facts are piti- 
fully obvious. Professors who earn only $1500.00 a year cannot go to 
the opera very often and must therefore go in for plain living and high 
thinking. If thev have good health, are happily married, and have more 
than a\crage intelligence, they and their wives can manage to stave off 
envy of the banker and real-estate agent and their respective wives, 
mingle sturdy Puritanism with a subscription to "The Nation," and 
construct a pretty good cultural world for themselves. After all $1500.00 
is three times as much as $500.00. But if their health is not too good, if 
they are not too happily married, and if their intelligence, as generally 
proves to be the case, is about average, then it is to be feared that 
$1500.00 is not quite sufficient to buy themselves enough of cultural 
participation to stave off that corroding envy of the banker and real- 
estate agent and their respective wives which, psychiatrists tell us, is not 
very good for either the digestive tract or the personality organization. 
So, one surmises, a salary of $1500.00 a year for a full professor may 
have a good deal to do with the gradual cultural impoverishment of 
A's universe. A normal vitality will mask the degenerative cultural and 
psychiatric process from himself, his neighbors, the trustees of the uni- 
versity and, above all, the economist, who, having been unpleasantly 
jarred for a moment by his threat to the salary curve of full professors, 
need never think of him again. 

At first A's difficulties find their solution in a slightly apologetic vein 
of irony, which cultivated visitors find rather charming. A certain 
school of social psychologists might at this point even prove that A was 
quite appreciably enriching culture both for himself and society. (Few 
would have the hardihood to suggest that he was enriching the cultural 
world of his wife, though his children might be robust enough to pick 
up a few crumbs of value or, perhaps, more accurately, a few ambiva- 
lently colored experiences which the softening retrospect of later years 
will transmute into crumbs of value - if not indeed into a philosophy, 
so strong is the magic of Illusion.) But A's charm does not wear well, 
no better than the loveliness, once so fashionable, of the incipiently 
tubercular flush. Any competent novelist may step in at this point and 
tell us about the fascinating story of his growing sense of isolation, his 



One Cullurc. Socii'tv. <///</ ///c Im/iviiliuil 311 

growing morbidity, the growing concern oi the trustees o\' the university 
tor the mental heahli of his students, his mevitable, though regrettable, 
dismissal, and o\' iiow, in sheer desperation, he founded a new religion 
(it was a sectarian university alter all), gave Robinson Jeffers a chance 
to write a masterpiece (which the economist's wife, if not the economist, 
can read with comfortable gusto), thereby again adding materially, 
though in a more passive sense, to America's store o\' cultural \alues, 
when, apparently out of blue sky, his wife, unable to determine whether 
she loved him or hated him, committed suicide. Apparently the equili- 
brating power of $1500.00 a year was not enough to avert the tragedy. 
Dare either the culturalist or the psychiatrist say that a salary raise of 
$500.00 would have had no cultural or psychiatric importance? The 
feeble vein of irony might have grown into a sturdy fortress, for with 
an extra $500.00 he could have just managed to buy his wife a dress 
barely good enough to have them go to the annual tea given b\ the 
banker (we forgot to say that he was one of the trustees of the uni\er- 
sity) for the express purpose of having faculty and trustees get to know 
each other. As it is, he was morbidly isolated, she no less. And, if the 
truth were known, Robinson Jeffers had a lot of other things to write 
about. 

All of this, the economist insists - and quite rightly - is neither here 
nor there. If sociologists want to worry about such things, let them. 
They don't have to be so scientific. But most sociologists dearly wish 
to be scientific. They collect case histories, to be sure, but it is generally 
seen to that they contain just enough data to make it possible to dis- 
cover general truths (such as that full protessors in southern universities 
are less amply rewarded for their services than in northern uni\ersities) 
but not enough data to make A intelligible. That would be iinading the 
field of the novelist and no scientist, c/ua scientist, can afford to do that. 
So we must turn to the psychiatrist, it seems, and ask him to be so 
kind as to add the following law or observation or principle (the exact 
terminological placement of this truth to be decided on later): "\V'hoe\er 
is sophisticated enough, sensitive enough and representati\e eiuuigh oi 
our country's higher culture to get himself appointed a full professor in 
one of the universities of said country, caniun. if he is married, be ex- 
pected, in view of the known cost of many requisite ssnibols of status, 
to be either happy or comfortable at a salary u hich is less than a quarter 
(the figure is merely a random suggesiii^n) o\ the income o\' the 
averagely prosperous banker or real-estate agent o\' the communit\ in 



37g /// Culture 

^^hlch he lives, it being presumed that the remaining three-quarters (or 
other suitable figure) be more or less adequately compensated for by 
such substitutive values as membership in scientific societies and the 
habit oi reading diHlcull but not too expensive literature. It is suggested 
that SI5(M).(M) a year is well below the safe minimum for such a person. 
In the absence of powerful personality-preserving factors, such as unu- 
sually robust health or a far more than averagely happy marriage, so 
low a salar\ must be considered a definite factor in the possible deterio- 
ration o\' the professor's personality." 

if the psychiatrist exclaims that this is mixing psychiatry and econom- 
ics with a vengeance, we must gently remind him that personalities live 
in tangible environments and that the business of making a living is one 
of the bed-rock factors in their environmental adjustment. We are not in 
a position to distinguish sharply between innate or organismal strains, 
physical and psychological, and so-called external strains. They come 
to us fatally blended in practice and it is a wise man who can presume 
to say which is of more decisive importance. For all practical purposes 
a too low income is at least as significant a datum in the causation of 
mental ill-health as a buried Oedipus complex or sex trauma. Why 
should not the psychiatrist be frank enough to call attention to the great 
evils of unemployment or of lack of economic security? His recognized 
concern for the well-being of the individual gives him every right to be 
heard, where ordinary opinion or common sense is often dismissed as 
governed by sentimental prejudices. 

Now as to the starveling farmer and his $500.00 income, he is too 
busy, from dawn to bed-time, to know whether his health is good or 
bad and he hasn't the faintest notion whether he is happily married or 
not. Imperious task follows task in an all-day grind, he barely manages, 
he cannot pay off his mortgage, he is thankful for reprieves. The notion 
of mental ill-health is a luxury to him, he'd rather suspect himself of 
laziness - there's so much to be done - just as he'd rather suspect the 
other fellow of being a little weak in the head than waste breath on the 
ill-effects of extreme poverty. His class comes in relatively httle contact 
with the psychiatrist and the mental hygienist. You either somehow 
manage or you "bust." If you manage, there's little need to graduate the 
psychological quality of the performance. Happiness, soul-weariness, 
apathy, envy, petty greed, are just so many novehstic fancies, utterly 
dwarfed by the solid facts that the potatoes didn't do so well this year, 
that the cows must be milked as usual, that the market for hay is unex- 



One: Ciilniiv. Socicfv. mul the hu/ivli/tml 379 

pectedly poor. It is only wlicn ihc sober. inc\ liable, corrodinii iiii|">o\cr- 
ishmcnt oi" the farmer's personality is lit up b\ some speelaeular mor- 
bidity of sex or religion that the psychiatrist or novelist or poet is 
attracted to him. The far more important dullness of daily routine. o( 
futile striving, of ceaseless mental thwarting, does not seem to clamor 
for the psychiatrist's analysis. 

All this is known to be "uninteresting," hence we prettify the facts as 
best we can with shreds of folk-lore, survivals of a pioneering culture 
that had a self-containedness and salisfyingness of its own. That culture 
has rotted away and our farmer is little more than a disgruntled eco- 
nomic drudge and a cultural parasite. It is not only worth the ps\chia- 
trist's while to inquire into these conditions and report on them, it is 
his duty to do so. Perhaps we could better understand morbid religious 
frenzies, lynch law, and other devastating phenomena of contemporary 
American life if we looked more closely into the psychological tissue of 
our rural life. "North of Boston" and Faulkner's exhibits need to be 
supplemented by the sober case history and by the economico-psychiat- 
ric appraisal of the conditions of life in our rural sections. 

As to C, the interest of the psychiatrist in his moods, contlicts, and 
aspirations is perennial. He has his troubles, it seems, his surfeits and 
futilities, and we are all glad to know that the psychiatrist is eager to 
put his technical skill at his disposal. All human life is sacred - to hark 
back to a nineteenth century prejudice - and C should, most certainly, 
be made a happier man, if C will only let the psychiatrist defme happi- 
ness, which I take to be a synonym of mental health, for him. But is it 
wrong to remark that for every suffering C there are many thousands 
of suffering A's and many thousands of suffering B's? We shall not try 
to fantasy what ails C, there are many admirable textbooks o( psychia- 
try which give us a fair notion of how to be miserable though wealthy. 
Perhaps C too inclines to suffer from an economic ill that obscure, 
perverse, built feeling which, the psychiatrist tells us, so often festers in 
one's heart of hearts when one tries to balance one's usefulness to soci- 
ety with the size of one's income. Here too is a chance for ps\chiatrists 
to be reasonably vocal. Is it conceivable that good mental hygiene. e\en 
expert psychiatry, may find it proper to recommend some share o\ in- 
come reduction for the sake o\' the mental health o\' those who are loo 
heavily burdened by a material prosperity that far outruns their needs 
or, if the truth were known, their secret desires? In this mysterious realm 
we need further light. 



380 fff Culture 

Editorial Notes 

Orminally published in Menial Health, Publication No. 9 (American 
/Vssocialion tor ihc Advancement of Science, 1939), pp. 237-244. 
I . As some of my readers have from time to time expressed their diffi- 
culi\ uith ni> non-medical use of the terms "psychiatry" and "psychiat- 
ric." 1 must explain thai 1 use these terms in lieu of a possible use 
of "psNchology" and "'psychologicar' with explicit stress on the total 
personality as the central point of reference in all problems of behavior 
and in all problems of 'Vulture" (analysis of socialized patterns). Thus, 
a segmental behavior study, such as a statistical inquiry into the ability 
of children o{ the age group 7-11 to learn to read, is not in my sense 
a properly "psychiatric" study because the attention is focused on a 
fundamentally arbitrary objective, however important or interesting, 
one not directly suggested by the study of personality structure and the 
relations of defined personalities to each other. Such a study may be 
referred to "psychology" or "applied psychology" or "education" or 
"educational psychology." Equally marginal to "psychiatry" in my 
sense is such a study in the externalized patterning of "collective beha- 
vior" as the analysis of a ritual or handicraft, whether descriptively or 
historically. Studies of this type may be referred to "ethnology" or "cul- 
ture history" or "sociology." 

On the other hand, a systematic study of the acquirement of reading 
habits with reference to whether they help or hinder the development 
of fantasy in children of defined personality type is a properly "psychi- 
atric" study because the concept of the total personality is necessarily 
utilized in it. A close study of the symbolisms of ritual or handicraft, 
provided these symbolisms are discussed as having immediate relevance 
for our understanding of personality types, is also a truly "psychiatric" 
study. "Personality" and "personalistic" would be adequate terms but 
are too uncouth for practical use. My excuse for extending the purely 
"medical" connotation of the terms "psychiatry" and "psychiatric" is 
that psychiatrists themselves, in trying to understand the wherefore of 
aberrant behavior, have had to look far more closely into basic prob- 
lems of personality structure, of symbolism, and of fundamental human 
mterrelationships than have either the "psychologists" or the various 
types of "social scientists." 



References, Section One 

Boas, Franz 

1887 The Study of Geography. Science (O. S. 9): 1 37 141. 
1911 The Mliul oj Prinilfivc Man. New York: Macmillan. 

I^anicll. Regna 

1986a IVrsonalily and C'ullurc: The Falc of ihc Sapinan Allcrnalnc. JIi.s- 

tory of Anthropology 4: 156- 183. 
1986b The Integration of Sapir's Mature Intellect. In William Cowan, 
Michael Foster and Konrad Koerner. eds., New Perspectives in Lum- 
ginige. Culture and Personality. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John 
Benjamins: 553-588. 
1990 Edward Sapir: Linguist. Anthropologist. Hunianist. Berkeley and Los 
Angeles: University of California Press. 
Geertz, Clifford 

1988 Works and Lives: The .Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford 
University Press. 
Goldenweiser, Alexander 

1917 The Autonomy of the Social. .American .Anthropologist 19: 447-449. 
Irvine, Judith T., ed. 

1993 The Psychology of Culture: .A Course of Lectures fhy Edward Sapir J. 
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 
Jung. Carl Gustav 

1923 Psychological Types: or The Psychology of Individuation. New York: 
Harcourt Brace. 
Kroeber. Alfred L. 

1917a The Superorganic. American .Anthropologist 19: 163 -213. 
1917b (24 July) Letter to Edward Sapir. Archives of the University of Cali- 
fornia. Berkeley. 
1919 On the Prmciple of Order in Ci\ilizalion as Lxempliiied b\ Changes 

of Fashion. American Anthropologist 21: 235-263. 
1944 Configurations of Culture Cirowth. Berkele\ and Los Angeles: Uni- 
versity of California Press. 
19S2 Culture and Civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press. 

- and Clyde Kluckhohn. eds. 

1952 Culture: .A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. Cambridge 
MA: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Flhnology. 

- and Jane Richardson 

1940 Three Centuries of Women's Dress Fashions: .A Ouantitali\c .Analy- 
sis. Anthropological Records 5 (2): i-iv. 11 153. 



y^2 Iff Culture 

Lccds-Hurwit/. Wendy and James M. Nyce 

1986 Linguistic Text Collection and the Development of Life History in 
the Work of Edward Sapir. In William Cowan, Michael Foster and 
Konrad Koerner. eds.. New Perspectives in Language, Culture ami 
Personality. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 
495 531. 

Lowic. Robert H. 

1920 Primitive Society. New York: Harper Torchbook. 

1965 Letters from Robert H. Lowie to Edward Sapir. Berkeley: privately 
published. 
Mandclbaum. Da\id. ed. 

1949 Selected IVritings of Edward Sapir. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni- 
versity of California Press. 
Mead, Margaret, ed. 

1959 An Anthropologist at Work: The Writings of Ruth Benedict. Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin. 
Ogburn, William Fielding 

1917 (31 December) Letter to Edward Sapir. Archives of the National 
Museum of Man, Ottawa, now the Canadian Museum of Civiliza- 
tion. 
Ogburn. William Fielding and Alexander Goldenweiser, eds. 

1927 The Social Sciences and their Interrelations. Boston: Boston Univer- 
sity Press. 
Preston, Richard 

1986 Sapir's 'Psychology of Culture' Prospectus. In William Cowan, 
Michael Foster and Konrad Koerner, eds., New Perspectives in Lan- 
guage. Culture and Personality. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John 
Benjamins: 533-551. 
Rcdlleld. Robert, Ralph Linton and Melville Herskovits 

1936 Memorandum for the Study of Acculturation. American Anthropol- 
ogist 38: 149-152. 
Rivers. W. H. R. 

1921 Instinct and the Unconscious. Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press. 

Sapir, Edward 

1917 (29 October) Letter to Alfred L. Kroeber. Archives of the University 

of California, Berkeley. 
1 932 (24 May) Letter to Alfred L. Kroeber. Archives of the University of 
California, Bekeley. 
Spier. Leslie. A. Irving Hallowell and Stanley Newman, eds. 

1941 Language, Culture and Personality: Essays in Memory of Edward 
Sapir. Menasha WI: Edward Sapir Memorial Fund. 



One Culture. Society, luul the /ndividunl 383 

Stocking, George W.. Jr., cd. 

1980 Letter o\' Edward Sapir to Philip Sclznick (25 October r^'^S) ///s- 
forv of .Anthntpoloiiv Newsletter. 
Tylor, Edward B. 

1871 Primitive Culture, l^ondon: John Murray. 
Voegclin, Carl F. 

1984 [1952] Edward Sapir. In Konrad Kocrncr. cd.. luhviird Supir: Ap- 
praisals of his Life ami Work. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John 
Benjamins, pp. 33-36. [Ilrsl published 1952, Word Study 27 (4): 
1-3. 



Section Two 
The Psychology of CuUurc 



Judith T. Irvine, editor 



Acknowledgements 

The work that follows is a reconstruction of a course of lectures {-(.luartl Sapir gave at 
■^'ale L'ni\ersit\. lectures that were to have been the basis of a book he iiad ctintraclcd 
to publish with Harcmirt. Brace. Most of the material used for the reconstruction comes 
from student notes, collected and microfilmed shortly after Sapir's death uilh a siew 
toward eventual publication. 

In embarking on this task 1 was initially somewhat daunted by the prospect of con- 
structing a text in which, inevitably, I must put words in Sapir's mouth. I am much 
indebted, therefore, to the late Fred Eggan. the principal custodian of this material o\er 
the decades, who encouraged me to interweave the notes, put them in narrative form. 
and treat the whole as a Sapir "manuscript". I was also encouraged by the example of 
Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, without whose etTorts we would never have seen 
Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Lini^iii.siics. Nevertheless. I have marked my 
own insertions so that readers will have some basis for judging for themsehes degrees 
of certainty in the reconstruction. 

There are many people who have contributed materials, encouragement, or assis- 
tance to this project. J. David Sapir first drew me in to the plans for publishing a new 
edition ol" Edward Sapir's work; he has remained a source of encouragement, as has 
Dell Hynies, himself a historian (as well as eminent practitioner) of linguistic anthropol- 
ogy and. like David Sapir, my former teacher. Both were members ol' the Sapir Cente- 
nary joint committee of the Linguistic Society of America and the American Anthropo- 
logical Association, which selected the editorial board for The Collected Whrks of Ed- 
n arc! Sapir {CWES). 

For source materials 1 am indebted, first of all, to David Mandelbaum and Jred 
Eggan, who initially collected and preserved eleven sets of student notes from Sapir's 
course at Yale. Fred Eggan gave me a copy - perhaps the onl\ one extant o\ the 
microfilm on which the notes were recorded. Both he and Da\id Mandelbaum also 
|->ro\ided me with access to their own notes on all courses ihey look with Sapir. as well 
as rele\anl correspondence. Just before his death. Mandelbaum \er\ kindl\ answered 
my questions about Sapir and in\ited me to look at his files in his olllce at Berkele\. 1 
am grateful to Ruth Mandelbaum for her help in following through on that in\itation 
and for sharing her own recollections o\' the Yale student cohort. The .Xnthropology 
Department of the L'niversity of C\ilifornia at Berkeley hospitabls assisted iin work in 
their offices. 

Several other students whose notes were assembled on the ^ale microfilm were still 
available to help me. I am grateful to Irving Rouse. Mary Mikami Rouse. Weston 
LaBarre. and Walter Taylor for permission to use their notes and for helpful responses 
to my inquiries. Walter Taylor further permitted me to consult the originals o\' his class 
notes and related correspondence. Two Yale students whose notes on Sapir's course 
were not included in the microfilm located them and lent them to me: Beatrice Bl\th 
Whiting and Edgar Siskin. I am also indebted to them and to John Whiting and 



3g8 /// Culture 

Allan Smiih. as well lor sharing recollections of the Yale years. Siskin, who was 
especially encouraging about this project, also lent me notes on other courses he took 

from Sapir. 

Copies of notes taken by the late Stanley Newman and Frank Setzler, from an earlier 
version of the course gi\cn at the University of Chicago, were kindly provided by 
Richard Preston. Preston has studied most of the class notes himself (see Preston 1986) 
and his interpretations of them contribute much to my own rendition. 

I owe a considerable debt to Philip Sapir: for providing me with copies of Edward 
Sapir's correspiMidence with Harcourt, as well as other correspondence relating to the 
Psychology oj Culture notes and to the 1949 volume, Selected Writings of Edward Sapir; 
for permission to publish Sapir's chapter outline and a previously unpublished excerpt 
from Sapir's correspondence; for identifying and obtaining for me a further set of 
sources, the student notes from the Rockefeller Seminar on "The Impact of Culture on 
Personality": for helping me get funds for archival work and research assistance; and 
for many other forms of assistance and encouragement. 

Regna Darnell has read the manuscript at many stages and provided helpful advice 
throughout. John Lucy and Victor Golla have also read and commented upon the 
manuscript or portions of it. Michael Silverstein provided me with notes from his own 
research on Sapir, and brought Eggan's microfilm and other notes to me so that they 
did not have to be entrusted to the mails. 

Mary Catherine Bateson gave permission to use the Rockefeller Seminar materials, 
on file with the Margaret Mead papers in the Library of Congress. I would also like to 
acknowledge the Peabody Museum of Harvard University for permission to consult the 
Walter Taylor papers, then housed in their archives (now at the Smithsonian), and the 
Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley for access to the Kroeber 
papers. 

My efTorts in the early stages of the process of reconstructing a text owe much to 
the assistance of Sue Woodson-Marks. Jane Goodman, Somervell Linthicum, Jacque- 
line Baum. and Elizabeth Martin made preliminary reconstructions of portions of the 
text and contributed (as did Laurie Rothstein and Gregory Button) to thinking through 
how the reconstruction should be done. 

Last but not least, I am grateful for the help, advice, and moral support of Marie- 
Louise Liebe-Harkort of Mouton De Gruyter, and for the encouragement and forbear- 
ance of my family, Stephen L. Pastner and Deborah and Rebecca Pastner. 

Judith T Irvine 



The Psychology of Culture: Editor's Introduction 

Judith T. Irvine 

In 1928, at'ter a conversation with AltYcd Harcourt on the Twentieth- 
Century Limited out of Chicago, Edward Sapir wrote to Harcourt, 
Brace proposing to pubhsh a book on "The Psychology of CuUure". 
Estimated at about 100,000 words in length, the book was to he based 
upon a graduate course Sapir had been giving at the University of Chi- 
cago. The course had attracted a considerable audience, drawing in 
psychologists as well as anthropologists and sociologists. Sapir hoped 
that the book, too, might appeal to a wide circle of non-professional 
readers.' The book proposal and the chapter outline accompanying it 
were well received, and Harcourt contracted to publish the work. 

Despite Harcourt 's enthusiasm for the project and Sapir's sense of its 
potential importance, the book was not to be. Other projects inter- 
vened, including duties which Sapir undertook for financial or admin- 
istrative reasons. But the idea for the book was not merely a momentary 
fiash of enthusiasm conceived in a heady train conversation and forgot- 
ten as soon as the train pulled into the station. Although Sapir's interest 
in the project appears to have fluctuated, he continued to teach and to 
rework the course on which it was to be based, and to refer to his 
intention to complete the book, until almost the end of his life. He gave 
the course several times after his move to Yale in 1931, and materials 
from the last version of the course ( 1936-37) suggest new ideas and a 
renewed excitement about the project, especially toward the end o( the 
academic year. 

The following summer (1937), after a strenuous eight weeks' teaching 
at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor. Sapir sulTered a serious heart 
attack and had to curtail his work c\Tov{ and lra\el plans for his sabbati- 
cal year (1937-38). Still, in a hopeful motHJ in October 1937 he wrote 
that "it is my plan to work at The Psychology of C\ilturc* during this 
sabbatical."- As it turned out, recurrent illness made it impossible to 
carry out this plan. Though he again mentioned the work in a letter of 
October 1938 as "a book that I have still to write", ^ by that lime it was 



390 



/// Culture 



all too clear that his plixMcal strength was waning. Sapir died in Febru- 
ary W39, this project and many others remaining unfinished. 

Many of Sapir's untinished works were edited and completed by his 
student's and colleagues after his death. As early as May 1939 Sapir's 
widow, Jean McClenaghan Sapir, and Leslie Spier initiated plans to 
fuinil the Harcourt contract, so that 'The Psychology of Culture" could 
be published posthumously.-* The enterprise differed from other efforts 
to edit Sapir's work, because no actual manuscript in Sapir's hand had 
been found, other than the chapter outline and correspondence he had 
sent to the publisher.^ What was proposed, therefore, was to collect sets 
of notes from the students who had attended the course of lectures on 
which the book was to have been based, and from these to "present the 
gist o\' it" as an essay.^' 

Sapir's students responded with alacrity. Under the leadership of Da- 
vid Mandelbaum, who had emerged as organizer of the festschrift 
eventually published as a memorial volume,^ eleven sets of notes were 
assembled and microfilmed.^ Elizabeth Herzog, then the wife of the 
ethnomusicologist George Herzog, was to have attempted the recon- 
struction. Although the notion of fulfilling the Harcourt contract was 
soon abandoned, there was considerable enthusiasm for including some 
version of this material in a collection of Sapir's writings (the collection 
published in 1949 as Selected Writings of Edward Sapir, edited by Man- 
delbaum). Commenting, for example, on a proposed table of contents 
for that volume, the linguist Zellig Harris assigned the highest priority 
on the list of Sapir's works to "The Psychology of Culture; The Outline 
of Sapir's course, supplemented by an integrated transcript of students' 
notes". '"Please, as full as possible," Harris wrote. ^ 

By 1946, however, it had become evident that the class notes material 
could not be included in Selected Writings after all. The task of recon- 
structing a text from the notes was much larger than it had seemed at 
first, and the resulfing text would have been too long to be added to an 
already sizeable volume. During the next few decades, although many 
people expressed interest in the notes and in any synthesis that might 
be made of them, nothing came of the idea until the Sapir Centenary 
in 1984.'" With renewed interest in Sapir and the initiation of a new 
publication project. The Collected Works of Edward Sapir, which was 
to include as much of Sapir's academic work - published or unpub- 
lished - as possible, an attempt to integrate the student notes looked 
worth undertaking. 



Two: Tlw Psyclioto^y of Culture 391 

riic present work is llic rcsiill. It is an allcnipl Id fuirill ilic hope 
Sapir's sliklcnls, cc^llcagucs. and famil) lia\c expressed o\er the years: 
thai a sel ol leeliues making a major et^nlribulicMi lo anthropology and 
l^isseholog} should be made piihhe. Though Sapir isjustls renowned for 
the importanee olliis uurk in linguistics - and his interest in the details 
o[^ linguistic analysis was almost always greater than his interest in the 
details of ethnological work the cxlenl of his commilmenl to rethink- 
ing theory and method in anthropology and psychology has tended to 
be underestimated. It is not to be measured by the number of his actual 
publications." Sapir saw himself as a central contribiUor to the social 
sciences, and many of his contemporaries would ha\e agreed. The 
Psycholos^y of Culture was to have been an important work. 

A synthesis of classroom presentations is not, of course, the same 
thing as the polished, carefully thought-through manuscript Sapir 
would himself ha\e produced had he lived to complete this book. His 
class lectures must often ha\e included spontaneous flashes of insight, 
tentative explorations of ideas, and otT-the-cuff examples, all o\' w hich 
he would have meticulously checked, developed, and evaluated before 
presenting them in print as fmal intellectual judgements.'- When these 
lectures were given, Sapir's ideas were still evoking, and a classroom 
presentation to students differs tYom a formal presentation lo ciW- 
leagues. For instance, these lectures include a few comments on Sapir's 
anthropological contemporaries that are sharper in tone than any he 
ever allowed to appear in print. Moreover, student lecture notes - 
which make up the vast preponderance of the source materials for the 
reconstruction - must surely differ from what was aclualls said, both 
in inclusiveness and in subtlety. 

Nevertheless, the notes include so many passages m which one Ncems 
to hear the echo of Sapir's voice, and so many topics umepresented or 
only hinted at in his published writings, that Sapir's students and others 
from 1939 on have seen this material as a significant part i>f his intellec- 
tual legacy. Most important, perhaps, is the broad scope o\' the lecture 
course and book, as compared with the essay fc^inal of his actual publi- 
cations in cultural anthropology and psycholog). The I\syih(>h>i:y of 
Culture affords us a glimpse of how Sapir would have sketched a broad 
\ista oi^ anthropological aiul ps\chological issues. Alllunigh some o\' 
those issues are perhaps ol' less interest toda\ than the\ were in the 
193()'s, on the whole Sapir's conception of culture, of anthn^pological 
method and theory, and o( individuals and their relationships remams 



392 JJJ Ciilmrc 

fresh and relevant. The work is not only a document of historical inter- 
est, bill a contribution to contemporary culture theory and psychologi- 
cal anthropology. 



The Evolution of Sapir's Course 

Since the material drawn upon for reconstruction comes from several 
difTcrent \ersions o\^ Sapir's course, the resulting text necessarily masks 
what those dilTerences are and in what ways the course shifted over 
time. It may be useful, therefore, to summarize the kinds of changes 
that appear in the source materials as the course evolved. ^^ The most 
interesting changes are those that suggest new directions in Sapir's 
thinking. Not all the differences among versions of the course are likely 
to be due to changed ideas, however. Some are more likely related to 
practical and pedagogical concerns. 

I shall pay most attention to the Yale period, since it provides most 
oi the material I have used in reconstructing the text. But by the time 
Sapir presented the course at Yale he had already given several versions 
of it elsewhere. The earliest was a summer course at Columbia in 1925; 
no detailed records of this remain, as far as I know. At the end of that 
summer Sapir moved to Chicago, where (in the fall of 1925) he offered 
a set of ten lectures derived from the Columbia course to a popular 
audience, a group headed by the Chicago lawyer Clarence Darrow. 
Following that condensed version came the regular University course 
on "The Psychology of Culture", first given in the winter term of 1926 
and repeated several times. Since Chicago was on a quarter system, the 
course there occupied only 30 one-hour class meetings over ten weeks, 
a much shorter format than at Yale, where it was spread over a full 
academic year. 

Arriving at Yale in 1931, Sapir did not offer the "Psychology of Cul- 
ture" course immediately. Instead, he first presented portions of this 
material during the international seminar on 'The Impact of Culture 
on Personality" sponsored by the Rockefeller Institute and held at Yale 
in 1932-33.''* The students in the seminar were young scholars in the 
social sciences from a variety of different countries. The idea was that 
these scholars, representing different cultural traditions, would combine 
the roles of informant and analyst, and the resuU would be a social 
science transcending the limitations of any one set of cultural assump- 



Two: The Psychology of Cullun- 393 

tions. In leading the seminar Sapir was assisted b\ John Dollard. as 
well as a long list o^ visiting speakers. 

Although the Rockefeller Seminar had the same title as Sapir ga\e to 
his lecture course in the following year, its formal and emphasis were 
different. In the seminar Sapir did not attempt to lecture on the full 
range of topics he had discussed at Chicago and planned for the hook. 
Participants* activities included a "nuclear course" of two lectures per 
week, but apparenth Sapir did not give many of these lectures himself 
until the second semester. Concerned more with psychology than with 
culture per se, most of his presentations that spring relate only to por- 
tions of the second half of his book outline and the Chicago course. 

It was not until 1933-34, then, that Sapir first olTered a two-semester 
regular graduate course on the material for his book. Retaining for the 
time being the Rockefeller Seminar title, "The Impact of Culture on 
Personality", Sapir expanded his Chicago course but devoted a con- 
siderable amount of course time to student reports and discussion. Sev- 
eral class meetings in the fall were given over to exercises in the descrip- 
tion and analysis of two common American cultural patterns: smoking 
and piano-playing (see Appendix I). There were also assignments on 
definitions of "culture" and the concept of "the social"", on de\ ising 
cultural inventories,'-'' and (in the spring term) on the imestigation of 
etiquette. Later versions of the course apparently abandoned these ped- 
agogical exercises, or at least did not discuss them during classroom 
hours. The lecture component of the course was expanded instead. In 
1935-36 and 1936-37 Sapir also changed the course title back to ' Ilie 
Psychology of Culture". 

These pedagogical changes affect se\eral portions o\ the recon- 
structed manuscript. Because the 1933 exercises on smoking and piano- 
playing were self-contained, easily isolated from the rest o\^ the course, 
and never repeated, I have remosed llieni Uom ihc main bod> o\' the 
text and placed them in an Appendix. The other assignments were not 
so easily isolated, and since Sapir seems to ha\e integrated their discus- 
sion into his 1933 lecture material, I have included them likewise. Chap- 
ter 2 in particular, with its leisurely exploration o\' the term "social", 
reflects the dynamics of classroom gi\e-and-take. as (to a lesser extent) 
does Chapter 12's treatment of etiquette. Although a shift from class 
discussion to lecture presents some dilTiculties for the editorial pri>cess. 
differences between versions o\' the course on these topics cannot be 
attributed solely or even largely to changes in Sapirs thinking. 



394 II f Cultwc 

Anolher dilVcrcnce between ihe 1933 and later versions of the mate- 
rial in Chapter 2, "The Concept o\^ Culture in the Social Sciences", 
involves disciphnary issues. Perhaps because of his involvement in the 
interdisciplinary Rockefeller Seminar the previous year, as well as his 
recent experiences with ihc interdisciplinary activities of the Social Sci- 
ence Research Council. Sapir"s discussion of Chapter 2's topic in 1933 
has relalisely little to say about the special disciplinary concerns of 
anthropology, preferring a more diffuse orientation to the social sci- 
ences in general. In 1935 and 1936 Sapir seems, instead, to speak to an 
audience of anthropologists about their own field and its problems, such 
as methodological dilTiculties in cross-cultural ethnography. The sense 
of anthropological audience is again apparent in Chapter 5, where the 
later versions o'i the course include a lengthy excursion into Sapir's own 
Nootka ethnography lo illustrate cultural configurations and methods 
of investigating them. 

Gi\en the vagaries of student attendance and note-taking, it is proba- 
bl> unwise to draw many inferences from omissions in topical coverage. 
Still, one might notice that in Chapter 3, "'Causes' of Culture", a sec- 
tion on economic causes discussed in 1933 does not occur in the records 
for later years. The putative "causes" of cultural form discussed in this 
chapter - the others are race, geography, and an aphoristic psychology 
- are raised here only to be thoroughly and finally dismissed; conceiva- 
bly. Sapir may have decided that the role of economics in culture was 
a dilTerent. more complicated kind of problem. Did he also change his 
mind as to whether economic determinants were to be entirely dis- 
missed? The answer remains unclear. What he did say on economic 
"causes" in 1933 does not appear to be out of line with his published 
statements of later years, and he certainly never changed his mind so 
radically as to become an economic determinist. Yet, the 1936-37 notes 
show a discussion later on in the course (see Chapter 10, 'The Adjust- 
ment of the Individual in Society") that closely follows a portion of his 
argument in the 1939 paper, "Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the 
Business of Getting a Living", in which large-scale economic organiza- 
tion appears as an independent social force impinging on the indivi- 
dual."' 

With the exception of the matters mentioned so far, and some expan- 
sion of lectures in later years to fill class time no longer taken up by 
discussion of student assignments, the contents and organization of the 
first two thirds of the course - the material represented in Chapters 1 
through 8 - remained quite stable during the Yale years. Evidently 



Two: The Twchoh^y of ( uliurc 395 

Sapir had scltlcci on the \ icu orciiltiiic he \santcd lo present (l\irt I. 
chapters 1-6), and on what lie wanted to say about the concept ol 
personahtN (chapters 7 and S in Part II). I'p to this point in the bi>t>k. 
culture and the indi\idual are discussed rather separatels. It is the re- 
maining chaiileis thai explore then nexus and clinch the argument: and 
the three ^'ale \ersions of this discussion differ considerably. Sapir's 
ideas in this culminating pt>rtion o\' the course seem still to have been 
e\ol\ing. In the later \ersions o\' the cmirse lie revised the organization 
of the last two months" lectures and added new material. 

These changes had major implicalions l\>r the thrust of Sapir's book. 
They also created editorial problems. Because the student notes from 
ditTerent years are not compatibly organized, and because Sapir's new 
ideas are represented onl\ in the 1936-37 notes, the final chapters o\ 
the book prosed difUcuil lo reconstruct. 1 ha\e had to rel\ more heavily 
than elsewhere on Sapir's published writings and letters o\' the same 
period ( 1937-39) - and on my own interpretation - to fill in the gaps. 
Material with which Sapir had concluded the course in earlier years, 
including much oi' his discussion ol' symbolism, could not be smoothly 
integrated into the 1937 discussion. 

My solution was to move the earlier material out into separate chap- 
ters (12 and 13). Thus the final ( 1937) \ersion o\' the course ends with 
Chapter 11. Part 111 is an addendum, representing earlier conclusions. 
It is not that Sapir had come to disagree with the details o\' what he 
had then said, but that he did not use them to conclude the course. 
Unfortunately, the evidence as to how he actually did conclude it in the 
final lecture o\' 1937 is relatively scanty. Only a few sketch) notes on 
that lecture survive. 



The Plan and Puiposc oi' the Book 

Because of the lack o\' a strong cc^ncludmg statement in the recon- 
structed text, it ma\ be worthwhile to summarize the book's argument 
here. 

There can be lillle doubt thai Sapir einisioned his j^roposed book as 
a major theoretical statement of culuiial anlhropolog\. as that held had 
been defined by Pranz Boas and his students. Man> of the book's con- 
cerns were shared by fellow members o\ the lioas school, and some ol 
the material in chapters 3 and 4 (the discussion of culture, race, and 
geography, and the ciitKiue c>f cullure-tiail iineniories) o\erlaps sub- 



396 tli Culfuiv 

staniialK uiih statements by others. But although not all the ideas in 
the book are unique to Sapir. it is perhaps insufficiently recognized 
today hou much he contributed to their discussion. For example, his 
conception of cultural patterning and configuration, and their relation 
to function, \sere developed prior to the appearance of Benedict's Pat- 
terns of Culture, but not published in detail until now (see Chapter 5), 
although he had presented them in letters, lectures, and colloquia. And 
as Benedict's book did in 1933, Sapir's 1928 plan for The Psychology of 
Cuhurc was to explore the relationship between the patterns of culture 
and the psychology of individuals - though with a different conception 
of what the relationship was. as his critique of Benedict's work reveals 
(see Chapter 9). Thus the fact that Sapir's sense of cultural anthropolo- 
gv's agenda was shared with some of his fellow Boasians does not di- 
minish the originality of his contribution. 

As his contemporaries often recognized, Sapir's expertise in linguistics 
gave him a special perspective that extended into the rest of his anthro- 
pological work. One way in which language occupies an important 
place in his cultural anthropology is that he so frequently cites it as a 
prime example of a cultural phenomenon. Indeed, in the present book 
discussions of language appear again and again, for that reason. These 
discussions of language structure and use serve Sapir's arguments about 
culture in several ways: linguistic examples are drawn upon to illustrate 
arguments about culture; the organization of cultural patterns is deemed 
analogous to the organization of grammatical forms, with lexicon pro- 
viding a key to the patterns' psychological reality (see, especially. Chap- 
ter 5); and conversational interaction emerges as the locus of cultural 
dynamics (Chapter 10). One might also suspect that Sapir's understand- 
ing of language's systematicity, and the relation between form and 
meaning in language, contribute at a more subtle level to his ideas about 
cultural configurations and function - even to his ideas about the pro- 
cesses of cultural change (Chapter 6). 

Yet, the originality of the book does not stem only from the influence 
of linguistics in it, but also from Sapir's conceptions of "culture" and 
"psychology" themselves and the epistemological issues relating to 
them. 

To explore "the psychology of culture", the Yale course material di- 
vides into two roughly equal parts: a discussion of the concept of cul- 
ture and a discussion of psychology. The rationale for this organization 
may perhaps be best understood by a glance at Sapir's 1930 Hanover 
Conference paper, which seesaws between culture and personality in 



7\\(>: The l*s\ilu)U)iiy nj Culture 397 

order to show thai an exploration o\' ihc one necessarily leads to a 
consideration of the other. Hies are \\\o poles of analytical interest 
two approaches to the same observational siibiect matter, namely hu- 
man behavior. Like the conference paper, the book points to the thet>- 
retical and methodological prc^blems that arise if "culture" and '"mdiM- 
dual ps\cholog\" are cc^nlrasli\el\ underslooLl. Instead, each is to be 
understood in ways that lead toward the other. 

In the first half ot the book Sapir defmes ''culture" in terms of ideas 
and values, organized in conceptual systems. Krom the beginning he 
bases this \ iew c^f culture o\^ an argument that in any society - 
individuals will represent society's values differently. Culture rests, 
therefore, on selective valuation, and on an imaginati\e projection c^f 
ideals and wishes which some social subgroups will appear to fulfill 
more than others do (Chapter 1 ). While a psychological approach to 
culture is o\^ course a hallmark of Boasian anthropology, Sapir's pre- 
sumption of intra-socielal variation as basic to the \ery concept t>f cul- 
ture is clearly his own, as is his emphasis on imagination. 

The methodological and theoretical importance o\^ individual varia- 
tion is a subject Sapir had been exploring at least since 1917 (in "Do 
We Need the 'Superorganic'?", his reply to Kroeber [1917]), and it occu- 
pies much o'i the present work as well, especialh' Cliapter 2. There, in 
an argument clearly continuous with his 1917 paper. Sapir points out 
the problematic methodological abstractions iinohed m mo\ing fn^ni 
the observation o\^ individuals' behavior to a statement o^ cultural 
pattern pertaining to society. It is a fallacy, he contends, to identif\ 
culture with ph>sical phenomena, such as material objects or outward 
behavior. Instead, culture resides in the siifnifuancc of these, and in the 
conceptual pattern undcrl\ing ihcin. Il is also a fallacy to identify cul- 
ture with societv. in the sense o\' some aggregate o\' people. Despite the 
fact that anthropologists must consider cultural meanings to ha\e a 
social (as opposed to a private) frame oi' reference. Sapir warns that 
"society" is not a physical or obscr\alional gi\en. but a conceptual 
construct. As such it intluences the beiia\icM of e\en the most isolated 
individual. 

Despite its scK'ial fiame o\' reference, then, culture must not be as- 
sumed to be unilornil\ shared among some aggregate of people. l-\ery- 
one does not know the same things, and the significance they attribute 
to those things will not be identical, since it must always depend in part 
on individual experience. \'et. the systems o\' symbols through which 
people interact operate with reference to a community and its sanctions. 



398 JJJ Culture 

rhcsc symbols enable people wiili quite different personal experiences 
to participate in the lite i^fthe larger group. Through symbols an indivi- 
dual can come to benefit from other participants^ special knowledge, 
and e\en, sometimes, to believe that everyone shares understandings of 
the meanings of symbols when they actually share only the forms (see 
Chapter 9). 

If Sapir's conception of culture points inward, toward the psychology 
o^ the socialized individual interacting with others, his conception of 
indi\ idual psychology points outward, toward socialization and interac- 
tion. It is as much a fallacy, to him, to study psychology as if the indivi- 
dual existed in isolation, as it is to study culture as if individuals had 
no relevance. Sapir concedes that an individual's temperament may be 
inlluenced by factors of biology or prenatal experience, in ways not yet 
well understood. From the beginning, however, the child interacts with 
and adapts to a social world, and his or her psychology cannot be 
understood without reference to its cultural patterns and symbolism. 

Much of Chapter 7's discussion of "personality" clearly parallels the 
1934 encyclopedia article of the same title (Sapir 1934a). Chapter 8's 
discussion of Jung, however, is not represented in any of Sapir's work 
published elsewhere, apart from a brief book review (Sapir 19231) writ- 
ten much earlier. Like many other intellectuals of the 1920's and 1930's 
Sapir had become interested in psychology and psychiatry, and this 
interest has been well known; but the depth of his intellectual apprecia- 
tion of Jung has not been obvious heretofore. Jung describes personality 
as a system, a psychological organization interacting with and adapting 
to an external world. This view of psychology must have appealed to 
Sapir as he searched for a conception of culture that would be realistic 
in terms of the individual. Despite the close attention Sapir gives to 
Jung's work in Chapter 8, however, he does not in the end rest content 
with Jung's analysis, or even with his own revised version of it. The 
psychology Sapir arrives at in The Psychology of Culture is a synthesis 
that derives not only from Jung, but also from Koffka's Gestalt 
psychology, from Sullivan's interpersonal psychiatry, and from his own 
studies of linguistic symbolism. 

"Personality", in Sapir's usage, is as much a cognitive organization 
as an emotional one. Chapters 9 and 10 explore the relationships this 
organization has with culture. There are three: 

(1) Personality as model, or metaphor, for culture. As he wrote in 1934 
("The Emergence of the Concept of Personality in a Study of Cul- 
tures"), "the more fully one tries to understand a culture, the more it 



l\\(r r/ic P.sv( holoj^y <»f C'ulturi' 399 

sccnis [o lake on the characlci islics o\ a pcrsi>nalil\ i>rgani/alion.'" Il 
personality is iiiulersUnKl as a systematic psycholimical Drganizalion 
depending on constellations o\' s\nihi>ls an organization in which 
each part is interconnected with other parts, and which interacts with 
an external wiMid then, in these respects, it is analogous to the con- 
cept of culliiie Sapir had piesenled m earlier chapters. At a tune when 
some anthropologists still thought c^f culture as an assemblage of traits, 
a psychiatry that emphasized the s\stematicit\ of personaIit\ must ha\e 
seemed a useful iiukIcI. 

More specifically. Jung's l\polog\ of persoiuililies, classified accord- 
ing to the nature o\' their organization and their interaction with their 
en\ironmenl. pro\ides Sapir with an analog) \ov a t\polog> of cultures. 
The two le\els are not to be ct)nrused, howe\er. in a society basing an 
'iniroxerted" culture there is no special reason to suppose individuals 
have introverted personalities (see Chapter 9). 

(2) ".Vs-iP Personalities: Cultural systems provide normative standards 
for behavior. The patterns of culture con\entionalize the lorms o\ beha- 
vior deemed acceptable, within a community, for its particular range o\' 
social occasions, in so doing, Sapir argues, the cultural patterns suggest 
a normative personalit\ (or personalities) - the kind o\' person who 
would behave in that way even if not required to b\ comention. The 
individual who conforms to these behavioral conxentions thus beha\es 
as //he or she had that personality, or those motives, regardless of what 
the actual niini\es or opinions might be (see Chapter 9 and Sapir's 

1926 conference presentation. "Notes on Psychological Orientation in 
a Given Society"). Just as cultures differ in their behavioral coinen- 
tions, so they differ in "as-if personalities. These "as-if personalities 
must no\ be confused with an indixichiafs actual personalitx. Sapir in- 
sists (attributing that error to Benedict and Mead). The "as-if person- 
ality is merely an external standard, a frame of reference that is part o\' 
the environment to which an individual must adapt. 

(3) Personalities' actions and interactions ^i\e rise to cultural ineanin«^s. 
Without subscribing to a "great man" theory oi' histor>. e\er since the 
1917 debate with Kroeber Sapir had emphasized the role of the creatne 
individual in culture. A personalit\ is both an organized s\stem and an 
integrative mechanism, he argues. Shaped m terms provided bv the spe- 
cific patterns of culture to which an individual is exposed, a personality 
contributes, in turn, to the re-shaping of the patterns themselves. I'rom 
his or her experience each individual extracts significant umtormities. 
systematizes them, and bases actions on them. In the process, personal 



400 fl^ Culture 

significances nia\ intliiencc cultural ones, depending on an individual's 
circumstances and opportunities to affect the experiences of others. 

Though 1 have summarized it only roughly, this argument appears 
many times in Sapir's work, from 1917 to the several versions of the 
"Psychology of Culture" course. In 1933-34, the emphasis is on sym- 
bols as mediators between individual and society (Chapter 12). The 
constellations o^ a symbol's meanings shift, he suggests, between dif- 
ferent individuals as well as between different cultural systems. Yet, pri- 
vate symbolisms may come to take on a wider, hence social, signifi- 
cance. In 1933 Sapir says little about how this influence can come about; 
in 1937, he situates it in the specific social interactions of individuals - 
thus inserting a situational, interactional level of analysis between the 
psychology of individuals and the abstracted patterns of societies 
(Chapter 10). Intluenced by Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal psy- 
chiatry. Sapir now argued that what we can consider "culture" to be 
emerges from the interactions of specific individuals, and the symbols 
involved in those interactions. In a discussion partly replicated in his 
1937 publication, "The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding 
of Behavior in Society" (a paper given in a symposium of psychiatrists, 
including Sullivan), Sapir seems to have told his 1937 class: 

Cultural considerations alone can never explain what happens from day to day - 
they are inadequate for predicting or interpreting any particular act of an individual. 
The reason for this, in a nutshell, is that in those particular acts the individual is not 
adjusting to "society", but to interpersonal relationships. Faced, therefore, with the 
dilTiculty of segregating the psychological and the social systems, and convinced that 
the gap between the sociological approach and the psychological approach must be 
filled and both systems must be used, I find that I am particularly fond of Dr. Harry 
Stack Sullivan's pet phrase of "interpersonal relations"... 

The study of "interpersonal relations" is the problem of the future. It demands 
that we study seriously and carefully just what happens when A meets B - given 
that each is not only physiologically defined, but each also has memories, feelings, 
understandings, and so on about the symbols they can and must use in their interac- 
tion... In any [specific] situation when two people are talking, they create a cultural 
structure. Our task, as anthropologists, will be to determine what are the potential 
contents of the culture that results from these interpersonal relations in these situa- 
tions.'^ 

Sapir did not end the 1937 course with that statement. Instead, as in 
earlier years and in his 1928 chapter outline (the prospectus for Har- 
court), he took up a subject then prominent in some schools of psychia- 
try and anthropology: the concept of "primitive mentahty" (Chapter 
1 1 ). A work on the "psychology of culture" in the 1930's could scarcely 
omit discussing the influential notions of Freud, Levy-Bruhl, and Mali- 



Two: The I'svchoU)^}' of Culture 401 

nowski, authors whose umk nuisi ha\c dominalcd main readers' con- 
ceptions (^1 what culture and psychology might ha\e to do with one 
another. Ahhough he had discussed fYeudian psychiatry elsewhere (see. 
for instance, his h)17 reviews of Ireud and Pfister), Sapir's published 
writings hereltWore had said Hllle about the work o\' Levy-Bruhl or Ma- 
linowski. In the boi>k and in the course, he evidently intended to present 
a comprehensne critique o\' these three authors" ideas. The point was 
that there could be no such thing as a primitive mentality at all. 

As the end of Chapter 1 1 shows. Sapir shifted away from the concept 
o'i "primiti\e mentalit\"" to make a ct>ncluding statement for the 1937 
course as a whole. He seems to have alluded to the indi\ iduafs creative 
integration of cultural forms - "the springs for art in every human 
being", as the class notes put it - and returned to the argument that 
the indi\ idiiafs tendency to expression may, under certain conditions, 
give rise to or intluence cultural patterns. Regrettably. \er\ few notes 
on this concluding passage survive. 

In sum. although some of the ideas in this book can also be found in 
Sapir's published essays, these lectures provided him with an opportu- 
nity to explore some of them more fully and to place them in a broadly 
comprehensive argument. Other ideas, and the breadth o[' the terrain 
he covers here, are not to be found in his previously available work, 
and so must add to our sense of his contribution. Examining the evolu- 
tion of the course sheds light on the development o{ his ideas in the last 
decade of his life, for he was still actively engaged in thinking about the 
"psychology of culture" right up to the end. Whether he had llnally 
arrived at a formulation that really satisfied him, however, we shall 
never know. 



Sources and Editorial Procedures 

The principal source materials for this project were fifteen sets of stu- 
dent notes taken in Sapir's course on "The Psychology o\^ Culture". 
Eleven sets were available on the Yale microfilm, a copy o\' which was 
given me by Fred Eggan. Eggan had been given the microfilm bv Eouis 
Wirth, who had received it (or copies tif the actual notes) from I li/abeth 
Herzog sometime before June 1942.'^ Apparently, there was some possi- 
bility at that time or in the next few years that Wirth might have the 
notes mimeographed, or that Eggan might \ook them over and do the 
synthesis himself. 



402 III Culture 

Sapir gave ihc course at Yale three times: in 1933-34 (when it was 
titled "The Impact o^ Cuhure on Personality"), in 1935-36, and in 
h;36 37. Students from all three years contributed notes to the micro- 
film. Of the eleven students, nine can be firmly identified: 

Ernest Beaglehole (PhD 1931 from the London School of Economics; 
a postdoctoral visitor at Yale before completing his major fieldwork on 
Pukapuka later in the 193()"s; a native of New Zealand, he returned 
there in 1937 to hold the first chair in Psychology; died in 1965): notes 
1933-34. 

Willard W. Hill (PhD Yale 1934; for many years chair of Anthropol- 
ogy at the University of New Mexico; known for his studies of peoples 
&[ the southwestern U. S., especially the Navajo; died in 1974): notes 
1933-34. 

Weston LaBarre (PhD Yale 1937; Professor of cultural anthropology, 
biological anthropology, and anatomy at Duke University until his re- 
tirement in 1977; noted for studies of psychology and rehgion, particu- 
larly the Peyote cult; died in 1996): notes 1933-34. 

Da\id Mandelbaum (PhD Yale 1936; taught briefly at the University 
of Minnesota and then for many years at the University of California 
at Berkeley; fieldwork among the Cree and in India; editor of Selected 
Writings of Ecluarcl Sapir, 1949; died in 1987): notes 1933-34. 

Walter W. Taylor (transferred to Harvard for his PhD, which he re- 
ceived in 1943; primarily an archaeologist, often cited for his interest in 
the sociocultural implications of archaeological data; Professor emeri- 
tus at the University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale; died in 1996): 
notes 1935-36. 

Lyda Averill Taylor (wife of Walter Taylor; died in 1960): notes 
1935-36. 

Anne M. Cooke, later Smith (PhD Yale 1940; she and Erminie Voege- 
lin were the first women to receive anthropology PhD's from Yale; con- 
ducted ethnographic research on the Ute; taught at Franklin and Mar- 
shall College; deceased): notes 1936-37. 

Irving Rouse (PhD Yale 1938; a specialist in New World culture his- 
tory, especially in the Caribbean and surrounding areas; Professor emer- 
itus at Yale): notes 1936-37. 

Mary Mikami Rouse (PhD from Yale in Sinology; wife of Irving 
Rouse): notes 1936-37. 

Two other notetakers from the microfilm cannot be identified. One, 
who took notes in 1936-37 (the final year of the course), may be Ermi- 
nie Voegelin; the other, who took notes in 1933-34, may be Willard 



Two: riw P.svcholoi^y of Culture 40} 

Park.''' Among other possibilities lor the "33-"34 iu>le-takcr are \erne 
Ray, Walter Dyk, Pearl Beaglehole. or DtHi)lhy llill (wile ol VVillard). 
This set of notes is almost in complemenlar\ clislnbiiimn with Willartl 
Hill's. 

In addition to the notes on mieiofiim. iwo other students in Sapir's 
course at Yale were kind enough to give me their notes: 

Edgar Siskin (PhD Yale 1941; a rabbi, after early fieldwork in North 
America he moved to what was then Palestine; now head of the Jerusa- 
lem Center for Anthropological Studies): notes 1933-34; and 

Beatrice Blyth Whiting (PhD Yale 1942; noted lor her work in ilie 
cross-cultural study of socialization and education; Professor emerila o\' 
Educational Anthropology, School of Education. nar\ard Uni\ersit\): 
notes 1935-36. 

Notes from earlier versions of the course, given in 1927 and 1928 at 
the University of Chicago, were obtained from Richard Preston \ia 
Regna Darnell. The Chicago notetakers were: 

Stanley Newman (PhD Yale 1932; a graduate student who accompa- 
nied Sapir on the move to Yale, Newman's tlrst major research was a 
grammar of Yokuts; though best known for his studies of North Ameri- 
can linguistics, he also worked in educational psychology; taught for 
many years at the University of New Mexico; died in 1984): notes 1927; 
and 

Frank M. Setzler (after graduate work at Chicago, he held a position 
as archaeologist and museum curator at the U. S. National Museum in 
Washington; author of many works in North American archaeology; 
died in 1975): notes 1928. 

Another source of material derives from the Rockercller Seminar 
(1932-33). The student participants wrote up summaries of each ses- 
sion. I have drawn upon the summaries for the sessions led by Sapir 
during the second semester, sessions that evidently included lectures as 
well as discussions. The participants' summaries are on tile in the Mar- 
garet Mead papers in the Library of Congress. Those whose notes ci>n- 
cerned Sapir's sessions were: Theodore P. Chilambai (India); Waller 
Beck (Germany); Bingham Dai (China); Leo Eerrero (ltaly/(iene\a); 
Ali Kemal (Turkey); Elenry HaKorsen (Norway); and Robert \hir|olin 
(France).-" 

1 have also drawn upon Sapir's own outline prospectus for /he 
Psyc/iology of Culfurc\ sent to Harcourt in 1928.'' Additional sources, 
used only where appropriate and necessary to tlesh out an argument, 
are Sapir's correspondence, his published writings, the transcripts of his 



404 III Culture 

presentations at the Hano\cr conferences of the Social Science Research 
Council (1926 and 1930), and student notes from other courses and 
lectures given by Sapir. Besides the notes on Sapir's lectures to the Fri- 
day NiJit CMub (1933; notes taken by David Mandelbaum) and the 
Medica] Society (1935-36; notes taken by Weston LaBarre), which are 
included in the \\\\q microfilm, notes on several other courses Sapir 
gave at Chicago and Yale were generously lent to me by their notetak- 
ers: David Mandelbaum, Fred Eggan, and Edgar Siskin. 

As a lecturer, Sapir had an inspiring, even electrifying effect on his 
audience. Describing what it was Hke to be a student in Sapir's class, 
David Mandelbaum wrote (1941: 132-34), "he was more than an in- 
spired scholar, he was an inspiring person. Listening to him was a lucid 
adventure in the field of ideas; one came forth exhilarated, more than 
oneself... He could explain his explorations so clearly, in such resplen- 
dent phrases, that we felt ourselves, with him, heroes in the world of 
ideas. An eminent psychiatrist recently remarked that Sapir was an in- 
toxicating man. That he was."^- Ironically, however, the awe and excite- 
ment Sapir aroused in his students seems sometimes to have interfered 
with note-taking. As Walter Taylor remarked, "Sapir's command of 
English was itself quite hypnotic and ... resulted in my listening to him 
talk and not to what he was saying! And note-taking merely interfered 
with the fiow of language and the intricacies of Sapir's thinking. In fact, 
if 1 remember correctly, I stopped taking notes altogether toward the 
end of the course - but I did not stop being fascinated and excited 
about the ideas he was presenfing."^^ In a similar vein - and out of 
modesty - several notetakers I spoke or corresponded with expressed 
doubts about the usefulness of their own notes as compared with oth- 
ers'. 

That Sapir's lecture style was complex, polished, and compelling is 
amply evident not only from students' recollections but also from the 
existing transcripts of his conference presentations to the Social Science 
Research Council (now published in CWES, this volume). It is easy to 
see how a notetaker might feel that his or her notes could not ade- 
quately represent the actual performance, and that essential ideas or 
statements had been left out. But with regard to the notes' value for 
reconstructing the gist of Sapir's arguments, the note-takers' doubts 
were quite unfounded. While any one set of notes is necessarily only a 
partial record, when several sets are compared the record becomes that 
much more complete. Each note-taker omits different things. Although 
the brilliance of Sapir's performance cannot be fully recaptured, the 



Two: The P.sycholoi^y of Culture 405 

essentials of his argument usually can be. In fad. nian\ uiieresiing 
points emerged only as a result ot the detective work of comparing and 
integrating the \ arious sets of notes. 

For these reasons the option of simply reproducing the notes them- 
selves for publication, without synthesis, has never been seriously enter- 
tained. It is only through careful comparison that one can get a sense 
of an individual note-taker's omissions (of passages, wording, or whole 
lectures), oi^ note-cards out of order (mistakes probably introduced in 
the microfilming process), of repetitions resulting from a note-taker's 
having copied another student's notes to supplement his or her own, 
and so on. 

The editorial procedure, therefore, has been to compare, select 
among, and interweave the various sets of notes in order to reconstruct 
Sapir's text as closely as possible. Obviously, the result will dilTer from 
Sapir's written style, and it cannot display the vividness and wit for 
which his spoken style was so often lauded. But the contents of the 
notes overlap sufficiently with each other, while remaining sufficiently 
ditTerent from Sapir's published writings, to make it worthwhile to at- 
tempt some approximation o( these lectures that infiuenced so many 
eminent anthropologists and linguists, and which Sapir himself envi- 
sioned as a book. 

The task of reconstruction was complicated by the fact that the notes 
come from several versions of the course. There is no single Sapir oral 
"text" to be reconstructed - no single course of lectures; instead, there 
are several overlapping courses. Had there been more material from the 
final (1936-37) version. I might simply have reconstructed a text for 
that presumably most mature stage of his thinking. Indeed, I began this 
project with that intention. But the 1936-37 material was not adequate 
for reconstruction by itself, and it omitted or only hinted at manv inter- 
esting topics for which notes existed from the earlier years. 

The solution was to incorporate all the notes from the ^ale period. 
while giving greater weight to those representing the latest version ol 
the course. That is, where the versions ditTer, either in the order in 
which topics are introduced or (which is less ofien) in the Ci^ntent or 
implications of a discussion, the 1936-37 version takes priorn\. Ihese 
Yale materials, both from the "Psycholog\ of Culture" course and from 
the Rockefeller Seminar, are represented m then- entirely. interuo\en 
for narrative presentation. Sapir's own 192S outline is also incorporated 
almost entirely, because it comes to us as his own typescript, unmedi- 



406 iff Culture 

ated by notetakcrs: but because o( its earlier date it bears less organiza- 
tional weight in ihe reconstruction than do the later materials. 

Other sources, including the notes from the Chicago versions of the 
same course, are drawn upon only when necessary to flesh out or clarify 
a passage. Although the Chicago notes - especially Newman's - are 
ver\ interesting, they ditTer more substantially from the Yale versions 
than the latter ditTer among themselves. The course was much shorter 
at Chicago, and Sapir seems to have reworked it considerably when he 
nuned to ^'ale. Only a few excerpts from the Newman and Setzler notes 
are included in ihc reconstructed text, therefore. 

Once the content and organizational decisions were made, putting 
the material into narrative form required further editorial decisions. The 
notes \ary in format: some are largely narrative (Cooke, Mandelbaum, 
Beaglehole, Irving Rouse, the unidentified notetaker of 1936-37); some 
are largely in outline form (Hill, Mary Mikami Rouse, Whiting, Siskin, 
the unidentified notetaker of 1933-34); others are in paragraphs of 
telegram-like prose (the Taylors, LaBarre). In reconstructing a text, 
where I had only to supply connectives, articles, auxiliary verbs, and 
the like in order to turn "telegram style" and outlines into narrative, I 
have done so without so indicating in the draft. Similarly, for smooth- 
ness of flow I have sometimes altered the syntactic structure of a sen- 
tence in the notes. But wherever I have had to supply a content word 
or a content-filled connecdng passage, I have marked my own additions 
in brackets. 

Since some of these bracketed additions are lengthy, I have supplied 
a number of footnotes that try to explain my rationale for inserting 
what I did. It is not always possible, however, to identify a single source 
or articulate a specific reason for these insertions. Some of them derive 
from the implications of a notetaker's spafial organizafion of notes - 
such as placing one point below another, or placing a notation in the 
margin, or drawing connecting arrows. Other insertions I can only attri- 
bute to my own interpretation, after immersion in the material, of what 
Sapir meant. 

In addition to the brackets representing textual insertions, other not- 
ations on the text show, in a coded form, which notetaker(s) or other 
sources were drawn upon for a particular passage. For example, a sen- 
tence early in Chapter 1 reads as follows: " -^^xhere seem to be three 
reasonably distinct ways of defining 'culture'." This passage comes from 
the notes of Irving Rouse (r2; see explanation of codes, below). Where 
two or more notetakers have the same or very similar passages, all are 



TiiY). T/h' P.svcholoiiy of C'nlfiirc 407 

identified; ilOiie i>rihcni was accorded greater ueiizhl in reeonslriictinii 
the passage, thai iiolelaker is listed fust. Signiricaiil dirierenees between 
notetakers' versions are explained in editorial footnotes. 

Where notetakers' wording of a passage ditTers in wa\s that are no{ 
easily reeoneiled, an option I ha\e t^ften taken is to inelude binh ver- 
sions. Leeturers oWcn repeal a slatenieiil in slightl\ ditTerenl wording 
to emphasize a point; there is no reason to suppose Sapir did not do 
so. Still, the reconstrueted text may sometimes be rather more repetitive 
than Sapir's aetual leeture would have been. In this as in other respeels 
the reconstruction differs from what Sapir might ha\e wished to see in 
print. His written style was carefully polished, closely argued, and sel- 
dom redundant. 

In sum, the editorial procedures and mode oi' presentation o\' the 
reconstructed "text" have had the aim of staying as accountable to the 
sources as possible while offering a synthesis that would be accessible 
to the reader. Although I cannot hope to have represented exactly the 
book Sapir would have published himself, I hope I have come some- 
where close to his intentions, as those were represented in his course of 
lectures. 



Explanation e^f codes and notations in the text 

All sources are identified in the text by means of a superscript code 
placed before the relevant portion of text. For notetaker sources, 1 have 
used letter codes derived from the name of the notetaker. For Sapir's 
own publications, the superscript code identifies the work by publica- 
tion date, as listed in the CWES cumulative bibliography. An unpub- 
lished piece of correspondence is identified b\ a Iciicr code. I-ditorial 
supplements (insertions added for narrative How and ease of interpreta- 
tion) are identified by being placed in brackets. 

The superscript codes are as follows: 

(1) Class notes, r/w P.wclioloi^y oJC'uliurc: 

University of Chicago, 1927-28: 
ne Stanley Newman 
se Frank Setzler 

Yale. 1933-34 (The Inipacf of Culture on Pcr.sotui/iiv): 
hi Willard W. Hill 
dm David Mandelbaum 



408 ^^^ Culture 

lb Weston L.aBarrc (LaBarre actually took the course twice, but 

the notes are apparently all from 33-34) 
bj; l-rnesl Beaglehole 
si l-duar Siskin 

b2 In identified note-taker 

>'ale. 1935-36 (TVk' Psychology of Culture): 
1 1 \\ alter Taylor 
t2 Lyda A\erill Ta>lor 
b\\ Beatrice Blylh Whiting 

\dk\ 1936-37 (The Psychology of Culture): 

rl Mary Mikami Rouse 

r2 lr\ing Rouse 

ck Anne Cooke Smith 

qq laiidentified note-taker (possibly Erminie Voegelin) 
mo. all Passage found in most, or all, of the notes on the particular 
topic, in more than one year of the course 

(2) Rockefeller Seminar, Yale 1932-33 {The Impact of Culture on Per- 
sonality): 

eh Theodore R Chitambar (India) 

\\b Walter Beck (Germany) 

da Bingham Dai (China) 

if Leo Ferrero (Italy/Geneva) 

ak Ali Kemal (Turkey) 

ha Henry Halvorsen (Norway) 

rm Robert Marjolin (France) 

(3) Sapir's own outline for 77?^ Psychology of Culture (1928): 
ol Outline 

(4) Student notes on other courses or lectures given by Sapir: 
Weston LaBarre, Yale: 

2ms "Sapir's Two Lectures to the Medical Society"^"^ 
David Mandelbaum, Yale: 

fnc '-Lecture to the Friday Night Club" (1933; see Appendix 3) 
Fred Eggan, University of Chicago: 

e20 "Linguistics" (course notes) 

e65 "Psychological Survey of Primitive Religion" (course notes) 

e85 "Psychology of Language" (course notes) 

e92 "Northwest Coast Tribes" (course notes) 



Two: The Psvtluthi^y of Cuhuri' 409 

Edgar Siskin, Yale: 
smp "Methods and Problems o^ Anthropology" (course notes, 

1935; co-taughl uilh Leslie Spier) 

(5) Sapir's publications and manuscripts: 

1915a "Abnormal Types of Speech in Nootka" 

1915h "The Social Organization of the West Coast Tribes" 

1917a "Do We Need a 'Superorganic".'" 

19171 "Psychoanalysis as Pathtnider." re\ie\\ o\' Oskar Pfisler. The 
Psychoanalytic Met hod 

I921d "Language. Race, and Culture" (Chapter 10 o\' Lani^ua^^c) 

1923] "Two Kinds o[^ Human Beings," review ofC. Jung, Psycholoi:!- 
cal Types 

19231 "An Approach to Symbolism," review of C. K. Ogden and 
LA. Richards, The Meanini^ of Meanini^ 

1924b "Culture, Genuine and Spurious" 

1924c "The Grammarian and His Language" 

1927a "Anthropology and Sociology" 

1927h "Speech as a Personality Trait" 

1928e "Psychoanalysis as Prophet." review of Sigmund Trend. The 
Future of an Illusion 

1928] "The Unconscious Patterning of Beha\ior in Society" 

1929m"A Study in Phonetic Symbolism" 

1932a "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry" 

1932b "Group" 

1934a "The Emergence of the Concept of Personality in a Study o'i 
Cultures" 

1934c "Personality" 

1934e "Symbolism" 

1937a "The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Inderslaiidnig of Beha- 
\ior in Society" 

1938e "Why Cultural Anthropology Needs the Psychiatrist" 

1939c "Psychiatric and C^iltural Pitfalls in the I^usuiess of (ietlnig a 
Living" 

1946 (with Morris Swadesh) "American Indian CJrammatical Cate- 
gories" 

1980 Letter to Philip Selznick (Oct. 25, 193S) 

1997a "Notes on Psychological Orientation in a (iiven Societs." So- 
cial Science Research Council. HcUiover Conference, paper de- 
livered 1926. 



410 J^l Culture 

1997b "I he C'liliural Approach lo the Study of Personality," Social 
Science Research Council, Hanover Conference, paper deliv- 
ered \')M). 

kro Letter to A. 1 . Kroeber (Aug. 25, 1938) 

All quotes from Sapir's own writings are exact, unless noted otherwise. 



Notes 

1. Edward Sapir lo Alfred Harcourt. 27 June 1928. 

2. Eduard Sapir lo David Mandelbaum. 15 October 1937. 

3. Edward Sapir lo Philip Selznick. 25 October 1938. 

4. Jean Sapir to David Mandelbaum, 19 May 1939. 

5. It is not clear whether any manuscript materials, such as lecture notes, ever existed. 
Sapir's students differ in their recollections of whether he brought papers with him to 
class. Judging from students' documentation, some of the lectures remained very similar 
from one year lo the ne.xt - perhaps suggesting the use of notes - but other lectures 
did not. 

6. Jean Sapir lo David Mandelbaum, 19 May 1939. 

7. Leslie Spier. Alfred I. Hallowell and Stanley S. Newman, eds. (1941) Language, Culture 
and Personality: Essays in Memory of Edward Sapir. 

8. According to Irving Rouse (pers. comm.), Willard Park may also have played a central 
role in assembling notes from students still at Yale. 

9. Zellig Harris to Philip Sapir, 20 July 1942. 

10. At the Centenary Conference in Ottawa, Sapir's prospectus and the corpus of class notes 
were discussed in print for the first time (Preston 1986). 

1 1 . Thus Jean Sapir wrote to David Mandelbaum (30 January 1950) thanking him for giving 
a major place in Seleeied Writings to Sapir's contributions "in the culture and personality 
field, about which Edward thought so much but wrote so little. The very dates of what 
he did get into print tell the whole story." 

12. I owe this comment to Allan H. Smith, a student in the 1935-36 Yale course. 

13. See also Preston (1986). 

14. For further information on the Impact seminar see Darnell (1990), chapter 17. 

15. The idea seems to have been for the students to discover that it was impossible to devise 
any cultural inventory in advance of ethnographic investigation. 

16. In his 1939 paper, Sapir's criticisms of the discipline of economics tend to concern the 
methodological individualism according to which some economists posit a typical indivi- 
dual, an "economic man" and his behavior, in order to explain the workings of an 
economic system. The criticisms do not concern the study of economic systems as such. 

17. I quote from my reconstructed text; see Chapter 10. The reconstruction here is on pretty 
firm ground. 

18. Elizabeth Herzog to Louis Wirth, 19 July 1942. 

19. I owe these suggestions to Irving Rouse. 

20. Other participants in the Seminar included: Andras Angyal (Hungary), Wilhelm Gier- 
lichs (Germany), Michiji Ishikawa (Japan), Jan Krzyzanowski (Poland), Niilo Maki (Fin- 
land), and Max Weinreich (Poland). For further information on the Seminar Participants 
see Darnell (1990). 



Two: The Psychology of Culftin' 411 

21. Sapir's 1928 outline is published here as a companion piece to the reconstructed text - 
a companion of special importance, since it is from Sapir's i>wn hand. 

22. DaMd Maiuiclhaum (UMI), "lidward Sapir" (an obituary appearmg m Jewish Social 
Stthliiw 3: 131 -40). Sec also the recollections oi oilier lormer students of Supir at the 
Ottawa centenary conference (Cowan, hosier, and K(»erner. 1986). 

23. W. W. Taylor to J. T. Irvine. 18 February 1987. 

24. The two lectures are dated 18 February 1935 and 29 F'ebruary 1936 in LaBarres notes. 
But because the first lecture refers to a topic as forthciMiiini! in the second lecture, it 
seems likeJN that the two uerc i:i\cii iii ihc same \car. rather than a year apart. 



Outline for llic Psychology oJCiiliurc (1928) 

In .Iiinc 1928, Sapir sent Alfred Harceniri (cW' Harcourt, Brace & Co.) 
a proposal for a book to be based on a graduate lecture course he had 
been offering at the University of CMiicago. About the proposal, which 
consisted of a chapter outline, Sapir wrote: 

I ha\c ihiHighl o\cr >our kiiul olTcr to consider ariaiiiiciiicnts with nic for a book 
on "The Psychology of Cullurc" a number of times since our con\ersation ... but I 
have not had the opportunity to revise my original plan until last night. The enclosed 
outline is analysed only for the first two chapters, the rest of the outline giving 
nicrcl\ the chapter headings and a few sentences or phrases to indicate the nature 
of the contents of each. You will understand, of course, that much is tentative in this 
outline, e\cn the title, and that 1 may have to change a good deal of the layout as I 
get down to the actual writing o^ the hook. This book would represent a good deal 
of experience in presenting m\ ideas to graduate classes, yet it is not intended to be 
an academic text-book, ll will be rather a free discussion, though I should hope to 
avoid a breezy, merely literary air... (ES to Harcourt. 18 .June 1928) 

Student lecture notes from Sapir's courses indicate that he continued 
to work out his ideas for the book during the following decade, and 
made various revisions in the format and substance initially proposed 
in this 1928 outline. The outline remains, however, the only formal pre- 
sentation of the book that survi\es in Sapir's own typescript. 



Outline for The Psycholoi^v of Ciihiur ( 192S) 

Part I. 

Introiliulory: The Varyini^ Connotations of the H'orJ "iuliior 

a. Traditional English use of the term "culture". Culture so defined implies stand.ird 
pertaining to indi\idual or group; selection of traits implying "culture"; emphasis 
on grace; "spiritual" or "mental" qualities as contrasted with "material" \alues 
Critical remarks on absoluteness of concept. The "cultured man" or "ideal man" in 
various societies: English, Chinese, Hindu, orthodox Jewish. American Indian. 

b. Wider, but still selective or evaluating, use of terms as applied to larger groups. 
Their "culture" is identical with their distinguishing "spirit" fxamples Irench and 
Russian cultures in a nutshell. 



414 Iff Culture 

c. Smelly cthnolouical use o^ term •ciiliiirc" as embracing all reactions which are so- 
eialK inhenled as eontrasled uith indiviciual reactions which have no historical con- 
tmuily and \Mlh bioloiiieally inhenied types of behavior. 



Pari II. What Culture is and What it is Not 

chapter I. Ihc Sacssiiy oj the Concept of Culture in Social Science. 

A \u attempt at a closer definition of the term "culture" in its exact sense (C of 
precedmg chapter) leads to unexpected difficulties because no human behavior can 
be discovered which is intrinsically or purely "cultural." This leads to: 

b. The difllculty of being clear as to the subject matter of social science. 

(a) The objective delimitation of the natural sciences. 

(b) The objective delimitation of psychology or of a science of behavior. 

(c) The essentially arbitrary differentia of "social" in the realm of behavior. 

c. Pitfalls in the use of the term "social." 

(a) The fallacy of ascribing "social behavior" to a collectivity as such. The reality 
and irrele\ance of group behavior in its literal sense. 

(b) "Social behavior." so called, is both individual and collective. Why the term 
"cultural behavior" is more exact. 

(c) How "culture" is ahstracted from the totality of human behavior. 

d. The notional conflict between "culture" and behavior deemed "social." The uncer- 
tainty that generally prevails as to whether a given study in "social science" belongs 
to the field of "culture" or to the field of actual behavior. The justifiability of either 
point of view. Much "social science" is a half-hearted study of certain modes of 
behavior that have been tacitly (and often unavowedly) selected on cultural, not 
behavioristic, lines. 

e. Social science from the cultural angle. 

(a) The relativity of all cultural concepts. Their dependence on the historical back- 
ground and peculiar ideology of particular cultures. 

(b) The difficulty of constructing a convincing "science" of cultural patterns. The 
study of culture, no matter how generalized, is essentially a historical disciphne. 

(c) The importance, nevertheless, of the concept of cultural relativity for the science 
of behavior. 

f. Social science from the behavioristic standpoint. 

(a) This "science" must take the cultural facts for granted as a body of environmen- 
tal determinants. 

(b) The laws of behavior in "society" or in the carrying out of cultural patterns are 
no other than the laws of behavior generally. 

(c) Nevertheless, the fundamental laws of behavior may help us, however inexactly, 
to understand the historical working out of cultural patterns. The real and the 
putative psychology of such patterns of behavior. 



Two: I'hc Hsvcholo^y of Culture 415 

g. General diniculties of social science. 

(a) The extreme complexity and the nuihiple ileternniuiium i»l all. e\en the simplest. 
t\ pes of social i. e. cultural heha\ior. 

(b) rhe essential uniqueness nl ;ill cultural pheni>mena Ihc hurt {\ouc our undcr- 
staiuling o! these phenomena m ahstractini! from their particularities is not, it 
seems, altoiiether analogous to the necessar\ simpliricatii>n i^f experience in the 
natural sciences. Fhe concept ol "xalue." 

(c) riie consequent inexactness ol all classes in the cultural domain 

h. C ciiam extrinsic diniculties of social science. 

(a) Diniculties of observation due to the ■projection" ol unconscious cultural pat- 
terns b\ the investigator. 

(b) l^illlculties of historical interprctatiiin aiul reconstruction. 

(c) Chronic paucil\ of material. 

(d) I'ncertaintN cW' interpretation t>f i>bjccti\c data. "Spuricnis accuracy" in much 
statistical work in the social sciences. 

(e) The extreme uncertainty pre\ ailing in the field o^ psychology, the chief explana- 
tory tool of social "science." 

i. The essential fallacy of all slricth conceptual definitions of culture. Culture as his- 
tory. Cultural "levels of discourse" arc not slriclK congruous with biological or 
psychological ones. Culture as selection, not as objecti\e fact. 

Chapter 2. Rcue as a Supposed Determinant oj Culture. 

The vanity of the usual attempts to understand culture as a stricth racial expression 
or as a biological concept. 

Chapter 3. The Supposed Psycholoi^lcal Causation oJ Culture. 

The strictly limited sense in which psychology can be said to give us the causative 
factors of culture. Culture is not a mere pro\incc for either biological or psychologi- 
cal theories. 

Chapter 4. Culture and Tnvironnienl. 

The usefulness of environmental considerations in the study of culture. Tlieir insulTi- 
cicncy. The supposed economic determination iW' all cultural phenomena. 

Pari ill. The Exlcrnaiilics of C'uUurc: its l-JcMiiciUs 
and its Gcograpln. 

Chapter I. The Content of Culture. 

What it embraces, or may be supposed to embrace, objectnely. Hie impossibih^ .'i 
drawing up in advance an intelligible table of contents or inventory of cullutc 

( hapler 2. I'he .ipparenl Purpose ol Culture. 

rhc I'unctiiMial point of \ie\\. Its limitations. Ihc pitfalls of ratii>nali/alion. 

Chapter 3. I'he hulividual Tlenunts luul Complexes of Culture. 

The analysis of culture into "elements" and "complexes". How they reassert them- 
selves into shiltinu units. "Secondarv assiKiations." Survivals. 



416 JJJ Culture 

Chapter 4. Vic Geography of Culture. 

DilTusion of culture traits. Their assimilation to the receiving culture. The concepts 
of •'culture area" aiul "culture stratum." 



Pari IV. The Patterning of Culture. 

Chapter I. The Confisiurative Point of View. 

Ttie more intimate understanding of culture as form. The meaning of a "cultural 
pattern". A glance at configurative ("Gestalt") psychology. Examples of general pat- 
terns in behavior that are definable aside from content. 

Chapter 2. Fallacies in the Observation of Cultural Phenomena. 

ITie fallacy of judging the essential nature of a given culture from external appear- 
ances. The inevitability of placing objective phenomena according to one's own pat- 
terns. The shock which one experiences on discovering the existence of entirely dif- 
ferent patterns in a given culture from those that had obviously seemed to be present. 

Chapter 3. The Patterning of Culture Exemplified: Speech. 

Language as an example of an elaborate pattern that keeps itself going as a self- 
contained "organism" or system of behavior. 

Chapter 4. The Multiple Interpretation of Cultural Data. 

Examples of completely distinct patterns and orientations in dealing with objectively 
similar phenomena. E.g., the "Privilege" concept of the Nootka Indians does not 
easily emerge from mere observation. The importance of native terminology as a key 
to the understanding of cultural patterning. 

Chapter 5. Tlw Dynamics of Culture Patterns. 

The fundamental dynamic concepts involved in the notion of "cultural patterns." 
Nothing in behavior, cultural or otherwise, can be understood except as seen in 
reference to configurations. The idea of relativity in culture. "Absolute" values not 
valid. 

Chapter 6. Vw Development of Culture. 

The concept of development in culture. Growing complications in the various levels 
of a whole cultural complex. The idea of compensatory simplifications. The notion 
of "progress"; limitations of the idea. The cyclical or periodic point of view. 



Part V. The Individual's Place in Culture. 

Chapter I . Culture and the Individual. 

The artificiality of the usual contrast. Culture as something transcending the indivi- 
dual spirit or as embodied in it. Two points of view: extravert, introvert. 



Two: The Psycholoi^y of Culture 417 

Chapter 2. The Prohlcni of Pctwonuhiv Types. 

Atlcinpls U) dctliic t\pcs ol' porsoiialilN. Jung's classification. 

Chapter 3. Ciihunil Types. 

Tlie possibihly of constructing a typology ofcuhure on the basis of a psychology of 
indi\idual types. The social psychology of such cultural types are not to be interpre- 
ted literally but as "as if psychologies. We arri\ e at a new and fruitful point of view 
as regards the relation of the individual to society. 

Chapter 4. The Prohleni oj Individual Adjustment in Sueiety. 

Methods of adjustment, successful and unsuccessful. The concept o\' pluralism of 
culture in a given society. Endless re\aluation as we pass from indi\idual to indivi- 
dual and from one period to another. Individual and cultural configurations: hi>w 
they correspond, reinforce each other, overlap, intercross, confiict. Compromise for- 
mations ("pseudo-extraversion" and "pseudo-introversion"). Heightenings of "per- 
sonality" when configurations correspond. 

Chapter 5. Primitive Mentality. 

Primitive and sophisticated mentality. The theories of the psychoanalysts, of Levy- 
Bruhl, and of others. Critique of theories that presuppose a special primitive mental- 
ity. The apparent differences of behavior are due to ditTerences in the content of the 
respective cultural patterns, not to dilTcrences in the method of mental functioning 
in the two supposedly distinct levels. Our scientific thinking does not explain our 
own culture. 



Part VI. Society as Unconscious Artist. 

Chapter 1 . Culture as Purpose and as Art. 

Culture as purpose and art or imagination. The necessity and the limitations ol the 
idea of purpose in culture. Conscious purpose as a controlling or moderating infiu- 
ence. Imagination as the unconscious form-giver of culture. 

Chapter 2. The Meaning of Culture. 

The concept of significant form in culture. How the struggle for significant lv>rni in 
culture unconsciously animates all normal individuals and gi\es meaning to their 
lives. The problem of happiness. The limitations of a merely humanitarian ideal It 
is ameliorative and question-begging at best. 

Chapter 3. The Deeay and the Renaissanee of Culture. 

The necessity of "decay" when cultural patterns are no longer vitalized b\ the uncon- 
scious of the individual. Decay necessarily leads to renaissance. The powcrlcssncss of 
the conscious indi\idual will to piv\cnt decay or to dictate the terms o\ a renaissance. 



The Psychology orCuUurc: 

A Course of Lectures by Edward Sapir. 

1927-1937 

Rcconslruclcd and Ldilcd b> Judilh I. Ii\iiic 

Contents 

Part I: Tm Conc iiM oi Cri iiRi- 

1. Iniroduclory: The Term "Culture" 

Three uses of the term: culture as selection and \aluc 421 

2. The Concept of Culture in the Social Sciences 

"Cultural" vs "social"; methodological and epistemological 
problems in the social sciences in general, and anthropologx 
in particular 441 

3. "Causes" of Culture 

To what extent do factors such as race, geography, psychology, 
and economy iniluence cultural form? 4(>7 

4. The Elements of Culture 

The contents of culture: trait in\entor\ \s. fimclional pailcrn 4s;^) 

5. The Patterning of Culture 

The configurative point o\' \ic\\; language as an example ot 
patterning; ethnographic example: the Nootka lo/nifi. a con- 
cept of "pri\ilege" "''**"^ 

6. The Development of Culture 

Concepts oi' progress and change; technological, moral, and 
aesthetic processes; developmental cycles ""^^I 

Park ii: Tm Indix idi \i "s Pi aci in Ci i mri 

7. Personality 

The individual as bearer of culture; defmitions o\' personality; 

the psychiatric approach ^-^-^ 



420 IJJ Culture 

8. Psychological Types 

A review and critique of Jung 559 

9. Psychological Aspects of Culture 

The dilTiculty o\^ delimiting a boundary between personality 
and culture; attitudes, values, and symbolic structures as cul- 
tural patterns; culture as "as-if psychology; critique of Bene- 
dict and Mead 585 

10. The Adjustment of the Individual in Society 

Individual adjustment and neurosis; adjustment to changing 
social conditions; socialization; can there be a "true science of 
man"? the emergence of culture in interpersonal relations . . . 603 

1 1 . The Concept of "Primitive Mentality" 

Critiques of Freud, Levy-Bruhl, and Malinowski; the impor- 
tance of aesthetic imagination as the form-giver of culture .. 621 

P\ki III: Symbolic Structures and Experience (1933-34) 

12. Symbolism 

Types of symbols; symbols and signs; speech as a symboHc 
system; symbolism and social psychology; etiquette 631 

13. The Impact of Culture on Personality 

The field of "Culture and Personality;" concluding remarks . 655 

Appendices 

1 . Classroom exercises on the study of American culture: smok- 
ing and piano-playing as cultural patterns (1933) 663 

2. Notes on a Lecture to the Friday Night Club, October 13, 1933 
(notes taken by David Mandelbaum) 673 

3. Sapir's lists of suggested readings for "The Impact of Culture 
on Personality" (1933-34) and "The Psychology of Culture" 
(1935-36) 677 

Bibliography 



Part I: The Concept of Culture 



Chapter 1. Introductory: The Term "CuUure" 

i^)24h ji-n^i-,^ -ire certain terms that have a peculiar property. Ostensibly 
they mark otT specitlc concepts, concepts that lay chiim to a rigorous 
objective vahdity. hi practice, they label vague terrains o\' thought that 
shift or narrow or widen with the point of view of whoso[ever] makes 
use of them, embracing within their gamut of significance conceptit^ns 
that not only do not harmonize but are in part contradictor}. An analy- 
sis of such terms soon discloses the fact that underneath the clash of 
varying contents there is unifying feeling-tone. What makes it possible 
for so discordant an array of conceptions to answer to the same call is, 
indeed, precisely this relatively constant halo that surrounds them. 

^^ [Suppose we ask ourselves, then,] what is "culture"? [I propose to 
show you that here is a term of the very type just mentioned: a label 
that seems to mean something particularly important, and yet.] '''-■*^ 
when the question arises of just where to put the label, trouble begins, 
[for] ^^^- '^'- ''' the uses of the term "culture" have varying connotations.' 
"^"^ We cannot take culture for a rigidly defined thing. [But perhaps there 
are nevertheless some common themes we might identify and thence 
arrive at our own idea of] '^' the meaning oi' the concept of culture. 



/. The tniditioinil Fji^lish use 

"■^ There seem to be three reasonably distinct ua\ s o\ defining "cul- 
ture." First of all, ^^- '^''- '" consider its meaning in the phrase, "a man 
of culture." ^'' This is the traditional English use. '" a conventional idea 
of culture [referring to an] '''-■*^ ideal of individual refinement [and im- 
plying] '^''■- '' a normative ascription o\' \alue a preconception thai 
one type of behavior is superior \o aniUhcr. '■ and tiuii certain customs 
are best. [When we speak of "a man of culture," we mean a man whose 
conduct and qualities are those considered better and more \aluable 
than those of other men.] ^''- "• ''- There is a highly evaluative [connola- 



422 iff Culture 

lion to the icnn. aiul an| emphasis on selectivity [among the various 
forms ot] bcha\u^r [practiced] in a civilization,- [such that the selected 
behaviors seem to endow their practitioners with an aura of] unanalyzed 
excellence and nobility. [There is nothing specially English about the 
evaluati\e process, however.] ^'^ The ascription of value to every type of 
behavior is a natural [impulse, so fundamental an expression of human 
psychology that we may reasonably expect to find some idea resembling 
this sense o\' the term "culture" among peoples otherwise widely dif- 
ferent.]' 

"' Culture, so defined, implies a standard pertaining to an individual 
or group. ''''•" To be "a man of culture" involves participation in special 
social values clustering around tradition. '' [It is not the particular 
content of those traditions that is vital in distinguishing the "cultured 
person" from others - for all too] often the "culture" of an advanced 
civilization is a [mere] rehash of traditional, staid subjects - [but the 
fact that they are traditional and valued.] Everyone who is "cultured" 
lives in a certain realm of specific feeling, [deriving not only from those 
attitudes and typical reactions traditionally prescribed for him, but also 
from] a feeling o^ security that comes to the person within the "cul- 
tured" circle. Because of [this] personal and group security, [one's] rela- 
tion with the out-group becomes easy or supercilious. ''^-'^'^ Aloofness 
of some kind, [in fact,] is generally a sine qua non of [this] type of 
culture. '" It is an idea of culture that depends largely on class, more 
often hereditary class [than class of any other kind], and it centers upon 
a literary tradition and a practical tradition, be it church, military, or 
business. 

"^"^ What is it that validates class stratification in any society? [Al- 
though this question is a difficult one, let us approach it by comparing 
a few examples.] ^s- ''^- ■"'• '- [We might start by] examining the culture 
of the English country gentleman of the eighteenth century. [What char- 
acterizes] this cultured class? '^'^ In 1750 it was necessary for the "cul- 
tured" gentleman to quote Horace. [It was quite unnecessary for him 
to engage in activities of an immediately practical kind;] ''- the tendency, 
[instead,] was to deny that the exigencies of nature [had any bearing on 
one's behavior.] ^m, hi j^^ gu^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^,^^ ^^^^^ themselves of the 
natural urgencies and hence could be casual and free from care. ^"^ Thus 
sport developed in England as one of the earmarks of the gentleman, 
as was hunting. There were few occupations for him to [take up, but it 
was quite] definite [which ones would be suitable: they were limited to 
political and military acfivities, such as being a member of] ParHament 



Two: The Psycholoi^v (>l (iiliurc 423 

or [an officer in lhc| iiaw. i>r [hcing a inciiibcr of] the clergy and il 
is rather pecuHai [to l-ngland, perhaps.] thai ihe geiilrs and clergy were 
so [closely] associaled/ ''"' '' [In sum.] this cullured class [is dislin- 
guished by] its economic securily, wealth, and leisure, its ediic.ilion in 
the classics, its engagement in hunting and sport, and [its in\ol\ement] 
in public activities such as politics and the established church. 

i|ii. 12, ck. ii v;,^^ enjoying freedom fr^^m care (m a colleclne sense), 
living a gracious life, and preoccupied with con\entiiMial literars \alues. 
these English gentlemen held a common stock of cultural goods from 
whose extreme con\entionalit\ [they gained] a feeling of essential secu- 
rity. ■'• '^^'^ [That form ot] collecti\e an\iet\ that arises from a lack o{ 
participation in know n cultural goods was relatively absent; instead, the 
common fund of cultural symbols enabled [this class to enjoy] a margin 
of dissent and a certain cnnnitMial freedom. ('■'' [in contrast.] there is so 
much collective anxiety in ciillural groups in America that ad\enlurous- 
ness is not permitted except in the form o{ humi^r. ''• '-•'■'' American 
society is anxiety-ridden because we ha\e not defined a cultural group 
which has meanings in common, nor have v\e uni\ersally accepted [a 
set ot] customs as a stereotyped ideal.) 

'"' One sense o\^ "culture.'" then, is "cultivation." [The idea that some 
members of society are more "cultivated" than others.] '- and the ideal 
that certain customs are best, [can be tbund in civilizations exhibitmg 
the widest differences in other respects.] " Yet. the method of arriving 
at the "cultured" state is different, in different ci\ili/ations. ^^- ^■'^- "*'" 
[Consider, for instance,] the old Chinese gentleman o\' the mandarin 
class, who need not be wealthy but who had to pass stiff examinations 
on the philosophy of the Chinese poets, and w ho must himself be able 
to write poetry and paint exquisite characters. '*'" Literary ability was 
the great thing: ^'^ passing examinations on the Chinese classics gave 
him a right to receive a good government post, and joined him with 
others who had done the same thing. A developed aesthetic attitude, 
and the gracious side of life, were emphasized. '*'" Thus the Chinese elite 
was different [from the English] in parliciiiai. but remarkably sinnlar in 
kind, ^'^•'''' for although the principle of selection of this cultured group 
ditTcred from that of the ISth century l-nglish group in that the manda- 
rin class was more democratically chosen, it was a selection neverthe- 
less; and several lotiier) features were rather similar. Again graciousness 
characterized the class, and membership was dependent upon familiar- 
ity with the literary tradition. [Within the privileged circle] one was verv 
secure in the symbolic system oi knowledge and in the special cultural 



424 lit Culture 

iradilion. and the cultural ideal was calmly accepted by elite and folk 
alike. '-'''• '- There was very little strain between the cultural tradition 
and the folk mind. 

dm. bg j\^^. Athenian gentleman of scholarly tendency, with his interest 
in government, is another case in point. '*'" Here too is an economically 
secure class; (and in addition to] economic freedom, the criteria [for 
membership] again [emphasize acquaintance with] an enshrined litera- 
ture. [This is part o'i the gentleman's] preoccupation with [materially] 
useless things - [the other side of the coin being] freedom of thought 
and [the opportunity for] bold speculations. ^^ [So if you start with the 
English gentleman,] compare the Chinese gentleman, next the Athenian 
gentleman, and go on to examine your gentlemen of all cultures, primi- 
tive or civilized, [you will find that] there will be something of a paral- 
lelism in their respective "cultures." 

[.At this point you may wish to object that it seems somewhat odd to 
speak of "gentlemen" in any but the higher civilizations. Let me remind 
you, however, that] '^"^- °' we have no rigid definition of culture nor an 
absolute concept [according to which] we could say who is more or less 
cultured among a people. ^^ [And for the same reasons it is] difficult to 
determine which cultures are "higher" or "lower." ^s. dm ^ primitive 
people may have a much more complex and more highly developed 
system of kinship terminology, [for example,] than have we, or of seat- 
ing prerogatives [at a feast]. [Nor could we depend on our own sense of 
what constitutes fine manners, for] the system of etiquette [also] differs 
among different peoples. [Even though some form of etiquette conven- 
tion may characterize the elite in many different societies, we cannot 
say much in advance about its content: even] belching, sneezing, and so 
on [may have quite different evaluations. So let us not hesitate to exam- 
ine the characteristics of elites even in cultural groups where application 
of the label "gentlemen" might seem, to some, quite surprising.] 

ck. qq. ri ^^ Qrthodox Jewish society, culture [(in this first sense)] [per- 
tains to] a traditional rabbinical group. Their special culture, [as in the 
Chinese and English cases, also involves a] literary tradition, consisting 
of the Old Testament scriptures, which are accepted literally as an in- 
spired document, plus the body of oral tradition codified in about 200 
A. D. ^^- ^' Erudition in these texts and the scholastic tradidon [is valued 
because of the] belief that everything important is contained therein, 
although there is some freedom of interpretation. '^"^ This is a theocratic 
society, [then, although we might also consider it] democratic [in the 
sense that membership in the rabbinical class] has Httle to do with birth 



Two: Tin Psychology of Culture 425 

or economic or inililai"\ stains ii Jcpcntls (hiI\ o\\ learning. ^''^ '' 
Manipulation ol" this \ast mass of traditiiMi, aiul application of it to 
practical [concerns] in everyday life, are the marks of membership in 
the cultured group. One becomes a member o\' this class no\ through 
family or economic status, but by acquiring [the appropriate] erudition. 
Although great social prestige attaches to the [rabbinical] group, mem- 
bership in it is informal. ^^- '' It is a republic of religious letters, [based 
upon a] "Mineage of spirit" [rather than a lineage of birth; and] a humble 
snobbery, with a feeling of personal responsihiiit\ to (iod's uori.!. [char- 
acterizes the scholarly elite]. 

ck. ri. qq jhefc arc se\eral similarities [between the rabbinical group 
and] other groups o^ cultured persons. First, [the elite] is a compara- 
tively small group, looked up to without strain by the people at large: 
second, "culture" is built around a literary tradition - "''" the rabbinical 
group takes as their class symbol a literary document; '^^'^- ''•'«''• "*'" third, 
the cultured group has freedom, in at least a psychological sense, from 
mundane economic care. ''"' The scholars* world was perhaps a substi- 
tute for the drab e\eryday struggle. They were excused from common 
[duties] when they wished, and could contribute their studies or medita- 
tion instead. -"' 

ri.ck.qq |,-, pi-jmitive society, too, there are "cultured" groups accepted 
as such by the folk, "f^i- '^-- "-"^ In Northwest Coast society, [for example] 
(that is, among the Indians on the west coast of British Columbia), 
there are definite classes: chiefs, commoners, and slaves.'' ^^- '^-- '''"• ^'- '■'' 
The elite are the nobles.^ who marry [only] among themsehes, and are 
the repository of the tribal lore, an oral tradition [comprised ol] an- 
cestral legends, impersonal myths, folklore, and songs. '''"• '^- [So strong 
is these nobles'] connection with the glorious past that they speak of an 
ancestor [in the first person - as] "I" - ^''' as if they feel they are the 
dramatic impersonators of tradition. ^^ [Like our other examples, these 
nobles] too are removed from the necessity of earning a Ii\ing and are 
highly respected by the people as a whole. '^-- ^''- '•'' [So although the 
Northwest Coast Indians are] a non-agricultural people, [subsisting b>) 
hunting, fishing, and gathering, [e\en] here the cultured class has a spe- 
cial economic and social position, determined at least m part b\ famil\ 
lineage, ^im ^i^ '' [The special valuation o{ literature as representing the 
stock of cultural goods has its parallel here as well. e\en though) there 
is no writing; for the noble has a special [crest ssnibolically] bearing [a 
load ot] oral tradition - the ancestral legends connected with the no- 
bles' names. '' The name is the emblem oi^ a glorious past. '''< Again 



426 Iff Culture 

there IS a eeiiaiii niobilii\ [belween classes], and no fast line between 
the noble ehiss and the resi;' '" [Thus in several respects the nobles of 
the Norllnvesl Coast] show similarities with [the other examples we have 
considered. Like those others,] they are a selected group, whose mem- 
bers are conscious o^ belonging, and [who are expected to display a 
certain] graciousness. ''•^'^ A gracious attitude is shown in a tradition 
oi liberalitN. about which there is much ado, [despite the fact that on 
the whole] this is a cruel and relentlessly snobbish society. 

.1, a.,,, h: [Another example from primitive society is] the Navajo, al- 
though the elite [category] among the Navajo is less formally [defined] 
and less sharply segregated [from the rest of society than is the elite 
among] the Northwest Coast Indians, with their hierarchy and strong 
class distinction which depend on the doings of ancestors.'^ *' In Navajo 
[society] class distinction [based on birth] is not strong, so practicality 
[of achievement] is at a premium. ''^' 'i^- '^•"' ^^^ ^s The Navajo elite are 
the "chanters" (as the native term [describes them]) or medicine men, 
highly versed experts in ritual and the accompanying lore, songs, and 
so on. ''- It is a greater honor [to be a chanter] than to be a chief, ^^ and 
once an individual is a chanter he is in the "in-group." 

q.). ck. dm y^Yi^ chanters' performances,] elaborate ritual chants accom- 
panied by dramatic representations of origin legends, are used in curing 
disease by way of pleasing angry gods. The chanter must learn the leg- 
ends, [along with all] details of the ceremony and prayers. The set of 
rituals involves a large number of sand paintings, which he manufac- 
tures, and an even larger number of different songs, which must be 
done absolutely without mistake. ^^-'^^ Yet, the chanters are sometimes 
employed for a deliberately faked illness: '' if a long time has passed 
u ith no one sick, someone makes believe he is sick so that the ceremony 
may be performed. '"''■ '■'•'^'' Apparently, the rituals have a transcendental 
value [causing them to be performed if only] in an effort to keep the 
knowledge of them alive. ^^- ^' The rituals are not entirely for practical 
use. then; they are appreciated for their beauty, just as in the other 
cultures mentioned. 

'■"^- •■' Because the Navajo rituals [require] exact knowledge on the 
part o\' the chanters, they involve a great deal of memory, [both verbal 
and] visual. It may take ten years to learn one chant. '° [But the chanter's 
cumulative store of traditions transforms him into something much 
more than a mere repeater of memorized material, for] the knowledge 
of chants, legends, and rituals builds up into a theological and esthetic 
doctrine. Thus the chanters are a group of professors of theology, the 



Two: The I'sycholoi;}- of Culture 427 

arislDcrals o\' ihc Na\ajo. iTicsliuioiis pcisoiis lor uhmii llic a\cragc 
Na\ajc> has great resided. I hc\ aic ihc repositories of ihe load i>t theo- 
logical iradilioii; '"' and this world ot holiness is a closed world, as ii is 
lor the Orthodox Jews. l"or the Navajo, there are no move miracles, no 
more communications w ith the gods. 

^*? [In sum.] the ehte o( all cultures are s(Mnelun\ alike in that the> 
are all the keepers o\' the traditional lore, be it classics, folklore, or 
songs. '''I ' ' ''- All [six] of these groups cluster their \ allies around tradi- 
tion, as laid down in literature, documents, or oral legend. '•'' '' All six. 
too. show a real desire for a transcendent ideal o\' life a m\stic insight. 
a reeling for something beyond the necessities o\' the day. '■^' "''•' The 
■"cultured man" is one who participates in this ideal world of traditicMial 
\alues. '''' This one notion o\^ culture is not rare or accidental, then; it 
is something more profound and universal than restricted to certain 
classes of Western society. ^- Probably every society possesses some sort 
oi^ ideal tradition around which people's emotions cluster, '■'' and w here 
people select, out of the possible behavior patterns of their group, cer- 
tain ones that bring [prestige.]" 

^^ The elite [in all these cases are also alike in that] they are all more 
or less economically free and consequently leisured. They [have both 
the time and the freedom to] preserve and dramati/.e the glorious past, 
whence [comes] their esteem by the masses. '•'' But w hat is the uni\ersal- 
ity of this phenomenon due to? ^^ What is it that universally causes 
peoples to support such a leisured class and respect it? ''-• ^^- "^^^ '~- '■'^- '^'" 
[About this interesting problem I can only offer speculation; but per- 
haps]'- the explanation o\^ [the support ot] elites [lies in some form ot] 
wish-fulfilment on the part of the masses. '''"• ''-^- ''-• '•'' in a (process ol] 
transterence similar to the transfer of ambition Irom lather [o ^on. the 
[common people] transfer [their wishes onto] the elite; and it is because 
of [this] unconscious identification that the elite are sc^ casiK accepted. 
The dream life [of the masses] is embodied in the elite, to which lhe> 
consequently pay homage. [We should not simpl\ dlsml^s thl^ ps\cluv 
logical process as delusionar\ and sclf-defealmg. for it surely represents) 
a desire to transcend our own stubbt^rn luimanit\. that is present in all 
normal indi\iduals. 

''- This orthodox [concept o\'\ "cullurc" is higliK c\aluati\e. (then, 
and it is even plausible lo think ol] " "cullure" |in this sense) as an 
evaluative attempt to shirk the problem o\' life, through an artificial 
security and feeling o( well-[being]. Ihe manifestation o\ "culture" is 
[supposed lo be] the arri\al at human excellence, [\et m each case it 



428 fIJ Culture 

turns out that human excellence] is to be arrived at through the culture 
o^ thai particular group, [and we should look in vain for any logical 
reason to choose between the excellence of reciting the Navajo chant 
and the excellence of quoting Horace.] ^^ There is really no difference, 
(in this moral realm.] between the value of a written and an unwritten 
literature. 

(In light of the claim to universal superiority through the preservation 
of indispensable spiritual heirlooms,]'"^ ''^-^^ perhaps the most extraordi- 
nary thmg about the cultured ideal is its selection of the particular trea- 
sures of the past which it deems worthiest of worship. This selection, 
which might seem bizarre to a mere outsider, is generally justified by a 
number o\' reasons, sometimes endowed with a philosophic cast, but 
unsympathetic persons seem to incline to the view that these reasons 
are only rationalizations ad hoc, that the selection of treasures has pro- 
ceeded chiefly according to the accidents of history. '*"' [Were rationality 
the only guide] a case could be made for teaching Eskimo in the public 
schools instead of Greek or Latin; [but the languages of the classical 
world are not. for us, merely grammatical schemes for our intellectual 
exercise. Their importance rests primarily on their value as symbols of 
our tradition.] In the acceptance of social symbols one must not be too 
logical. 



2. The German Kultur 

""^ The foregoing has defined one conception of culture - the contrast 
between the cultured group and the folk. ^"^ This idea of culture is the 
evaluational term referring to the activities of the elite. A second defini- 
tion of culture is the German kultur, ^^^ ^- which even when used by 
German anthropologists seems always to have something mystical in 
its meaning. It somehow embraces the idea of the geist of a people, the 
underlying soul or spirit. ^^"^ The German philosophers' idea was that 
there were general and absolute values which transcended trivialities 
and could be said to be characteristic of a group. [If we wish to try to 
put this less mystically we might say that] '-^ ■■'• ^- kultur is a unified or 
integrated conception of culture, [emphasizing] its complex of ideas, its 
sense of the larger values of life, and its definition of the ideal (for 
example, the Greek ideal of calmness and the perfect, static image). °^ 
Though wider [than the first conception of culture it is] still a selective 
or evaluating use of the term, as applied to larger groups. '^- ^"^ Thus 



Two: The P.sycholoiiv <>/ Culture 429 

kiihiir belongs U> a uholc people and ineliules (iheir notion ol] those 
things that are fine and thai dilTerenliale the hiinian raee troni the ain- 
mal \\o\W - and, i^llen. Worn humans [eonsidered] more prmiitive. ^^ 
Certain soeieties ha\e defmile ideals: and an\lhing et>nirar\ to the ideal 
is not cultured, it is barbaric. 

^t^ Distinguishing kulfur from mimr, ^'^'^^ Rickerl'"* makes the state- 
ment thai piimili\e peoples ha\e no culture. I he distinction seems to 
be based on the supposed self-consciousness ol the spirit (among "civi- 
lized" peoples as opposed to the primiti\es,] '''' such as Hottentots, who 
l\o not ha\e it. '"'' '' A good conception of this meaning can be obtained 
from Spengler's Vntcrgan^ ties Ahciulhuulcs {Decline i)J the West). [Rick- 
ert's statement about primitive peoples must be rejected, however, for) 
^^ there is no such thing as a state of nature, or a man without cultural 
conditioning. [If this conception o'i "culture" has any usefulness it will 
be found to be as suitably applied to the Hottentots as to ourselves.]'*' 
*"'- It is not easy to defme the i^cist o'i a culture (or people, rather) - 
'•'" to estimate a whole civilization in terms of these archetype values. 
^^ [Still, let us try some examples and, for each, consider its] "culture" 
from the standpoint of basic ideas. For instance, '^'^^ '■'' French culture 
might be characterized by the ideal of the golden mean: '' nothing in 
excess. ^^^ There seems to be a pervading formality, [an emphasis on] 
clarity and closure in configurations and patterns " that results in a 
standardization of spiritual values as well as of many other values. '''" 
The French take forms very seriously; although they emphasize grace 
and ease they don't want things to go casually or informally, [and they 
have little interest in] spic-and-span American efllciency. '''' '- " The 
philosophy of standardization to an ideal [is a pervading theme in many 
areas of life, such as] the regularization (^\' language [decreed b\] the 
French Academy, ''"^- ^"^ the devotion to clear and lucid expression, le 
mot juste, and [the operation ot] the French bureaucracy."' *"'' [Notice, 
however, that this is not at all the same thing as] industrial standardiza- 
tion, [which is resisted in France,] especially if it comes into conflict with 
family traditions [o\^ business management, as occurred] for instance m 
the linen trade and in bookbinding. 

ii. r2. ck. MM Ip, Pri^nt;!-, culture self-expression, [too. should display) 
taste, restraint, and discretion. '- '^ There is a distrust o\' fundamental 
drives unless they are checked by discretion and convention: \ox [the 
French] beauty lies in reason, not in some Faustian spirit of exhilaration 
in self-expression. "'' So cooking and eating are arts, a sublimation o{ 
bodily needs and the I-rench think it is barbaric not to sublimate 



430 lit Culture 

thus. ^'^ The real I rcncli arlisi would never be lacking in good taste. ^^ 
rhcrc IS wo abundance o^ emotion and nothing which is not precise, 
clear, and measured, be ii music or literature. '- Voltaire and Debussy 
caught the French spirit, where there can be profound thought but it is 
coNcred with a certain airiness. " an exact casualness.'"^ '-• ^^' ^"^ Wagner, 
[o\\ the oihei hand.] was not accepted in France - he is too stirring, 
(too expressive ot] revolt: and the French dislike Shakespeare because 
of the lack of emotional measure and [classical] form. ^'^ Robinson Jef- 
fers would be impossible in French literature. '^'' [Of course, not every 
French author perfectly represents the ideal.] Victor Hugo cannot be 
classic and chaste although he is impressionistic in technique. 

[Another aspect of the French "spirit"] '^^-'"'^ is their supreme indiffer- 
ence to other cultures or to what others think of them. But perhaps 
what this satisfaction with one's own culture [most represents is not 
something peculiar to the French but] what I would consider a criterion 
o\' the "perfect development" of a culture:'^ "^'^ it is because they are 
so secure in their own values that [people] are uninterested in foreign 
inlluences. They live so well in their own culture that they are indifterent 
to [others.]''- 

^^ This analysis of a people's geist could be done for other cultures 
too. ^^- '-• " In the culture (in the sense of kultiir) of pre-war Russia, in 
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that is, [we see a spirit] very 
dilTerent [from the French.] ^'^ Music and literature (tor example Tchai- 
kovsky, Dostoevsky, and so on) were characterized by an overflowing 
of emotions, an openness, outspokenness, even a brutal emotional com- 
pleteness. ''^-•^^ In a spiritual sense, it was easy for the Russian to over- 
throw any embodiment of the spirit of institutionalism; his real loyalties 
lay elsewhere, ^''- ^' preoccupied with [an elemental humanity and an 
intense] spirituality. [It is a spirituality] with a double face - as close to 
Satan as to God. ^'' [Perhaps the] quintessential [work of this [culture's] 
literature is the] play The Loner Depths, with its faith in human nature 
at its worst. ''^--^^ In the pages of Tolstoi, Dostoyevski, Turgenev, Gorki, 
and Chekhov personality runs riot in its morbid moments of play with 
crime, in its depressions and apathies, in its generous enthusiasms and 
idealisms. '- Russian writers seem to be [immersed] in raw human ex- 
perience; [despite a certain French influence] they never surrendered to 
that [French] artificiality. ^''- '- Their music, too, has a quality of stark- 
ness - a more elemental, simpler emotional character. ^^ [All this is 
before the War and the Revolution of 1917, however.] It would be inter- 



Two: rhc Psvclutloiiy of Culture 4^1 

esting Ic) know it" Russia has really changed emotionally, or whether this 
[cultural "spirit" we ha\e just described) is not still the case. 

\i. ii. hu What about the kiiltur of (iernians themsehes'.' Ihis presents 
a curious paradox. On the one hand there is a remarkable exactness 
and ihonnigliness. an extraordinary care and skill (with detail]; and with 
il. on the oilier hand, is a rather wishy-washy romanticism (exalting) the 
shadowy and the mystical. '- Really, [the Germans are) a very romantic 
people. '' Cioethe [is a supreme example ol] mystic romanticism with an 
occasional return \o supreme brusqueness.'" 

r2. ri.ck. qq jj-,^^ coiitcmporary American, however, feels the overpower- 
ing necessity to utilize all possibilities or capabilities. ^"^ If having a 
fortune is important to the French, making one is important to Ameri- 
cans; it is imperative to make as much money as possible. ''^- '•'' Ameri- 
can culture is autobiographical in character, and its ideal is adventur- 
ous, with a certain lumultuousness of spirit always present that does 
not regard tradition too highly. "^^^ ^~- '^' There is something of the msstic 
in the typical American, with his belief in answers, [especially as deriv- 
ing from] education. [It is for this reason that he insists on] exactness, 
on making evaluations in finite terms, with definite figures. ^"^ Only in 
American culture could the phrase "fifty-fifty" have evolved, [for on\\ 
here do we find such] willingness to measure intangibles; expressii^i 
must be quantitative. '^^' ^-- ^^ There is a pretense of extreme objectivitv. 
of objective control of situations which cannot be [tangibly measured]. 
'-'^ To make of society a machine, understand il. and then control it - 
this is the American idea. ''•■' Yet. the individual's life reveals a relative 
fragmentariness and contradiction. 

'^' [For our final examples, let us compare] the classical Hindu culture 
of India [with the culture of Americans and of the Chinese]. ''^- ^' The 
Hindu ideal is curiously individualized, [but in a manner very dilTerent 
from the American or Chinese.] The sense of time differs greatly. '- 
[amounting to a virtual] disregard of time, [from an American point oi 
view, and this disregard contrasts strikingly with the] ^-- ^^"^^ obsessive 
time-consciousness of all Western cultures, where time is [constantly 
being] measured and there is a keen awareness of its passing, along with 
a strong interest in history. ^'^ The Chinese, too, have a vivid time sense 
and interest in past history, '^^''- '' with a keen understanding o^ the value 
of dating cultural events, '' theirs is not the instrumental sense of time 
that ours is. ''^- '^' Hindu culture, however, does no\ care for dates. There 
is little emphasis on time location in Indian history ox literature, lor the 
Indians do not assign value to [such specifics] but feel that fundamental. 



432 f^f Culture 

pcrduring values arc timeless and placeless. ''^- '~- '^ Unconcerned with 
an immediate world of cause and effect, [they attend instead to] a pre- 
cise modality o^ principle: the world is made up of eternal principles 
which arc found [only] through suffering - suffering that is sometimes 
mistaken for pleasure. ^'^^ '^ [Hindu culture is] a strange mixture of im- 
mersion in the immediate world of sense and at the same time a com- 
plete withdrawal from it. Since the sensory life [entails] suffering, 
thoughts o'i future happiness [concern not this life but] new reincarn- 
ations, [leading, ultimately, to] absorption in God. '^- ''•^''' This sort of 
life is a paradise of the introvert. While the Chinese cultural ideal [de- 
votes more attention to] the commonplace, and to awareness of the 
present moment, the Indian seems apathetic and unaware. To him the 
present, and the world of sense, are a vain illusion.-' 

^"^ [Our second conception of culture,] kultur, [thus defines culture in 
terms of a particular people's] preferred quahties and evaluations, and 
their loyalty to [certain central themes and] master ideas. "^^ [With our 
first conception it shares a stressing of] a group's unconscious selection 
of values ''^-■*'' as intrinsically more [important,] more characteristic, 
more significant in a spiritual sense than the rest. ^"^ But just how valu- 
able is this definition?-- The whole terrain through which we [have just 
been] struggling is a hotbed of subjectivism, a splendid field for the 
airing of national conceits... ^'^-^^ [Yet] there need be no special quarrel 
with this conception of a national genius so long as it is not worshiped 
as an irreducible psychological fetich. "^^ The anthropologist does not 
like this generalized view of culture, however. ^^^"^^ Ethnologists fight 
shy of broad generalizations and hastily defined concepts. They are 
therefore rather timid about operating with national spirits and ge- 
niuses. The chauvinism of national apologists, which sees in the spirits 
of their own peoples peculiar excellences utterly denied to less blessed 
denizens of the globe, largely justifies this timidity of the scientific stu- 
dents of civilization. Yet here, as so often, the precise knowledge of the 
scientist lags somewhat behind the more naive but more powerful in- 
sights of nonprofessional experience and impression. To deny to the 
genius of a people an ultimate psychological significance and to refer it 
to the specific historical development of that people is not, after all is 
said and done, to analyze it out of existence. ""^ [It must, instead, even 
help to illuminate such ethnological problems of historical development 
as the selective "borrowing" of cultural traits, because it calls attention 
to the fact that] while elements are borrowed, they are being snugly 
fitted into a definite framework of values. {'^ [Actually, there is some] 



T\\^^): The Psvihtiloi^y of Culture Ay} 

danger in using the term ■■bornnving" lor |lhis process, since llie] traits 
are fitted into a pattern of \alues quite i)thei [than iIkiI m uhich ihey 
originated].) 

'' [In short,] the above two ideas of culture share an emphasis on 
[selectivity and] a sense of value. [Shorn o\' tlieir more mystical and 
chauvinistic elements they are not unworthy of the anthropologist's at- 
tention.] '''-■^'' [From the idea o\' kulfur] we may accept culture as signify- 
ing the characteristic mold o\' a ci\ ili/ation. while from the [first] con- 
ception o( culture, that oi' a traditional type o\' indi\ idual refmement, 
we will borrow the notion of ideal form. [From both we may adopt the 
emphasis on value.] 



3. The anthropological idea oj culture 

[While the first two definitions of "culture" are based, in their dif- 
ferent ways, on concepts of selection and value, the anthropological 
idea of culture - supposedly, at least - is not. It concerns, instead,] "'• 
ti, bw ^11 those aspects of human life that are socially inherited, as con- 
trasted \\ ith those types of behavior that are biologically inherited and 
with those that [represent] ''' individual reactions lacking historical con- 
tinuity. [Perhaps the best-known anthropological definition is the one 
proposed by Tylor in 1871: "Culture or civilization, taken in its wide 
ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knms ledge, 
belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits 
acquired by man as a member of society."]-^"* 

[But although Tylor's definition is often cited,] ' ' it is illusory to think 
culture is clearly defined. [Only a slight alteration o\' Tylor's statement 
yields the following:] ''' The evaluation or reaction of an individual to 
(1) patterns of behavior, (2) habits of mind, (3) traditions. (4) customs 
- which he learns as a member of society - is his culture. [But is it not 
the case that as soon as we have emphasized the individual's evaluations 
or reactions, our definition] equals personalit\ [as much as, or rather 
than,] culture'.' [Yet, we shall need to make a distinction between the 
two since] this [individual] reaction may, in certain cases, inlluence the 
content of the culture. Even Remy de (iourmont.-"^ who spent most o\' 
his time in an attic, [had his effect on the culture o\' his time ] 

[Suppose, then, that we try to evade this difilculty by emphasi/ing 
the social and excluding that which is individual] ^'"' But uere we to 
confuse the "social" with the "culturar'-' [we would onl\ be exchanging 



4 "^4 fit Culture 

one problem tor another, lor] '^' "society" and "social" are ill-defined 
(and much line literature [in the social sciences] is vitiated by this), d'"- 
^^ "Social" as a term points in two directions: there is "social" in the 
sense of "acting in concert," or gregariousness; and there is "social" in 
the sense o^ falling back on the sanctions of the group - on the under- 
standing o[' the group. '''" [The first sense is not particularly helpful for 
an understanding of culture, since] the interactions of individuals as 
such may extend to enormous numbers of people and yet not be cul- 
tural. [It is true that] in normal situations culture is carried by collectivi- 
ties - hence the ready confusion. ''' But collective yawning, for exam- 
ple, mav not be cultural. [In the company of others] an individual may 
react as an individual, or he may duplicate reflexes, [and neither of 
these, presumably, is quite what we thought we meant by "culture."] 

''' [Indeed,] not enough attention has been paid to individual activity 
which is collective [but not cultural, perhaps because of the aforemen- 
tioned confusion about the term "social." And perhaps we have also 
failed to recognize the extent to which an individual's behavior is cultur- 
ally formed even when he lives alone. Even] '^"^ the anchorite must ratio- 
nalize [his actions] or connect himself in some way to a body of culture. 

'^'- **' [The second meaning of "social," that is as involving] consensus 
and, [especially,] sanction, is better [suited to our purpose, since it draws 
our attention beyond behavioral acts.] ^^ For behavior, [no matter how 
collective,] illustrates culture but is not culture. It must always have 
meaning in terms of the opinion of a collectivity, ideal or actual,-^ be- 
fore it is culture. There is something of social evaluation in anything 
that is cultural; [certainly] ^'' it enters into every definition of culture I 
have made. Culture is not mere behavior, but significant behavior. A 
particular word in a given language [is a good example: "^"^ thus [the 
expression] "damn you," uttered ([let us suppose]) as a release of ten- 
sion, is just as much at the mercy of society as any cultural trait [ordi- 
narily found on an ethnologist's Hst]. Being the "data" of culture it 
cannot be merely haphazard syllables, for the choice of sounds is fixed 
by an unconscious trend of opinion. [No matter that our example is 
humble. Even if a conversation is utterly banal,] just to talk is of the 
highest cultural relevance, while running out of a theater in a fire scare 
may not be cultural at all. [It may be more important, certainly, but] 
dm. ^^ ixn^QxVdnQQ has really nothing to do with a concept of culture. 
Sanction, [instead,] is significant, for the meanings of behavior rest on 
historical sanction and selection. 



Twd: The Psviholoi^y (if C'lilfiiir 435 

Jm jYY^ might c\cn sa\ lluil] llic icsl i^f jw hcihcr a i\pc ot behavior is 
part ol] cuhmv is ihc ahiHl\ lo hislDiici/c it. Sonic t\pcs ot behavior 
[are historically sanctioned in that thcyj have been selected as meaning- 
ful. '*'" ^*^- '^' As an illustration, we need not hesitate lo call iiisiurc a 
cuituralized field, because it is subject to histor\ and change. ''' Neapoli- 
tan gestures, for example, arc cLillurall\ detcrmmed [and locally specific; 
the\ are] not Latin or Mediterranean or racial. ''"'• '*'• ^^ To be sure, 
beha\ior looked at as a purely physiological function - and all beha- 
vior is ph\siological [at some level, where it might be analyzed as in\oK- 
ing] refiexes, relief activities, [and the like] - looked at a.\ such it is not 
culture.- [But to look at gesture only as physiology would be an error. 
As with so many other behaviors, in gesture] there are two fields of 
activity, the physiological and the psychological.-^ '*'" [De\elopmen- 
tally]"'^ speaking, I think that culture is [indeed] built on indi\ idual im- 
pulse, but we know very little about how individual beha\ ior is actually 
[given psychological significance in the child's experience:] nor do we 
know \ery much about how social transmission [actually works.] In the 
world of significant activity — "culture" - we are ne\er in the pc^sitit>n 
to spot the psycho-biological genesis of any one trait. 

Ill- bg [Nevertheless, it is still perfectly possible to say that] gesture is 
cultural in that it is historically determined, changing from time to time. 
It is full of meaning, not on the level oi" the individual's refiex. but 
within a framework of conventions in a particular society. [Doubtless, 
the very fact of its conventionality contributes to gesture's social func- 
tion, for a distinctive system of gestures helps to establish what we might 
call a] "community of motion." [The gestures] have a significance for 
society in that they give it a comfortable feeling of social relationship, 
bg. dm. hi y^Q must not try to be too functional in our explanation [o\' 
such behaviors, however, tor their] functionality is not all-important. *'^' 
Gestures cannot and should not always be interpreted from the cM'iginal 
significance of a particular action. [It is more fruitful to consider their 
role as social symbols. But] even where there is no specific symbolism 
to apply to a particular [form o\' behavior or] social phenomenon, we 
should not press functionalism too far, ''' ^''" or tr\ to be too logical 
about the meanings of culture. ''^^ ^''" ''' The habit o\' being too func- 
tional is a paranoid mechanism, basically! ''' The paranoid type o\' per- 
sonality is logical to the nth degree, always looking for ad hoc explana- 
tions of everything, [and overestimating] the \alue o\' self-reference. " 
"*'" We cannot inquire too closely into the real iele\ance o\' cultural 
traits. 



436 Jt^ Culture 

(Now, uhcrc might gesture fit into Tylor's definition of culture? 
Should it be listed as another item in the contents of culture, in addition 
to] ^-'^ knowledge, beliefs and morals, law and custom, and habits? [But 
does it not partake o\^ all of these in some way?] ^"^^ ^^^ "^s- ^' The actual 
content of cuhure is enormous, [and we shall not capture its essence by 
iicmi/ing. It seems to me, therefore, that] '^' ""^ Tylor's definition of 
cuhure has outlived its usefulness. It merely helps to orient you, and 
does not go very deep. '^'"- '^^' '^'' ^' Tylor's definition is inadequate be- 
cause it makes too much of those particular types of behavior that seem 
most important in a political sense, and of highly evaluative cultural 
elements such as religion. He is not wrong, but he prevents us from 
thinking clearly through to such cultural facts as gesture, whistling, 
speech, attitudes, or other elements which are unnoticed yet definitely 
cultural. 

[Let me suggest a somewhat different definition, therefore.]^^ ^^^ *"'' 
dm. h2. SI ^j^y fQj.j^ of behavior, either explicit or imphcit, overt or covert, 
which cannot be directly explained as physiologically necessary but can 
be interpreted in terms of the totality of meanings of a specific group, 
and which can be shown to be the result of a strictly historical process, 
is likely to be cultural in nature. ^^ ^^ "Historical process" means the 
conveyance of forms of behavior through social processes, either by 
suggestion or by direct instruction to the young. '^"^ This last [part of 
the definition] is needed because of the possibility that innate biological 
motor patterns [contribute or point] toward the symbolism [maintained 
by a group without actually being part of that symbolism.] ^' History 
and consensus are the important [things, therefore]; even habit may be 
[cultural] if it is historically determined. ^'^' ^'' ^^' ^^^ ^^ Culture demands 
a historical continuum, implicitly or explicitly conveyed to the young 
by their elders, ^2- '^™' ^i- ''' [though in general] unconscious assimilation 
plays a greater part than conscious learning, and implicit forms are 
more significant than explicit ones. 

1924b "Culture" in this third sense shares with our [second, Germanic] 
conception an emphasis on the spiritual possessions of the group rather 
than of the individual. With our [first] conception it shares a stressing 
[of historical tradition. And as modified, our definition shares with 
other conceptions a nofion of form and selective valuation: there is a 
selection of behavioral forms that are meaningful to a group, that it 
recognizes as belonging to its world of significant acts. So perhaps there 
is more that is useful in these two first conceptions of "culture," and 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 437 

more that they have in common with our technical defmiticMi. than 
anthropologists are used to admitting. We shall have to lo^k at our 
"true" definition of culture more closely.]^^ 



Editorial Note 

This chapter coincides with Part I of Sapir's 1928 Outline and the 
opening lectures of his course each year he gave it, both at Chicago and 
at Yale. The notes for all three Yale years are quite similar. In 1936-37. 
the material in this chapter was discussed in the lectures of Oct. 12 and 
19 (notes by Rl, R2, CK, QQ). For 1935-36 no dates are given, but 
all sets of notes (Tl, T2, BW) cover some of the same material. In 
1933-34, the lectures of Oct. 3, Oct. 10, and a portion of Oct. 17 deal 
with this topic; among the note-takers for that year BG, H2, and MD 
have notes for Oct. 3 and 10, while HI and SI join in as of Oct. 17. 

Sapir's discussion of the term "culture" here clearly resembles a por- 
tion of his argument in "Culture, Genuine and Spurious" (1924b). I 
have drawn on a few passages from that text in reconstructing the first 
two sections of the chapter. The third section, on a definition o^ the 
anthropological use of the term "culture," relies mainly on notes from 
1933. In the 1936 notes there is evidently a gap: from concluding pas- 
sages it is clear that some anthropological definitions of culture, includ- 
ing Tylor's, had already been presented, but the portions o^ Sapir's lec- 
ture that did so are not recorded. Instead, the notes from 1935 and \^)M^ 
focus on methodological problems that seemed lo mc more con\c- 
niently placed in the next chapter. 



Notes 

1. In 1933 and perhaps in 1935, Sapir sccnis lo have made a quiek Mimmar\ o\ ihc ihrcc 
uses of the term "culture" before delving more deeply into each ot them Me apparent!) 
did not start with such a summary in 1936. 

2. Here Sapir uses "civilization" rather than "culture " ui the anthropt>logical sense, sec 
1924b: "To avoid confusion with other uses oi the word culture.' uses \shich emphati- 
cally involve the application of a scale of values, I shall, where necessars. use ciMli/.iiion" 
in lieu of the ethnologist's 'culture.'" In the present passage there is htile conllicl between 
this use of "civilization" and common uses of that term. 

3. CK actually has "a natural thing," and then adds: "Language not definable in lis own 
terms - words, for children, have dennile value, emotional color We acquire a rubber 
stamp attitude toward a word by gradually unloading emotional values from a word " 



438 /// C'lilriirt' 

This passiigc aboui language is apparently out of order, however. I have placed it in 
ch. :, uhcro Rl has a similar text. Sec also a similar passage in ch. lO's discussion of 
six'iali/aiion 
4 DM adds: "Mr CiarlV (Tailor) was an example o( the system of gentry that is so secure 
that It has a hypnotic elTect {'!)". 

5. DM adds: "No criticism made of their being serious. Jokes are only release mechanism." 

6. In 19.V1 Sapir seems to have called this a "caste system." 

7. BCj has "priests"; all others have "nobles." 

8. This statement seems somewhat to contradict other note-takers' reference to a "caste 
system" (DM, H2) and H2's note about noble endogamy (although what H2 actually 
has is "Caste system; nobles / marriage among them"). Sapir's 1915 paper, "The Social 
Organization of the West Coast Tribes," indicates that intermarriage between nobles and 
other ranks was impossible in theory and rare in practice. If QQ's note is accurate, 
perhaps in this passage Sapir was alluding to those "cases in which men of lower rank 
ha\e b\ dint of reckless potlatching gained the ascendency over their betters, gradually 
displacing them in one or more of the privileges belonging to their rank." (Sapir 1915; 
SWES p.^472.) 

9. Ti has: "But Northwest Coast Indians have a hierarchy and strong class distinction 
which depends on the doings of ancestors who established the family, the value lies in 
the right to sing, play, lay claim to ancestors and legends which is real and authoritative." 

10. CK adds: "(Visual memory keen as it is not obscured by substitutive symbol, memory, 
reading)." 

11. CK actually has "kudos." 

12 Since EG prefaces the explanatory passage by "Sapir:" and H2 has "Sapir's explanation 
of elites:", 1 infer that Sapir prefaced this passage with some hedging or suggestion that 
he was offering only a personal opinion. 

13. Wording of the bracketed passage derives in part from Sapir 1924b. 

14. See H. Rickert, Kultwwissenschaft imd Naturwissenschaft: ein Vortrag. Freiburg i.B.. 
1899. This work was published in several editions. Publication dates suggest that the 
edition Sapir used may well have been the 5th (1925). 

15. .See Sapir 1924b: "A genuine culture is perfectly conceivable in any type or stage of 
civilization, in the mold of any national genius..." 

16. BW has: "fr ex. language, regularization - allow no Carlyleness - better have norm for 
measure in language, definitions accepted make easier to know you are understood." 

17. TI also has: "'French measure' in music is not really emotional but rather a limited, 
classical ecstasy (ballets). Exponents are Voltaire and Debussy." 

18. For a similar argument see "Culture, Genuine and Spurious" for a notion of cultural 
"genuineness." 

19. DM has "outside influences." 

20. in 1933 Sapir did not discuss German culture but instead mentioned the Pueblo Indians. 
BG has: "The geist of a pueblo people is quite another pattern - subdued sobriety, 
introversion, restraint, being the characteristics." 

21. CK adds: "Indian culture is collectivized introversion." 

22. BW actually has: "(not valuable deO". It is not clear whether Sapir himself decreed it 
not valuable - a statement that would be consistent with the note in BG that "It is not 
easy to define the geist of a culture or people," but inconsistent with the foregoing 
excursions into the spirit of French culture, Russian culture, etc. - or whether he said 
(as in CK and 1924b) that anthropologists tend not to like this definition. 

23. Although none of the note-takers quote Tylor's definition exactly, it is evident that Sapir 
called It to their attention. DM gives a close paraphrase. I cite the original (Tylor 1871:1). 

24. Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915), French writer. 

25. DM actually has: "'Social' and 'cultural' must not be confused." 



Two: The Psychology oj Culture 439 

26. It IS iiDt clear utiolhcr "ideal i>r acUKil" relets to the collcclivity. the behavior, or the 
evaluation ol the beha\ior In the niariiin ol this passaiie H( i has "saint / sinner / c\- 
erynian". 

27. HI has: "To be sure, all behavior is physiological and as such is not culture ' DM has 
"Behavior looked at as a physiological function is never cultural." H(j has: "Heha\ior 
that is purely physit^logical - rellexes. relief activities - is not cultural." 

28. HI actually has: "There are t\M> fields c^f activity: / psych physii>l ) psycho-biol " Ilie 
arrangement oi these notes on the page makes it unclear whether the two fields are the 
psychological and the physiological, with "psychobiology" as a hybrid that may tend to 
confuse them, or whether Sapir was making some distinction Ix-iwceii 'ps\ch'>hi.>K»g\" 
and "psychophysiology." I iiaxe chosen the first alternative. 

2^). DM actually has "Cieiietically," a word Sapir almost always uses in the de\elitpmental 
sense rather than in the biological sense. To avoid confusion for the modern reader I 
substitute "developmental" for "genetic" here and in many other passages 

30. HI adds: "Being too functional is a paranoid mechanism: to wit Brown i^ Ml. id .md 
Malinowski." 

31. BCl has "Sapir's definition." Notice that the definition shifts .lu.iv iiom luiuhc t.> 
what is ■cultural" - from whole to attribute. 

32. The note-takers have slightly dilTerent versions of the definitions B(i has: "Any f«>rm o^ 
behavior, either explicit or implicit, overt or covert, which can not be directly interpreted 
physiologically, and which has meaning in terms of the totality of meanings of a specific 
group and which can be shown to be the result of a strictly historical process, is cultural." 
HI has: ".Any form o^ behavior, either implicit or explicit, that is not explainable in a 
phvsiological sense, and which has meaning in the totality of the group and which can 
be shown to be the result o\' historical process, is culture." H2 has: "Any form o'i beha- 
vior, explicit or implicit, overt or not. winch is not directly physically and biologically 
necessary and individual but can be interpreted in terms of the group and can be shown 
to be historically determined is likely to be cultural in nature." DM has: "Any behavior 
which has meaning for the totality of a group and which can be shown to be the result 
of an historical process are culture." SI has: "Any form of behavior which has meaning 
in terms of totality meaning in group and which can be shown in historic trend " 

33. Wording of the bracketed passage comes partly from Sapir 1924b, partly from note- 
taker passages already drawn upon, in order to bring the chapter to a conclusion. 



Chapter 2. The Concept of Cuhure 
in the Social Sciences 

[MctluhloloiiicLil prohlcnis in iiiilhropDlo^y] 

'""' '' [In the prccedintz leclure we began to consider] tlie anthropok^iii- 
cal sense of the term "cuhure" as embracing all those human reactions 
\s hich are socially inherited, as contrasted with those lacking historical 
continuity or those based on biological heredity. "' [You will recall, how- 
ever, that our] attempt at a closer definition [than Tylor's] led to [a 
glimpse of some] unexpected difficulties. [Let us examine some of these 
more carefully now.] 

*"'' [Whatever else culture may be, the anthropologist insists that it is] 
a continued thing, [transcending the vagaries of] individual experience. 
" For example, although the Minnesota accent [o'i a Mid-Western 
schoolboy from a rural background may] change nalurallv to an Oxford 
accent [if he should happen to cross the ocean for his uni\crsit\ educa- 
tion, this change is merely a personal matter that has Iiiile to di> with 
the gradual shifts of pronunciation that take place over the years m the 
language as a whole.]' The English language goes on, with a continuit\ 
[of its own that does not depend on the particular events of an individ- 
ual's personal history. Nor is] the biological sequence [b\ which our 
schoolboy passes from] birth to adulthood and [eventual] death [a cul- 
tural matter, even though cultural transmission involves the sequence 
of generations.] '""'■ " '- [We must therefore distinguish among at least] 
three fields of behavior or kinds of continuities: those continuities that 
are biok)gicall\ necessary; those that aic accidental or contnigent;* and 
those that are socialized. [It is the last that represents the) cultural conti- 
nuities, tor *"'' ^~ culture is in no regard accidental, [insofar as this char- 
acterizes that which is] individual and personal, nor does culture con- 
cern itself with that which is biologicallv necessary. 

"• •' [What are the phenomena] belonging to culture, [then.' Perhaps 
it seems obvious enough that] language, religion, monetary systems, 
political [patterns such as] methods o\' voting, social organization, and 
literature all are in the continuity of culture. [But what <\o these grand 



442 ^^^ Culture 

rubrics rcprcseni. in terms o^ behaviors the anthropologist might ob- 
serve?) ^'^ Is cuhure an objectively [observable phenomenon] after all? 
It really is extremely difficult and perhaps impossible to [identify what 
is cultural with complete] objectivity. There seem to be certain things 
we [as indi\ iduals] cannot change, [and we call these] culture. [But, as I 
suggested HI last week's lecture, some activities] may [appear to partake 
ofMiat grand cultural] pageant just because they exercise many adher- 
ents.' So although my definition has emphasized the historical and so- 
cial as apart from the individual, it may be [that this distinction is 
largely] metaphorical and that [the "social" in the sense we intend it 
here] cannot be isolated."* 

[We shall return to the problems inherent in the term "social" at some 
length later on. For the moment, let us try another approach to the 
problem o'i identifying what is "cultural." We agree that we have ex- 
cluded the accidental from the realm of the cultural, as well as physio- 
logical necessities as such. Yet, all behavior has a physiological dimen- 
sion: so how are we to isolate that which is cultural in it?] ^' [Though 
we referred to biological "necessity" earlier on, it is doubtful that we 
can solve our dilemma by supposing that all necessity is biological. 
Even physiological] necessity [is subject to cultural evaluation, entering 
the cultural dimension as it] takes on a psychological character. The 
locus of this necessity is important then; yet it can be [physiological or 
psychological,] individual or general. 

[Thus we have run into two kinds of difficulties.] °' [First,] no human 
behavior can be discovered which is intrinsically or purely "cultural." 
^"^ [Second,] we have not been patient [in our thinking about] the actual 
locus of culture, [for as soon as we] knew it was not in the individual 
[as such we] jumped to the "social" uncritically. [And as if two difficul- 
ties were not enough, there is yet a third, for] ^"^ [we anthropologists 
have somehow to infer the] continuity [between behavioral events, the 
continuity we are going to attribute to socialization], if we are then to 
say we have culture.. [That is, we claim that] wherever this pattern [of 
behavior occurs we have identified something cultural, since we know 
that the pattern's actual manifestafions may differ in irrelevant ways. 
But how do we get from the behavior to the pattern?] ""^ It is illusory to 
think culture is clearly defined. ^^ Its content is shaky, not fixed; the 
confines of the realm are not given but have to be created. 

'"^' *' [In practice,] "culture" is an ad hoc term for [those aspects of] 
experience that do in a sense transcend the individual and [to which we 
can attribute]-^ an historical and geographical continuity. "^ The anthro- 



7u7>. Tlh' I\svi/h>l())iy of C'uliuri' 44"^ 

pologisl slices ciiluirc mil o\ hchaMoi. |as ii were ] " ''' ihal is. we 
abstiael eiillme tVoiii belKi\u)r and label il uilli synibi>ls |ni>l| ubiee- 
tively, [lor objecli\il\ in this realm] is lun possible, but rather ad hoc. 
based on our experience of elements [of behasior) which are referred to 
by certain terms [in oui language. We] discmer a thing because, in a 
sense, we alieads know ii. |()ui "slicing" is done] through weirds, [and 
because we did not personall\ iiuenl these terms we suppose that the\] 
car\e with "objecti\it\."" 

'' Just as It is illusor\ to ihmk culture is clcaii> Llermed. then, sn it 
ma\ be an illusion |lo assume ihal the anthropologist can objectively 
describe and studs] the "lotalilN of culture."" |l suspect that what I am 
saying here will not please those anthropologists who like to think ol 
themselves as properl\] '''^''' brought up in the austerities o\' a well- 
defined science of man. '^ The ideal of most anthropologists is [to pro- 
ceed] like the chemist - to describe and classify objecli\ely. not to 
value; '- personal factors should be absent. [Difficulties in realizing this 
ideal arise immediately in ethnographic work, howe\er.] '■'' \bu start 
out describing socialized patterns, and end up by being biographical. 
You don't know whether you are interested in what you are going to 
abstract from observation or in behavior patterns.'' [And so on. If we 
are honest with oursehes we must recognize that no matter how careful 
and scientific one tries to be. the student of culture faces some serious 
methodological dilemmas.] 

'' The difficulty [lies in the process] of abstraction [necessars to an- 
thropological analysis, and to the fact that] the beha\ioral data [>ou 
can observe] are connected with less easily observed material, [without 
which they cannot be understood], [it is usually supposed that). idealK. 
[the less directly observed material, and iis connection with beha\uM-. 
are to be discovered through immersion in the culture]; but the idea ol 
immersion in a culture seems contradictor) to that certain aloofness 
necessary to analyze the patterns of behavior. '' The more \ou immerse 
yourself in a culture, the less abilils \ou ha\e to anal\/e the culture 
according to the anthropological ideal, for [)ust as] the Indian is not 
aware o\' the patterns o\'^ his culture, Jso will you be unaware o\ them 
the more you become like him]. '^ The more you identiis \ourself with 
the people, the less you are being an anthropologist, [in that sense). 

'^- •' There is a conflict o\' interest, therefore, between the anthropolo- 
gist's ideal of participating in the culture, and his technk|ue i>f analyzing 
the culture. To participate would be to psychologize; and in participat- 
ing, things become too vital for analysis. ""^ As an anthropologist you 



444 JJJ Culture 

want to tear cvcrv fact o'i the culture out of its individualized context. 
It IS nuMc important for the anthropologist to abstract patterns than to 
give a wealth o\' biographical detail, [and yet in so abstracting you must 
inevitably tend to lose sight of the actual experience of living individ- 
uals, to whom such patterns have real value in their interrelationships 
Willi other human beings.]^ '- In a way, the psychologist is much closer 
to the Indian than is the anthropologist, because he does not tear the 
[personal] context up. 

'-• '' The task of the anthropologist, then, cannot be [simply] to gather 
all observations available. The ideal of describing what one sees and 
hears is not enough. '' [If the purpose of anthropological work] is the 
analysis o\^ how culture is made up of a system of patterns,^ and to 
understand the relationship of these, "^^^ ■"-■ •■• then what the anthropolo- 
gist studies is not behavior at all, in the ordinary sense. His interest is 
not in the facts of behavior but in its typical patterns - not in the 
indisidual's experience, but in the patterns of culture. '■^- ''^' ^^ The 
anthropologist is not interested in behavior, but in the field of behav- 
ioral forms.'^ ■■' From the study of [behavioral] forms, anthropologists 
build up the patterns which [(they believe)] are transferred, socialized, 
and carried by the individual. ^^ But not everything we observe has 
anything to do with pattern. 

'■'' For example, could we base the study of religion on watching peo- 
ple in church? [Not everything we could observe in their behavior con- 
cerns religion, and not everything concerning their religion would be 
directly observable in their behavior.] Dorsey's study of the Arapaho 
Sun Dance'^ is a melange of all kinds of observations some of which 
have nothing to do with the Sun Dance. [If you propose instead to study 
the Sun Dance as a form of religious expression,] you must reassert your 
data in the terms of the pattern you have analyzed out. [The usual] 
advice is to note everything, but you don't - you note those things that 
have to do with the pattern you are observing. '^ Actually, if we made 
a complete encyclopedic survey of all the facts connected with religion, 
we would find that very few of them are directly related to the anthro- 
pologist's pattern of religion. The anthropologist's pattern is based on 
words - "religion," "God," etc. - and on the assumption that certain 
details can be omitted because they are like our own culture." 

''^- '- You need to understand the general behavior of the Indian, then, 
in order to make your abstractions [from observation, and even to select 
which observations you will take note of]. ""^ There is no such thing as 
"religious behavior" - there is [only] behavior. [When you propose to 



Two: The Psyclwlofiy of Culture 445 

sUid) religious bcha\ior,j \ini dissociate this segment troni the \slu)le 
of which it is part. '' Hence. ahht>iigh a study of cultural behavior is 
worthwhile, il is not a true study oi' culture patterns. ^'- "^^^ '^' Indeed, 
the concept ot "cultural behavior'' is a hybrid, even contradictory con- 
cept - a contlict in terms. There can be no such thmg, lor behavior 
cannot be equated with patterns. '^ [Behaxior is a property of the indivi- 
dual, and while] we need more study of the indi\idual in primitive soci- 
ety, it is not in itself the equixalent o\' a purel\ cultural survey. ^'•''^- '- 
[Moreover, behavior is physiological and for this reason too its observa- 
tion is not the same thing as a study o\' culture, for] culture is not 
concerned with the ph\siological necessities as such. ^' Culture deals 
with them, but it is not concerned wiih them. ^^ They are implied, even 
taken for granted, but they are not relevant for cultural analysis. You 
observe behavior, from which you abstract culture. 

"''• ■' [In proposing] criteria for a concept of culture, [then, ue shall 
clearly have to leave] Tylor's definition [rather far behind. And we shall 
not have resolved all problems as to the locus of culture, or its relation- 
ship to individual psychology. Anthropology's frequent assumption]' - 
''^'*-'' that culture is a superorganic, impersonal whole is a useful enough 
methodological principle to begin with but becomes a serious deterrent 
in the long run to the more dynamic study of the genesis and de\elop- 
ment of cultural patterns because these cannot be realistically discon- 
nected from those organizations of ideas and feelings w hich constitute 
the individual. ^"^ Where do socialized patterns leave olTand the primor- 
dial human being begin? We do not know yet where culture ends, jor 
how it atTects and alters the persons who live with its help and in its 
intluence.] '^''- ' ' The rate o\^ modifiability o{ human beings in regard to 
[cultural] patterns is an interesting question. '' But ii is useless to the 
versatilitv of the culture which is carried b\ ihcm.' ' 



[Distinguishing between the "eulturnl" uml the "socinl"] 

""^ In contrast to psychology, which has no dilTicuitN m discovering 
its subject matter - for its interest is in the [indnidual) human being, 
his behavior and reactions - anthropology has ditllculty on the theoret- 
ical side in defining its subject matter. ^'^ '' [lust o\' all] it does not 
know whether to ascribe certain aspects oi behavior to culture or to 
biology. Gesture, for example, (has seemed ambiguous in this way. as 
we saw in the preceding lecture. Moreover, anthropology has) ditVicully 



446 in Cult lire 

distinguishing between social phenomena and individual phenomena. ■■' 
These diU'icul ties (are inherenl in] the anthropological sense of "cul- 
ture." [The contrast with psychology does not arise because anthropol- 
ogy concentrates on the totality ot behavior or on some portion thereof 
that] "' ^"^ is deemed "social," but because "culture" is abstracted from 
the totality o\' human behavior. 

bvv. ck. o\ Although we [often] mix the term "cultural" with the term 
"social." they are really quite distinct, [even in a way] antithetical. [Ac- 
tually, there are some dangerous] ^'' pitfalls in the use of the term "so- 
cial." ^"^- '•'"• '''• '''• '^- [for if we inquire as to] its meaning we must realize 
thai there are various concepts or implications of the word, and we 
must decide which is [to be invoked. To start with, there is the basic 
distinction between] '^^''- •"'• "■- "social" as arising from the [sheer] coming 
together of people - physical togetherness - and social togetherness. 
The biologist [might be concerned with] the physical togetherness of 
people, and the psychologist [might be interested in] the reinforcing of 
individual actions [that such propinquity facilitates;] but the sociologist 
[emphasizes] the organized behavior and ordered life of a group, [whose 
members need not always be physically in the same place, their] to- 
getherness being of a different kind.'"* 

[Not only are these two senses of the term "social" different, but they 
may even come into conflict with one another. The first definition,] ^^' 
" "social" in the sense of gregariousness, or of human beings herded 
together in a band, [might, for example, be used to describe] a gang in 
the city, or ''' a crowd at the theater. ^'^' ^' "Social" in the second [sense 
would describe] a social dictum, for instance that you should not say 
the word "Swell!" because it is [supposed to be] bad [grammar]; yet, on 
the other hand, [in a way the dictum itself is] anfisocial because it is 
referred to [a disapproved] group [among whom] "Swell!" is the [nor- 
mal] usage. [What is "social" here - the actual] use [by a group, or the] 
idea[tional] construct ([condemning that use?])'^ 

bvv. ti jpqj. ^^ example of a similar] difficulty, [suppose we return to 
our theater crowd; and suppose someone in the crowd yells,] "Fire!" 
[From one standpoint this act is] social behavior, because "fire" is a 
socially understood word; yet [its utterance] lets loose anfisocial beha- 
vior (in our first sense of the term) [when the theater crowd panics.] 
The socially understood word [(socially in the second sense)] dissolves 
the group of the other "social" type. ^^ So the first sense of the term is 
not enough [for the social scientist's needs, while the second sense] is 
essentially [a matter of] ideas. 



Two: The PsvcliDloiiy t>l Culture 447 

"' Thus lliLMc is a lallacs in ascribing ihc icrni "social hclui\ior"' Id a 
collectivity as such. Ciroup hcha\ ior in this Incral sense (may be com- 
fortingly observable and] real, but it is irrelevant (to our purpose.) "So- 
cial beha\ ior." so called, is both indi\ idual and collecli\e; (it is anchored 
in the realm o\' ideas and imderstandings. No\n. where does "culture" 
enter in'.' ll has more lo tlo with the second sense o\' "social* than the 
llrsl. Hul if we reall\ want to answer this queslion we shall ha\e lo 
make e\en finer distinctions among ihe meanings of the term "st^cial."" 
There seem to be fne possibilities:] 

(1) ^^- '^'- '*'"• ''-■ '-' Social in the sense o[' "gregarious." [or ihe simple 
assemblage of people in an aggregate. It is difficuii lo find examples o\ 
this simple situation ~ a group gathered together at one place, say our 
theater croud waiting for the curtain [to rise, considered] from a purely 
biological [viewpoint] as an ecological group, apart from the reasons 
for being there. '*'• ""' [The example cited earlier.] o\' this theater crowd m 
a panic when someone yells, "Fire!", [might better illustrate the point.)' 

^2) bg. dm. hi, h2. lb SQ^^i^ij jp \\y^ "gregarious" sense plus cultural conno- 
tation. Our theater [aggregate] is now an opera crowd, expecting (a 
performance and to some degree knowledgeable about] the histor\ o\' 
music. ^^ That is, we have people plus motives plus patterns, and so on. 

(3) '^i?-^''"- ""• '^'- '^- Social in the sense of an individual [whose thoughts 
or actions ha\e a] group implication: for example the actions of a small 
child whose play activities [are oriented so as to] avoid parental taboos. 

(4) Social in the sense of an individual [whose aciiviiics have] cultural 
connotations, including ethical evaluations. President Roosevelt is alone 
in his study but he is writing a speech, or preparing a bill, with reforms 
of cultural import. ''' Or, as another example. C'hauncey .lohnnv John 
thinking what he will say at the Green Corn I csiival the nighi before 
the third day.'^ 

(5) Social with reference only to ori^anlzmion.^" for example political 
or geographical organization. We need an adjective other than "social" 
for this last type; perhaps it should properlv be called sociciul. ''' If we 
say social with reference lo organization, and mean societal organiza- 
tion, it is a good term [for what is studied in a) Science of Socielv.-^" 

[In these examples we have distinguished individual activities from 
collective activities, and we have seen that cultural connotations can 
attach lo either kind, although ihev need not.) "^ Another way to distin- 
guish among the many uses o\' the term "social" is lo compare the 
various disciplines [that emplov it. but with different connolalu>ns. 
Thus we might consider:]' 



448 JtJ Culture 

( 1 ) the ethical usage ([as in the expressions] "social sympathy," "social 
integration," "unseltlsh social work"). ^~ Ethical considerations may 
come under any of several [o[' the senses of "social" mentioned above,] 
since ethics involves the content [of one's actions] as opposed to [merely] 
considering the pattern: 

(2) the biological usage (i. e. gregarious, like ants and bees; 

(3) the sociological usage (concerning structure and organization); 

(4) the anthropological usage (concerning the peculiar nexus of a 
culture, which is historically conditioned - speech, tabus, beliefs, arts, 
and so on);~- 

(5) the psychological usage (concerning individual evaluation and 
criticism). 

[In short, it is highly misleading simply to equate the terms "cultural" 
and "social," or to assume that one has accounted for what culture 
is by referring to "social behavior" without further qualification.] "^^ 
"Cultural" and "social" tend to be associated together, but they are 
reallv distinct. 



[Distinguishing between culture and behavioral phenomena] 

[One of the greatest pitfalls in the term "social" is that its ambiguities 
may allow social scientists to persuade themselves that they are objec- 
tively observing physical behavior, when in fact they are not.] '' The 
social scientist is perpetually talking of ideas, and is bound by ideas, 
although [he often believes] that physical phenomena are what he 
means. "' There is a notional conflict between "culture" and behavior 
deemed "social": it is the ^' conflict between cultural phenomena and 
natural or physical phenomena, [and it is masked by the ambiguities in 
the term "social." 

Let us consider another example of these ambiguities, this time 
drawn from] ^' religion. ^"^ Going to church is social in the [collective 
sense, because there are a] lot of people there. [It is also social] in the 
[consensual sense, because the people] participate in communal ideas, 
"sin" for example. Yet most people do not pay [a great deal of] attention 
to the ceremony. [Suppose, for instance,] a girl [in the assembly is pre- 
sent but] does not pay attention; yet she is part of the "social" [occasion. 
She is] classified as participating from the mere fact that she goes with 
her father and does not voice her thoughts, "^ which may differ greatly 
from the attitudes of the various [other] individuals who are there. If we 



Two: Tlurs\choU)iiy iif Culture 449 

call lliis inclaiiLic of ideas "'rcliiiicHis."' [oi so iJciilily her parlicipalion,) " 
uc make lici" a \iclini ol'|oiii- own] uica [oluhal religion is.) We arc nol 
[taking an objeclive,) behaviorislic japproaeh nor could we. in the 
study of religic^n. for] "religion" is not acluall\ a naturally \isible or a 
physical entit\. It is, rather, a collectisity of thought. .Mere numbers arc 
not necessary [for "religious" behavior.] so that the ct)ncepl of "social" 
in sense I is invalidated: yet we are again wrong [il Wc go loo far in the 
opposite direction and] think that the collccli\ily was \^o{ the necessity 
at all but that the idea was the thing. 

dm. bLT. hi. ii 1,^ ^j-^, social sciences wc arc alua\s ti^ii bclucen two 
poles: the inteicsl m individual behavior, and jliic mleresl in] cultured 
patterning and social understanding. ''- [The realm o\' social science is] 
therefore hard to define - its object of study is confusing. '''' [In much 
the same way] the delimitation of culture [itsell] is difficult "' *''' 
unlike the objective delimitation o\' [subject matter in] the natural sci- 
ences. "' [in the social sciences] uncertainty generally prevails as to 
whether a given study belongs to the field o\^ "culture" or to the field 
of actual behavior, '*'" whereas in the natural sciences everybod> knows 
exactly what is being referred to [(what the object of study is)]. ''"'• ^*- 
''' The psychologists concerned only with behavior are prettv near [that 
certainty] too, [although their object of study] always relapses into [mer- 
ely] a more complex physiology.-"^ "*'" But in the social sciences we are 
always talking about two things: what people are actually doing in refer- 
ence to social situations and, on the other hand, [our concern] with the 
social pattern, at the ethnological [level. ]-'^ ''' Either point of view would 
be justifiable, [but not their confusion.] Much "social science" is a hall- 
hearted study of certain modes of behavior that have been tacitly (and 
often unavowedly) selected on cultural, not bchavioristic. lines. 

'*'" If you were a strictly [objective] social scientist you would never 
use the word rcllj^ion, for that presupposes certain categitnes [inti^ which 
your observations are to fall. But it is not possible to avoid making use 
of any categories in observing social situations and activities.]' Any set 
of activities is pre-judged in advance bv ihc culture (^f the observer. [M 
a social scientist you may wish to use the term "religion" because you 
are trying to get at some sort ot] universal meanings [whatever il is 
that is responsible for] the diffusion of Christianity.-" [for instance. But 
you should not confuse this wiih a bchavionsl psychologv] Religion 
from the point of view o\' psychology is quite a useless concept, [since] 
the psychologist is told in advance what religion is and that bothers 
[any true behaviorist.] Religion is not a thing that is [physiologically 



450 tlf Culture 

or) emotionally ilicic. hui a historically determined series of patterns 
interacting in a certain situation and [in a certain] series. [It is a cultural 
concept, and] a simple application of cultural concepts in a psychologi- 
cal investigation is naive. 

am. he YhQ onlv way out is to say that the patterns are never [directly 
present] in action. Religion ne\cr "occurs" - it is never performed. All 
\iui can siikh is ihc bohaxior of certain individuals in particular situa- 
tions that already have a cultural label. ^^- ^'" The [observer]-^ should 
ne\er start with patterns but with the individual, [from whose perspec- 
ti\ e] in any case the actualization of a pattern is never more than mar- 
ginal.-^ ''^^ No two people participating in a service have the same mo- 
tives, the same feelings, or the same reasons [for being there.] Each 
individual is differently ''religious," and you cannot accurately talk 
about a generalized "religious [person]." ''"' In the actual religious situa- 
tion, moreover, [as we said before, not all the behavior that occurs is 
rclcN ant to religion; some of it is merely head-scratching. In fact] you 
have the whole of human conduct flowing in, [and what you select to 
observe] depends on what you want to look at. '^"^ Thus this situation 
that we called religious is more of a fiction than we thought it was. It's 
all in the terminology — ^^ it is merely the use of terminology that 
makes patterns. [This is as true for the native as for the ethnologist, 
incidentally, so as a social scientist you can also turn it to your advan- 
tage.]-'^ ''■" There is nothing that helps us find out so much about beha- 
vior as terms and language. 

" The confiict of cultural phenomena with natural or physical phe- 
nomena [also arises with regard to so-called "religious objects," or "fe- 
tishes."] '''' Objects are not religion; ^' fetishism has no place in the idea 
of culture, for it is [merely] the misplacement of memory by outworn 
tokens. '^'^- '' For example, a ceremonial dancing shirt belongs to [the 
realms of] religion, decorative arts, technology (the history of clothing) 
- and to none of the three. [If] it is culture, it does not completely 
belong to any one [classification; for] ^'- ^^ culture is an idea, but a shirt 
is a piece of material. [If you want to call it] a piece of "material culture" 
[you must bear in mind that] ^^' ^^ although the material articles give us 
the means of [deducing some aspects of]^^ the culture, one cannot hang 
on to them alone, [and treat] the shirt as [a sort of] deposit of behavior. 
[If you wanted to understand its connection with religion you need not 
necessarily have collected the shirt itself at all - instead,] ^^ you should 
have found out the relevance of the shirt, [the meaning for its users and 



Two: The Psvcluflo^y of C'uhun- 451 

the ps>chological backgrouiKl lluil caused people lo make il in this 
way.]^' To get its import one must analyze it out of existence. 

[The tendency on ihe jxii t o\' some anthropologists to fetishi/e the 
fetish, as it were, that is to overemphasize tlie importance t>t" i>b)ects 
just as a neurotic might over\alue the hair of the beloved, is only the 
most extreme example o\' the misplaced identification o\' the cultural 
with the physical which we have also discussed wiih respect \o the "ob- 
jective" study o^ behavior.^- The point 1 want to make here is that] ''^^ 
ii2.ain j}^^, patterns [of culture] as given by ethnologists [in their analyses] 
are not real things they are merely the normal methods o\' interpre- 
ting behavior.^^ The culluial nuHie ot slud\ing belia\it)r is a highly 
abstractionist \iew that is not really interested in behavior at all. ^''"- *'-• 
•"^ You can't ever see culture; you see people behaving, ''-• ^^- '^ and you 
interpret [their behavior] in abstracted terms, by gathering data on 
[what you consider to be] typical forms of behavior, [as if the beha\ ior 
were] a pattern exemplified. ''"' Then you form theories as to hcn\ the 
patterns operate. '^ The ethnologist is never a "simon pure" [behavioral 
observer, since] anthropology's interest is in the pattern, par excellence. 

")'' The distinction between the study of culture patterns and the study 
of actual detailed behavior is absolutely fundamental to the point o\ 
view presented here. ''•'^^ The first represents a configurative viewpoint 
and [consists in] the study of a series of abstracted tbrms or patterns, 
while the second [concerns] behavior - "social" behavior [in some 
sense, perhaps, but] actual behavior [nonetheless, and as distinguishable 
from the abstracted forms as is the province ot] the behavionsi from 
that o[^ the historian. 



ck. ,■: Criteria for Culiurc 

[Our discussion has focused on a number of methodological and con- 
ceptual difficulties relating to the anthropological notion of culture and 
having considerable importance for the position ol anthropology in the 
social sciences. But so far we have perhaps said less about] '*' what 
culture is [than about] what it is not. [If we are to be able to consider) 
social science from the cultural angle, [how shall we recognize cultural 
phenomena? The preceding discussion has suggested various criteria, 
which may now be examineti more closely.] 

1 . [Culiurc ilcpcmis upon critcriu of vahu:]'^'^ The cultural, in behavii>r. 
is the valued rather than the nonvalued. [Value criteria applv both to 



452 Jft Cultwc 

the people whose eiiliiire we study and to our own methods of analysis.] 
^'^- ^' No matter how objective we try to be, we unconsciously apply 
criteria o^ value to our data, and make certain value judgements in the 
selection o\' the behavior patterns to be studied. [And so do the people 
we study. Vox this reason] ^•' all cultural concepts are relative, depending 
on the peculiar ideology and historical background of particular cul- 
tures.^"* 

2. [Ciiliurc is nonhloloi^'lcal.] ''''• '^*' The cultural is also non-biological 
- (not only in the sense that] it is not hereditary, but also ^^ in the sense 
that it is dependent upon equivalences of phenomena which can be 
biologically or physically described but whose locus of equivalence is 
not to be found in biological explanation so far as that can at present 
go. '' [That is, although behavior has a physical dimension, cultural 
patterns] are not physically definable; they are only definable through 
[a principle ot] substitutions. *-''• "^^ Culture [represents] an arbitrary the- 
ory of equivalences, where one set of physical facts can be translated 
into another (its symbolic equivalent), as spoken words can be 
translated into written ones. There is no limit to this fictitious world of 
symbolic equivalences, but rather, [ever] new combinations [matching] 
the infinite variety of experience. ^^ The locus of the pattern is not in 
biology or physics, so the culturalist is never interested in the biological 
or physical world [as such]. '"'' ^^ Even [our patterns of] adjustment 
to primary biological needs are plastered over with secondary cultural 
meanings. "^^ And we have learned to get away from those partly biolog- 
ical experiences which were responsible for our knowledge in the first 
place. [Arithmetic,] for example, [may have arisen from] counting the 
fingers on the hand, yet the concept of "ten" can be projected even 
though [a parficular] individual has only seven fingers. 

'-'' [Despite an anthropological consensus that culture depends upon 
social tradition rather than biological inheritance, the difficulty of dis- 
tinguishing the pattern from the expression of the pattern means that] 
the anthropologist does not always know whether to ascribe certain 
aspects of behavior to culture or biology. '"2' '^ Because culture is not 
concerned with physiological necessity as such, the total pattern called 
culture must not be implicit in the fact that the object of study is an 
organism. "'^ Falling down the stairs is not cultural ([even if the stairs 
themselves are a product of cultural activity]). '- ^^' ^^ Walking, eating, 
and mating are not culture, as regards their physiological functionality, 
although these biological factors are governed by culture in that the 
methods of preparing food, of taking [a mate, and so on] are governed 



Two: The Pwrholofiy of Culture 453 

b\ luihils [aiul ciisUMiis thai arc] socialls (acciiiircJ .iikI sancliDMccl). '-■'' 
AncUhcr got^d example o\ tins (jTrobleni] is jjesline; as uc saw earlier, 
'"'' we need not liesitale \o eall ■geslure"' a eullurali/cd Held, '*' because, 
faniiMig inlier things.) ii is siibjeel to history and change. '' However. 
[we nuisl be cautious about interring tiiat sonieliinig is cultural rather 
than biological just because it has changed.] The rate o\' modiHabihtN 
[of a pattern is not in itself a simple matter or a clearcut way to distin- 
guish the biological, the indi\idual. and the cultural, lor] the rate o\' 
modifiability \aries lYoni pattern {o pattern, from societx to si>ciety. and 
from individual to individual. 

3. [Culture hus a social reference.] •■''' The cultural is also often distm- 
guished as being societal,''*' i. e. going on in relation l(^ other members 
oi" the group; ^"'^- '^' it involves the recognition o\' other people more 
clearly than we ordinarily do. '•'■• But it would be dilTicult to fmd an\ 
biological fact of human behavior that does not invoke interorganic 
connectedness - '■'^ that is, there is no biological experience which is 
not ultimately societal - ''"* so this is not a [suHlcienl] defining charac- 
teristic. [We have to exclude the biological llrst.] 

"^^"^ [We ha\e already discussed] the difficulty of distinguishing between 
social phenomena and individual phenomena, and [the ditTerence] be- 
tween the "social"" and the ■'ciillLiral"" - [but it is probablv useful to 
emphasize once again that the activities which are culturally patterned, 
or have cultural relevance, need not be collective.] " Anti-social or unso- 
cial persons may produce cultural [forms] or social assets, *"'' [as for 
instance when an artist's work, produced in isolation.]^'' integrates so- 
cial ideas that have been lying around. ^''- " F-roiii the [observational]^' 
point of view [this activity] is not "social,*' but in a cultural sense it is 
"social" and may be the best type of object oi' studv for the social 
scientist. " [Similarly,] a hermit is anti-social in one wa\, vet through 
census-[taking], [use ot] money, taxes, and so on. [even in his rational- 
ization of self-isolation.] he is a part [of a larger commumtv.] He UKiy 
be an unwilling or unwitting [part, but he is in a .sense] a member o( 
society and [a participant in] culture. ''"' You can escape the "si>cial" [in 
the sense of social gatherings,] but vxni cannot escape culture. 

ri.r2. ck p^^,- ^|^j^. anlliropologist. [iherelore, what is important in beha- 
vior is not whether people perform it in a group situaluMi but] the 
pattern of their behavior, those phenomena for which a siKial tradition 
is responsible. '' A pattern is an assemblage of significant things, with 
a terminological key. 



454 f^J Culture 

(Presumably, ihcn.] ^'^ when you limit yourself to pattern awareness, 
this is anthropology. ''• '- But an individuars awareness of the patterns 
of experience is conditioned by his individual history and experience, 
[and this is as true o^ ourselves as it is of anyone else we study.] ' '■ '^' ^^ 
Is [it not conceivable, therefore, that] our conception of "society" [itself 
is] a cultural construct? '- As a matter of fact, all our concepts are mere 
patterns of our culture, and ^"^^-^ the term "society" [is no exception. It] 
is a cultural construct which is employed by individuals who stand in 
significant relations to each other in order to help them in the inter- 
pretation o\^ certain aspects of their behavior. 

4. [Culture is made up of patterns.] ''^' "■' Strictly [speaking, then,] the 
anthropologist is concerned with the location of patterns in the cultural 
order, [including] their origins, history, diffusability, etc. ^'^' '''' When the 
cultural is distinguished as not hereditary, this anthropological dictum 
is of course with reference to the patterns of culture as such, though 
they all have hereditary determinants ""^ in the organs and predisposi- 
tions [through which they are manifested], '^'i- "^^ Any patterns of beha- 
vior that are conceived of as having perduring reference to a group and 
are not carried by the biological mechanism of heredity give us the 
matrix out of which we can abstract the things called "cultural pat- 
terns." "^^^ ■■'• "■- The anthropologist is trained to follow the patterns 
rather than the social entities that carry the patterns, ""^ although the 
historical [transmission]^^ of patterning means that perfected patterns 
of behavior are conveniently located in social groups. 

[The process of discovering a pattern is not the same as its historical 
genesis or its ontogeny, however.] ^^^ ^^ A good example of cultural 
pattern [illustrating this difference] is the English language, [although 
any language might serve just as well, since] ^'"p language is the most 
massively unconscious pattern in all cultures.''^ '^•' ^^ For the child, 
words are fraught with emotion, backed by expression; they have a 
definite value, [in the sense of an] emotional color. [For children] lan- 
guage is not definable in its own terms, without emotion. For the adult, 
words are symbols. By gradually unloading emotional values from a 
word we acquire a rubber-stamp attitude toward it. '=''• '^ [From this 
standpoint the strong emotional attachment to one's language which 
can characterize] ethnocentrism, in the adult, is a kind of childhood 
nostalgia, a longing for a [remembered] feeling of security within the 
close little group. 

■■'• '^'^ For the linguist, [interested in] the form of the language, the 
process of discovering linguistic patterns and the location of patterns 



Two: The Psvrholoijv of Culture 455 

of speech ditTcrs iVoni llic psychological clisco\cry of speech ( ihc dis- 
covery of the psychological significance o\' a particular utterance in a 
parlicuhir situalicMi]. In language, (there is actually an inverse relation- 
ship between complexity of form and complexity of contextual implica- 
tion, for it is the] limitation o\' fiMni to a minimum that [allows it to 
bear] a maximum of implication.""' '' (The linguist derives] an analysis 
o( complex patterns [only b\ abstracting away] Worn the concrete ac- 
tions [of speech]. ^"^ Thus F.nglish is a hierarchy o\' simple patterns ab- 
stracted from concrete situations which grow in complexity. Patterns 
are abstracted from an e\ent; they are not a record of an event. '' The 
c\cnl [ilsclf. the actual] situation, is the meeting o\' man\ patterns, [not 
only the one you select for attention in your process o\' analysis.] ^"^ To 
understand an actual situation you are building pattern on pattern and 
the further down you dig. the more useless your patterns are in under- 
standing the real situation, [the "meaning" of the event to the people 
actually involved in it.] '''" When one says a word, one is angry, tired, 
and so on as well as manifesting a [linguistic] pattern. [So although one 
could] describe the beha\ ior in cultural terms, the linguistic psychologist 
[must also realize that] the actual fact of behavior [is not governed only 
by them.] Only the psychiatrist can tell you [about the rest o\'] what is 
actually there. 

ck. ri j\^^^ anthropologist's "culture", then, is the hierarchy o\' ab- 
stracted patterns and their complex interrelationships. '*' We drau these 
abstractions from the behavior of individuals in social settings. b\ 
agreeing on certain fictions such as social organization, religion, and so 
on, which we employ as hitching posts for certain beha\ior patterns.-*' 
"• ^'' The cultural [aspect]-^- is the core o( a beha\ ior pattern when all 
the individual factors and differences ha\c been taken aua>. A single 
occurrence ov phenomenon ma\ be the result o\' an unlimited number 
of culture patterns - '''' [that is. it may] split up into complicated parti- 
cipations having no [obvious] link - "• '''' and m taking true slock o\ 
this occurrence, to place [an action such as a glancing] look in the total- 
ity of the [indixiduafs] beha\ior and his relation with others, all these 
[patterns] should be considered; but generalK m ethnologs this cannot 
be done and should not be [undertaken.] 

" [Now, it] culture cannot be seen in the abstract, but is given in the 
forms of behavit^r. the sum t)f which make culture, then '' ^^ the locus 
of these [cultural] patterns where they reside [is problematic:] sou 
cannot actually locate a pattern in time or space. '''*''''^ We shall take 
language as our example. Language is a very ix-culiar,"*' even paradoxi- 



456 fJf Culture 

cal. thing because, on the face o^ it, it is one of the most patterned, one 
of the most culturahzed. of habits, yet that one, above all others, which 
is supposed capable of articulating our inmost feelings. The very idea 
of going to the dictionary in order to find out what we ought to say is 
a paradox. What wo "ought" to say is how we spontaneously react, and 
how can a dictionary - a storehouse of prepared meanings - tell us 
how wc arc spontaneously reacting? Everyone senses the paradoxical 
about the situation, and of course the more of an individualist he is, 
the more he proclaims the fetish of "preservation of his personality," 
the less patience he has with the dictionary. The more conformist he is, 
the more he thinks that people should, by whatever ethical warrant you 
like, be what society wishes them to be, the more apt he is to consult 
the dictionary. Language, then, suggests both individual reality and cul- 
ture; [so it would be absurd to say that language is located in the dictio- 
nary. The dictionary is merely an object, a thing that symbolizes lan- 
guage with respect to a certain value situation - in which the patterns 
of language intersect with the patterning of authority.]'*'* ^^ The dictio- 
nary is an example of the cultifying of a certain type of [linguistic] 
behavior; it takes a normative point of view, ascribing value [to certain 
linguistic acts]. [That is, the dictionary, as a concrete object, is not lan- 
guage, but merely an expression of the patterning of authority with 
respect to linguistic behavior.] 

ck. ri Pqj. ^j^g anthropologist, culture is a conception, not a reality. 
And it is not a closed field; there are always new patterns [intersecting 
whichever one we happen to have focused attention upon]. '' [Consider, 
for instance, the expression,] "thank you," [spoken at the end of a] 
dinner [party. Analysis of the patterns in which this expression takes 
part would not be limited to those represented in a dictionary of Eng- 
lish, but would include the system of] sounds, the characteristic order 
of sounds, and the grammar; [the relation of "thank you" to other] 
symbols of politeness, [at dinners or elsewhere]; the [placement of these 
symbols in relation to] the dinner's symbolism of courses, [their] prepa- 
ration, [and their sequence;] the type of meeting [the dinner party repre- 
sents, as compared with other types of social gathering; and so forth]. 
""^ Thus the realm of culture is always widening. 

'' [In sum,] culture is not behavior; it cannot be seen. [It is, rather, 
an] abstraction of concepts gained from experience, ^'i Since the realm 
of "culture" so set forth is no naturally established division of [the phe- 
nomena occurring in the] world, it is useless to look for thoroughly 
efficient causes within this cultural universe. The causal point of view 



Two: The Psvihi)loi>y DfC'uliurc 457 

is helptul. i>f course, in tiiuiinii laiii) iinitbrm (historical) sequences (in 
differenl ci\ ili/atit>ns|. '"" hul '' il is impossible to speak of cosmic causes 
in the studs olcuhure. " Nothini: in natuie except cuUure itself is able 
to facilitate the Jetlnition of culture. 



Dil f 'unifies oj the Soc'uil Sciences 

[The anlhropoiogist's difficulties in defining the concept kA culture, 
and m distinguishing the culluia! from the social and biological, are 
representative ot] ^''- '^' ^'^t- "• ^''"- ''-• "^- '^^^- '-• '-• ^^ the difficulties of the 
social sciences in general ~ difficulties they encounter] because the con- 
cept o( culture is necessary to them - as compared with psschoK^gs 
and the natural sciences."*^' ^''- '' Why is social science such a difllcult 
thing? '"' '^- The difficulties [inhere in the] attempt to understand beha- 
vior from the standpoint of social patterning. [They arise, as we ha\e 
already begun to see, in part from problems of abstraction, and in part 
from] the essentially arbitrary differentia of the "social" in the realm o\ 
behaxior. '^' Attempts to fit a science of culture, concerning relaticMis o\' 
human beings, into a tight scheme as in the biological and other sciences 
[run into trouble because] ^''- ' ' we do not ha\e the neat, tight universe 
with certain basic postulations and clearly definable problems as the> 
have in, say, physics. '^^'^ [Physicists] know what particular corner o\' the 
universe they are dealing with; [the culturalist does not. Instead,] '' the 
culturalist. trying to abstract those qualities of total human beha\ior 
which are perduring. cannot be absolutely sure o^ the limits or bounds 
of what he is dealing with. "^^"^ '' Because culture is a self-enlarging field, 
the culturalist is dealing with an expanding and contracting world. 

cid. ih, h2, dm. hi. hg. hvvw [S(3„i^, ^^i( ti-,^.] difficulties o{ the social sciences. 

then, as compared with the physical, are intrinsic [to iheir subieci 
matter. These include:] 

/ ck. c|q. II. 12. bu. ti. h2. hi. ih yy,^, cxtrcDU' coniplcMlv lUhl niullipUcity of 

all hehavioral p/ienoniethL whether viewed from the social or the cultural 
[standpoint]. "^^ ^'"' There are no single motivations; [instead.) '' ^''" we 
ha\e to deal with multiple determinations of our phenomena. '^ This is 
not true of the phssicai wiMid. |a!ui it is ihciefore not unreasonable] for 
physicists to be so interested in defining [an all-encompassing) pattern. 
2 ck. qc|. ri. h2, hi pIj^, ^.ssential uniquou'ss ofdll ciilturiil plwnonienii:^^ 
([For a relevant comparison,) see Rickert's [discussu>nj on the limits o\ 
natural science. )"^'' The physicist deals with a conceptual universe. iu>l 



458 ^^^ Culture 

wilh ihc real world of experience. He has little interest in the particular 
events, while the social scientist does deal with specific occurrences in 
the real world with facts that are unique. "' The hurt done to our 
understanding of these phenomena in abstracting from their particulari- 
ties is not, it seems, altogether analogous to the necessary simplification 
of experience in the natural sciences. '' We cannot have the 100% exact- 
ness o\' the physical sciences, '^- ^^"' [for we are] never far removed from 
the accidents o\' history. '' [Instead of a conceptual universe,] we try to 
deal with the specific, viewed through a conceptual [lens.]^° ''• ""^ The 
dilTerence between the [subject matters of the] physicist and the histo- 
rian or social scientist is the difference between all possible [phenomena] 
and all actual phenomena.''' 

3. ''' / The faets that we deal with in the social sciences are also facts 
that require, for their interpretation,] the concept of "value." ^' Social 
science has trouble because it has to attempt to make abstractions from 
unique phenomena, [selected for the purpose because they] are person- 
ally meaningful to the scientist and to science. *''' [For example,] tech- 
nology has great prestige now, [so it stands out to the social scientist as 
an important dimension of cultural achievement; yet it may not be the 
most important achievement of some other society, whose accomplish- 
ments may therefore be overlooked.] Every time you abstract from the 
cultural [setting toward a] general [statement] you sacrifice something. 

[Our difficulty arises, however, not only when we try to make general- 
izations, but at that earler point - the construction of comparisons - 
upon which the generalizations are based.] ''' Owing to our interest in 
patterning, as well as [to our] study of particular cultures, a comparison 
can never be made except in an abstractionist sense. "^^^ °'' ^^- h2. ib, hi, ti, 
t2. md. bg j,^ consequence, all classifications in the cultural domain are 
inexact, '^' they are necessarily relative.] Classifications such as religion, 
social organization, and so on [do not have precise counterparts] in the 
primitive mind. Informants do not see the validity of our convenient 
conventions for classifying their culture. 

ck. ri. lb. h2. hi. dm, bg. bw. t2 [Qthcr] difficultics of the social sciences are 
extrinsic, [deriving from qualities of the observer and from the present 
inadequacies of pertinent data and explanatory tools]: 

/ ri. ck. qq, r2. oi Oifficultics of obscrvation. ^' [Just] what behavior is to 
be observed, so that the cultural [pattern] can be abstracted from it? 
[For instance, one may observe someone making] involuntary sounds; 
these are behavior, but they are not [relevant to] cultural patterns. [Now, 
since it is] physically impossible to see everything, [we have to make 



Two: The Psyclwltt^y of Culiitri' 459 

our] ''' obscrxalions uiih iclcrciicc lo |sonicJ criteria, ''•' and ihc iincsli- 
galor [can rarcl\ escape] the preeiMieej^lions that are clue lo one's origi- 
nal conditioning and cultural bias, ^k-^'"- ^^^- '*^- *^- [Thus soniej dilUcullies 
of observation are due to the investigator's unconscious projection o\' 
his own cultural patterns, with all attendant meanings. '' This is a ps\- 
chialnc tendency, rooted in egocenliisin and the tendenc\ to read one- 
self into one's en\ironnient. " '''' for one [nalurall\ takes] more interest 
in what pertains to oneself; so obser\ations are distcHted. tending to be 
colored b\ the obser\er"s own ego and b> what is to his own interest 
or advantage. ^"^ [When,] for example, Mr Smith overhears "Mr Seers is 
a damn fool" as "Mr Smith is a damn fool." Jhe ilkislrales] the dilllcul- 
ties of obser\ation that are due to the fact thai we ha\e an interest in 
seeing things differently. 

■' [Projection comes from the simultaneous existence ot] two tenden- 
cies in oneself: insecurit\ and doubt about one's own ability, yet [at the 
same time] a mad hope that one is able [after all. The result is] a ten- 
dency to read another society from one's own experience, in the light 
of its prc^jection of one's favorite meanings into societx. " Knowledge 
and reasoning [are simply] more readily applied to things with which 
the observer's culture makes him more or less familiar. ''*•'• '' The sheer 
diftlculty o'i making observations [by an\ more ob)ecti\e procedure 
makes this process of prc^jeclion all the more likely to occur]. ""- 

2 qq. ri. ck. o\. 11. t2. bw jf^^, (jiffjculfics of lustoricul reconstruction and 
interpretation. ^''"- '^- '^'- ''-• ^^ [Our information concerning] social phe- 
nomena comes to us not all at one time but at different historical levels, 
as memories, documents, opinions, [and so on,] evidence that has to be 
sifted, '*'" for it is notoriously fallacious. '•'• '" ''' [Besides the possibility 
that some o\' this "evidence" mav have lo be discarded allogeiher.) the 
historical reconstruction of cultural data mvoKes a process of interpola- 
tion, of drawing connections; '"^ in historical reconstruction vini are 
imagining nexuses and connecting ihem. |ln this priKcss] \se are alwavs 
dealing with interpretations, because it is hard \o know what lo y\o with 
our materials [otherwise]. '' liilcrpi elation is difficult, however, because 
its criteria are unevaluated. Inlerpolatu^n makes for a riskv reconstruc- 
tion, '"'' because o{ the subjectiv itv o\' the interpretations (iu\ess.ii\ f»>r 
it.]^^ 

^ il. qq. ck. r2. ol. hi. Ih. 1.2. dm. h^. il. (2. Inv yy,^. ^/„■,„J,^ patHltV Oj dllUl 

at one's disposaL and those data not all of ecjual value. [One reason 
interpolation becomes necessary is the scarcity] o)^ materials in both 
ethnology and history. '•'' Here anthropi>logy has a sjx'cial dilTiculty. (as 



460 /// Ciilfurc 

compared with the other social sciences.] ■■' Our data are unequivalent; 
the materials arc in fragmentary condition, and in unequal assemblages, 
^•^ [so that what material we have] is not all equally [useful or impor- 
tant]. '- [To try to infer pattern from a] paucity of facts [is obviously 
risky, since] one [new] fact may overthrow the whole pattern. ^- Many 
important generalizations [that have been made have been] based on 
very little material, " by a [sort of] pyramiding of implications; but 
although far-reaching conclusions can be made [in this way,] they are 
not entirely satisfactory."""^ 
^ .1. ck. r2. oi. h2. bg. hi. dm. lb. ti. t2. bw Uncertainty with regard to the 

interpretation of object ive social data. ^'^' '^' Inadequacies in the data and 
in [our] objective judgement of them can be partly corrected by statisti- 
cal methods, '•'"• ''• "'"' but these sometimes lead to a spurious accuracy, 
ti. t2. bw Because [we feel] we must be accurate, we limit ourselves to 
[considering] those phenomena which are capable of finite formulation 
and accuracy; and so the whole is colored by over-accuracy and thus 
over-emphasis on certain phenomena, others being relegated to the 
background. " Exact statistics on inexact subjects are misleading. ^^ If 
you do not have a correct pattern in mind, the results are of no use. 
Statistics are a way of manipulating figures; they are not a methodol- 
ogy, for you only get out of statistics what you put in. ^^ They can tell 
you a lot about the occurrences of a pattern without telling [you any- 
thing about] the meaning of the pattern. "^^ [Just as] a hammer is not 
architecture - it is a tool - [so statistics must not be expected to con- 
struct meanings on their own accord]. 
5 ck. ri. qq. r2. lb. bg. ti. t2. bw, hi, dm. h2 jy^^ extrcme Uncertainty pervading 

t lie field of psychology, which would be such a great explanatory tool 
for social science. ""^ If we had a firm psychology which gave us some 
sort of views of general personality, we should [see a] much clearer 
[path] in the social sciences. '• At present psychology is only theory, •''' 
" and in its extreme uncertainty and insufficiency it fails us. ""^ It is 
difficult for psychology to treat the individual as a member of society, 
so it tries to handle problems [pertaining to] the isolated individual. 
[Bui between the individual and society] there is no such chasm. 

[Lacking a sufficient contribution from the field of psychology itself, 
the various social sciences have resorted to psychological pictures of 
their own, since] '^-'^^^ every fragmentary science of man, such as eco- 
nomics or political science or aesthetics or linguistics, needs at least a 
minimum set of assumpfions about the nature of man in order to house 
the particular propositions and records of events which belong to its 



7»i(>. The Pswholo^y of Culture 461 

.selected ckMiiain. ''' |\Vitlu)iil a solid set iW iieiieralizations about aclual 
luiiiian beings, we ilescrihe iheir) ee|ui\alenls. seeking \o explain [hu- 
man] behavior (in terms (-){' the supposed psychological characteristics 
ot] the "economic man." "the religious man." or "the gi^ll'-playing 
man." These are convenient fictions, (but the> are only fictions and 
ought to be recognized as such. There is no "economic man";) there 
are. rather, certain individuals performing these roles. 

(in the construction of such fictional psychologies] '''^''"^^ the theology 
of economics or aesthetics or of any other ordered science of man 
weighs just as heavily on us, whether we know it or not, as the out- 
moded theologies of gods and their worshippers. Not for t)ne single 
moment can we allow ourselves to forget the experienced unity oi the 
individual. '*'" The "common man" is a fiction, (and so is his relevance 
to cultural patterns; actuallv.] the more you try to understand individ- 
uals the more what vou ruled out as irrelevant to the pattern becomes 
important. ''' The work, of the pure ethnologist is the study o^ patterns; 
[in our attempt to explain them.] the great danger is that we become 
quasi-psychologists. 

''' [Now in lamenting the lack o'i a psychology truly worthy o\' the 
name, I do not wish to suggest that the study of culture can be reduccti 
to individual psychology.] Cultural "levels of discourse" are not sirictlv 
congruous with psychological ones, (any more than with the biological.] 
^'' The psychological problem [of the locus of culture] is still there, but 
it is a fallacy to localize it in the individual mind. '' Indeed, it is a 
psychological fallacy to localize (all] behavior in the individual alone, 
[for] behavior patterns always involve more than one [person] ''^'' [if 
we want to understand individual] psychology (from the pattern point 
of view we have to] enlarge the individual, [so to speak,] ic> meet the 
[others with whom he is in] contact. (Similarly, to understand the psy- 
chological dimension o\' culture patterns one must] prune the social 
toward the coalescence (of interacting] individuals [for whom behavior 
has meaning. ]^^ " The actual locus of culture is to be found not in the 
whole nor in the individual. 

[Incidentally, the problem o\' the locus of culture does not trouble an 
anthropologist like Radcliffe-Brown who takes a] '''• '*'" functionalist 
approach, for the functionalist believes that the ke\ to the understand- 
ing of behavior lies onlv iii the studv of the relations of patterns. But 
the patterns which the function.ilist deals with are in themselves abslrac- 
I tions; [it is an error to confuse them with] the behavu>r o\' individuals.^" 
I There is no philosophical justification for a study o)^ behavior in refer- 



462 11^ C'ulnnv 

cncc to abstraclions [which must depend on aprioristic conceptions. 
From ihis standpoini] "^ F<adcHtTe-Brown is a conceptuaHst; and "' all 
strictly conceptual, (or aprioristic] definitions of culture are falla- 
cious/' 

(I do not think \vc can do without psychology in the study of culture, 
but It needs to be a social psychology, and of a special kind.] ^"^^-^ The 
psychology o( the group cannot be fruitfully discussed except on the 
basis of a profounder understanding of the way in which different sorts 
o\' personalities enter into significant relations with each other and on 
the basis o\' a more complete knowledge of the importance to be at- 
tached to directly purposive-^^ as contrasted with symbolic motives in 
human interaction. '*'" A really fruitful social psychology [does not se- 
lect patterns beforehand, on the basis of some preconception or con- 
scious articulation of their purpose. Instead, it] throws all patterns into 
a common pool and discusses meaning - [their symbolism, and their 
significance for the individuals interacting by means of them] - and 
picks illustrations from the pool. In that sense the study of culture is 
more ramified and diverse [than the functionalist envisions.] 

"^"^ Now, the more you study meanings, the more you come back to 
indisidual meanings. [Ideally, the psychoanalyst should be able to help 
us understand what these might be about. But meanings are attached 
to behavioral forms, and] '^' the psychoanalyst is in no position to tell 
us what is behind the forms of behavior. In reference to individual 
meanings, then, we are driven to study culture. ^^ 

[In short, being a social scienfist is not an easy task.] ^^ Those who 
study socialized behavior [face some] obvious and unanswerable criti- 
cism which they must be hard-boiled enough to resist. [Rather than 
giving in to quasi-psychologizing or to misleading statistical exercises, 
they must keep their sights firmly focused on the need to] study the 
essential nature of human interrelafions in evaluated situations, and the 
meanings - for the individual of course - of the patterns which culture 



recognizes.^" '"'^ [That is to say,] the field of understanding of sociologi- 
cal human behavior is difficult, and we must resist the objective of 
refinement of technique. We cannot use the refined methods of statistics 
because we don't know what to do with them. But we cannot wait until 
our data are so carefully sifted as to be all [entirely suitable^' for statisti- 
cal applications. Perfect objectivity would doubtless be a good thing, 
but we can't have it; and] if we can't have a good thing we'll have [to 
make do with] a bad one. 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 463 

•^•"^ Since c\cn naliiral science is i)nl\ lulhoc antl subjecl lo change. '** 
anthropology shcnikl nol be worried about wliether it is an "exact" 
science; it is a disciphne sni generis. '"'' We are interested ni the meanings 
for the individual of the patterns which culture recDuni/es. Antl this is 
a bastard field. 



Editorial Note 

This chapter is drawn from notes of Oct. 19 (second half of the lec- 
ture), Oct. 26, and Nov. 2, 1936; Oct. 17 (second half) and Oct. 24. 
1935; and Oct. 24, 1933. It corresponds to Chapter 1 of Sapir's own 
Outline. Although there is considerable overlap in content among the 
three years' lectures, Sapir seems to have followed his Outline less 
closely in 1936. The epistemological problems discussed in this chapter 
were approached from somewhat different angles in the three dilTerent 
versions of the course, and these shifts create some difficulties for the 
reconstruction. 

In 1935 and, especially, in 1936, Sapir seems to have focused his 
argument much more closely on the concerns o'i anthropology as a 
discipline than he had done in 1933, when the discussion was somewhat 
more diffusely oriented to the social sciences in general. It was in 1933 
that Sapir went into most detail about the ambiguities in the concept 
of the "social," while in 1935-6 he focused on methodological difllcul- 
ties in ethnography; and in 1936 he added a section on "criteria for 
culture" that provides a more constructive anthropological anchor for 
his epistemological critique than he had previously given. Joining these 
discussions together in the reconstructed text, howe\er. creates an ap- 
pearance of repetitiveness in the reconstruction that is not actualK true 
of any one version of the course. 



Notes 

1. See the discussion of "drift" in Sapir's Lan\nui\ic ( 1^>2I ) 

2. Tl has "accidental or conditioned continuities." 

3. BW actually has: "Maybe pagent just because excise many adherents -" 

4. BW actually has: "(historical & social as apart iiuli\ his definition - but may be - 
metaphorical note, cannot be isolated)" 

5. BW has "have." 

6. It is unclear why the C K notes contrast ■\shat you arc gomg lo abstract from obMrrvi- 
tion" with "behavior patterns." Perhaps the contrast here should rcallv be bclv^ccn ohser- 
vation and puttcrn, to be more consistent with the rest o( the argument 



464 If I Culture 

7. The wording of iho bracketed passage is based on similar statements in Sapir 1934a< 

1938c. and 1939c. 

8. The passage in Rl. in stenographer's shorthand, is difficult to decipher. It seems to say, 
"analysis of what ('.'] culture made [?] system of patterns". 

9 C'K has "Anth. not interested in behavior, but in the forms of behavior." R2 has: "He 
IS mlcresled in the Held of behavior, not in behavior." Rl has: "No interest in behavior 
- interest in the field o'i behavior / From the study of forms..." 

10. Dorsey 1903. 

n. The text here is almost illegible. It could equally well read, "because they aren't like our 
own culture," but 1 think that reading less likely. 

12. CK has a passage here which I have drawn upon earlier: "Criteria. Tylor's definition of 
culture has outlived its usefulness, merely helps to orient you, it doesn't go very deep." 
Rl has: "Criteria of culture. Tylor [?]" (this last is in shorthand). 

13. This last passage is in shorthand. Decipherment of the word "versatility" is questionable. 

14. For a somewhat similar discussion see Sapir's 1932 encyclopedia article on "Group," 
with its argument that "the dilTiculty of deciding whether the group or the individual is 
to be looked upon as the primary concept in a general theory of society is enhanced by 
fatal ambiguities in the meaning of the term group." The article goes on to make a 
"distinction between physical proximity on the one hand and the adoption of a symbolic 
role on the other. Between the two extremes comes a large class of group forms in which 
the emphasis is on definite, realistic purpose rather than on symbolism. The three major 
classes of groups are therefore those physically defined, those defined by specific 
purposes and those symbolically defined." 

15. Tl has: "'Social' the word SWELL is bad because referred to group." BW has: "social 
dictum, should not say swell - antisocial on other hand if it is the usage & use — idea 
constructs". 

I ft. The five-fold distinction made here occurs only in the 1933 notes. I find it to be not fully 
consistent with the 1935 and 1936 discussions, where Sapir seems to identify "culture" 
more clearly with his second sense of "social" (as involving social sanction and a social 
frame of reference; see the "criteria for culture" section in later pages). 

17. LB places this example under (2). 

18. The reference may be to a ceremony among certain Iroquoian peoples. 

19. i. e., without implying awareness of that organization or ideas about it, on the part of 
the people so organized. 

20. i. e., sociology. 

21. The explanation of these rubrics is somewhat obscure. It is unlikely that Sapir meant to 
exclude the ethical, the sociological, and the psychological from his concept of culture 
or from the discipline of anthropology. What is more likely is the suggestion that each 
discipline has used the term "social" with a special emphasis. 

22. LB adds "the 'humane'." 

23. BW adds: "introspection, psych, not evaluate as concerns indiv, not concerned by hist". 
Sapir was referring to behaviorist psychology before; perhaps he now added something 
to the effect that introspectionist psychology also does not share the special difficulties 
the social sciences have. 

24. DM has: "with social pattern of the ethnological." 

25. The point made in the bracketed passage is supported not only by the logic of the 
argument but by SE: "We often know culture before we attempt to find out about it. A 
clean unpresupposing attitude may not be able to succeed. Always a conduct [concept?] 
is presupposed." 

26. DM actually has: "However there are universal meanings - as diffusion of Christianity." 

27. Bg actually has "behaviorist." I have altered the text because Sapir's usage of "behavior" 
and "behaviorist" seems to conform only in part to the usage a modern reader would 



Two: The Psychology of Culiurc 465 

idcntitN with the bcha\K>riNt psychology of Watson and Skinner Sapir's "bchavionst" 
shares with ihoiii an emphasis on uhal is empirically observable, but dinrs not nccn&anly 
share their physiological explanation for it. 
2S. i. e . the individual acts from personal motives, not in order to actualize a pattern 

29. Although the note-takers do not actually include the statement made m the bracketed 
passage, it seems the only way to make sense o^ the juxtaposition of comments about 
the cultural role of terminology, first concerning the »)hser\er\ i>un termmology and 
then concerning terms and language in the systems one studies. 

30. T2 actually has "determining." 

31. The bracketed material comes from an analogous example in SF: "Disimction bet\\een 
culture and actual behavior. A set of pueblo pots studied, if (one wants to| understjand) 
historical signiilcance of these pots one must study similar wares from (the surrtiundmg) 
neighborhood and thereby arrive at a sequence ol" culture. Tins method [o\ stud) J ex- 
plains method used by Zuni to make these pots (i. e., it distinguishes their methixl from 
that of other pueblo peoples]. On the other (hand] one might study the psychological 
behavior of maker, and understand the background u hich caused the man to work in 
this way." 

32. This passage is based on a concluding note in B\\; "Fetishism h.iir >>•" K-l.'\ed. 
.Anthrop. emphasis, mistake." 

33. DM adds: "Tlie psychologists may have to blow up these patterns because oi sjmbol- 
ism." 

34. It may be questionable to connect the Outline's point about cultural relativity with the 
1936 lecture's point about criteria of value. 1 have done so on the basis of Sapir's empha- 
sis elsewhere on value in the sense of a culture's particular ideology. 

35. It is not clear whether the word "societal" in 00 's 1936 notes reflects the precise defini- 
tion Sapir had gi\en this term in 1933. 

36. BW has "Debussy?". 

37. The text actually has "behavioristic." See note 27, this chapter, on this term 

38. Rl actually has "historical procedure of patterning." 

39. This statement comes from Siskin's notes on Sapir's 1935 course. "Methods and Prob- 
lems of Anthropology." The notes continue: "Unconsciousness in nati\e of systems and 
facts of own culture, that we know systematically: kinship system." 

40. CK actually has: "Minimum of form in language implies a maximum of miplication " 
RI has: "Speech - limitation of form = maximum of implication" ("meaning" is crossed 
out). It is not clear just what Sapir meant here. I ha\e interpreted the passage as ha\ing 
something to do with pragmatic implicalion. and whether a sfvaker relies on contextual 
cues as opposed to supplying verbal specifics and elaborations; but this interpretation is 
somewhat dubious. 

41. BW adds here: "objecti\ism at mercy of words. Must abstract core." 

42. Tl actually has "the cultural whole." but this does not seem to make sense Perhaps 
what Sapir said was the "cultural hole" that is left after all the indi\idual factors arc 
removed. 

43. The text - a transcript from an oral presentation - has; "Language is a \erN somewhat 
peculiar, even paradoxical, thing..." 

44. The bracketed passage, as well as the subsequent two sentences, come from Rl and 
SI. R I has: "Locus of patterns - where ^So they reside / auihorits a pattern / dictionary 
- example of cultifying [?] of a certain type of behavior / normative point of \io* / 
ascription of value." SI, in a different lecture (Jan. 23. 19.U). has "Culture cannot be 
defined in terms of things ("lists") or overt patterns... Culture defined as uihtcd kmtis of 
aciivitliw. Value situations symholizcil b> objects, things, (^bu do not define culture by 
naming objects.)" 



466 ^^^ Culture 

45. It is not entirely obvious what Sapir was getting at here. Perhaps no comparison of 
dilTcrcnt civilizations was intended. 

46. Only the Outline, card 2, explicitly distinguishes psychology from the social sciences in 

this way. 

47. Bg has. instead: "We are trying to understand behavior from culture patterns, which is 
nigh impossible." HI has: "Behavior - the complexity and multiple determination of 
behavior ah.siruiicJ from cultural settings./ b. point of attack. (Linguistics) Multiple 
determination / (Religion) - various interpretations." 

48. H2 adds: "This doesn't bother a functionalist." 

49 H. Rickert. Die Grcnzcn tier Naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, Tubingen, 1902 (772^' 
Umitiitums of Forming Scicniific Concepts. Published in several editions; 5th ed. 1929.) 
5(J. The text reads, "viewed through a conceptual viewpoint." 

51. T I adds: "i. e. limitations of time and space." CK has: "Scientist interested in conceptual- 
izing the universe and he has to let time come in." 

52. Sapir apparently gave examples of observational problems, or observer bias, in ethnogra- 
phy. LB mentions "potlach." while HI adds "as in our evaluation of games." It is not 
clear what Sapir actually said in these regards. 

53. Tl has: "relative stratigraphy is hard to obtain due to personal factor of examinee and 
his reinterpretation due to geographical distribution." 

54. In 1935 Sapir apparently gave an illustration from the ethnography of North America, 
and its reliance on the culture of memory. BW has: "Paucity of material - do they live 
up to culture? Did whites upset? Is it ideal?" 

55. See Sapir 1998b. and "Group" (1932b). 

56. HI has: "The functionalist deals with patterns which in themselves are abstractions (A 
R Brown). It is the study of behavior of individuals (Sapir) vs. the study of patterns 
(functionalism)." 

57. H 1 refers again to the contradictory notion of the "religious psychologist". 

58. Note that elsewhere in the volume Sapir connects "functionalism" with a too heavy 
explanatory reliance on conscious purposivity. See ch. 4. 

59. See Sapir 1998b for a similar argument. 

60. H2 adds: "If a certain pattern is the solution of a conflict, then it will embody forever 
the terms of that conflict; that conflict will be inherent in it. Relatively few patterns do 
not embody a conflict." It is not clear whether this passage is an elaboration of "the 
meanings for the individual of the patterns which culture recognizes," or whether it 
belongs with the next class session. The "conflict" is presumably a conflict within the 
personality, as discussed in the chapter on individual adjustment. 

61. MD actually has "100% OK." 



Chapter 3. Causes of Ciiluire 

r2. ri. qci. ck What causes culuirc'.' '^ The ciiicslioii cannoi he answered 
unless you accept Kroeber's concept o\' the Superorganic: (it docs not 
make sense, at least as thus phrased, in the Hght of the \ie\v of cuhurc 
presented here - that] '' cukure is something we abstract from behav- 
ioral phenomena. [Moreover, to phrase the question in terms of 
multiple] •■''"• "^' determinants of culture, or ^^ criteria for the determina- 
tion of culture, [will not solve our problem.] ^^- ^' On examination, we 
shall find that what we consider to be criteria for the determination o\' 
culture are in themselves selectively cultural. 

^^ This [problem of criteria selection]' at once arises when it is a 
question o\^ comparing cultural elements o\^ two differcnl ciillures. "*"' 
The very thing that you are comparing people for will not stay put - 
even your table of contents shifts and varies and metamorphoses w ith 
different cultures. The task seems easier than it is. because we ha\e 
preferred values and project the importance of [those aspects of culture 
that are significant] for us, such as music, onto the HottenlcM. ^^ For 
example, a high development of music in one culture may not be stricil> 
comparable to music in another culture: a logical comparison should 
be with, say, a high development of etiquette in the second culture. ''"^ 
Thus it might be possible in some cultures to be as cticiuette-ali\e vis wc 
are music-ali\e, and a man might well be an artisl \n manners who 
might stress and nuance the factors oi' etiquette as nicel\ and as deli- 
cately as Kreisler manipulates the violin. "'' Artistic accomplishments are 
possible in etiquette as in music, but we are not attuned to them. 

The important thing is to beware o\' pri\)ecting personal e\aluatu>ns 
based on one's own culture into the task o( evaluating jusil) another 
culture. ^' [We are too easily misled b\ | the fallacy of [takmg as] absolute 
\alues our own preferred \alues, such as the preference ol mustc ONcr 
etiquette. Why [do we have this preference, answayj? "• ^'^ In our own 
culture music is highly \alued because it is so \er> mdixidualislic. [ac- 
cording] prestige to the individual performer, and our cullure stresses 
individual differences. ''^ Yet, in another culture where music is a group 
possession and the locus of musical appreciation coincides with the total 



468 ^^^ Culture 

membership o\^ the group, musical evaluation will inevitably be on a 
(JitTerent plane o( appreciation.- 

(Crileria for culture are sometimes supposed to be justified on the 
basis of a notion ot cultural progress, with our own culture representing 
a stage of ad\ ancement.] But ^"'- '' there cannot be any absolute criteria 
of progress; to [compare cultures on such a scale] would be to assert 
that we have such objective, concrete criteria. ^"^ Many questions we 
ask about culture thus are naive and blind in that we think we are 
connected to a definitely advancing pulse of onward change. 

dm. si Nevertheless, what are the supposed determinants of culture, as 
they have been [proposed]?"* [Various factors external to culture have 
been proposed as possible determinants of its form, and it is worthwhile 
to examine the extent to which they do or do not have such influence.] 



1. '''■ ^" Race as a supposed determinant of culture 

[in previous lectures I have already commented on] ^^ the vanity of 
the usual attempts to understand culture as a biological concept. [To 
understand it] as a strictly racial expression [is therefore utterly falla- 
cious. Still,] ^' race is much heard of as a determinant of culture. [It is 
popularly presumed that]"^ ^^ cultural achievement can be correlated 
with a specific racial stock because '^ the relative ability of races deter- 
mines the forms of culture possible for them. ^'' ^^ [It is said, for exam- 
ple,] that the negro [has a special racial ability in] music. [But such 
statements ignore] factors of culture and "setting," [though they] are 
the most important. ^^ Linguistic materials, too, cannot be correlated 
with a specific racial stock, for '^^''^ language does not exist apart from 
culture, that is, from the socially inherited assemblage of practices and 
beliefs that determines the texture of our Hves. 

[Let us try to be clear, if brief, about why] "^ race has no influence on 
culture, [starting with the assertion that a "superior race" will produce 
a higher record of cultural achievement.] "• '^^ So far as experience goes 
we have no knowledge of any race without culture, in the anthropologi- 
cal sense. ''^' '- [Even] the metaphor of the accumulation of culture pat- 
terns, [i. e. the nofion that we have accumulated "more" culture than 
the primifives,] is not really true. ^^'^^^ The culture patterns of primitive 
groups are complex, and their behavior is just as conventional as ours. 
[Indeed, with regard to the force of convention one could even say that] 
primitive groups are much more bound by culture, and there is probably 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 469 

more fixity to thai culture than in the cuUurc of the ''civilized." ^'^ Much 
of the history of the world is a process of loosening up the feehng of 
cultural necessity. Eskimo grammar is much more complicated than 
ours, and Navajo religion is much more complicated than ours. '' But 
the difference in cultures is one of degree rather than kind. 

"■' As regards technology, we evidently have a greater fund o\' knowl- 
edge, but '^'•'-''' the average person in a primitive group is more in touch 
with the totality of technological knowledge of the group than we are. 
ck. ri ^^Q share in many parts of culture [only] by having them available 
in the specialized technological knowledge of our various [subjgroups, 
■' in which we participate [not directly but] through symbols. '^^''- ''• ^~ So 
while our total accumulation of cultural goods may be greater than that 
of a primitive group, we as individuals are not in touch with a great 
portion of it. ^- The actual cultural associations of an indi\idual in our 
own culture are no more than those in a primitive culture. '' In the 
psychological sense all races of men are on the same cultural plane, and 
the primitive is no closer to nature than we are. "^^ [The reverse is nearer 
to the truth: although] the primitive doesn't have more culture, he is 
more cultured in the anthropological sense. 

[The question of accumulation, therefore, is easily confused with a 
question of population size.] '•• ^^ The [population] size o\' the race is 
determinant of many criteria [of its cultural achievement]: for example, 
if the United States had only half of its present population they could 
not carry on the present culture. ^~ We couldn't carr) on our civilization 
without great numbers [of people]. [But those who assert that] ^^ cul- 
tural achievement can be correlated with a specific racial stock** '- leave 
out numbers and then compare a small group with a very large group. 

" [If you are looking for] possible determinants o\' culture, '" the 
smaller group is the best field for study. '- [I say "group" here because 
we] should look to the community which carries the culture, not to the 
race at large. ^"^- ^^ The community - the group which [we ha\e iden- 
tified as belonging to] a race - is responsible for culture, not race 
[itself;] and in measuring achievement one must always take into con- 
sideration the effective number [of people needed to bring about a par- 
ticular result,] and what percentage [of the community's population is 
effectively [available for a particular project]. '''' Building a house with 
five people, and building it with five thousand people, are not the same 
engineering project. You cannot jump from race \o communit\ and 
from community to culture. 



470 ^^^ Culture 

^"^ Let us assume we have comparable units, however. ^"^^ ^^ Then the 
next ditHculty is, what is the constitution - the makeup - of a race? 
[The concept of race is based on] a theory of racial homogeneity which 
is, [actually], just a theory. '' No race can be called "pure"; therefore 
race is not definite enough to warrant study. ^"^ [Actually, though it is 
supposed to be biologically based, in practice the concept of] race is a 
blend o( culture, nationality, and so on with the physical. Seizing on 
certain symbols to explain the differences between peoples, it [(the con- 
cept o( race)] is biology-conscious,^ although there is nothing to sub- 
stantiate [the predominance of the physical over other factors. Indeed, 
other, non-material factors once held more appeal as predominant sym- 
bols of differences between peoples. Today] the eugenicists' idealist bio- 
logy and germ plasma have become what religion and soul were [to an 
earlier age. But] because of evolutionary theories [the religious explana- 
tions will not do for the eugenicists, who] feel nature is now going back 
on us and we must help nature [do its job]. 

[If the concept of race is so vague, why then the plethora of writings 
on the subject?] ''• ^-- ^"^ Our real interest in race, we must see, is not 
biological but emotional: it is emotional feehng that determines [what 
group is considered a] race, not biological homogeneity.^ ^"^ [This group, 
the "race,"] is [actually] a culture unit, [to which feeling is attached.] 
[Now, "racial] homogeneity" is more determined by environment than 
biology [anyway, because a] change in environment [eventually leads to 
a] change in race, and [because the "race" may] develop homogeneity 
by [the very thoroughness of its] mixing.'^ ^^ That is to say, when an 
intermixed group lives under certain conditions for a time, they will 
gain a certain degree of homogeneity; ^' thus from the intermixing of 
two or more "races" will evolve another "race" - so where are you? 
[Another difficulty with the theory of racial homogeneity is the arbitrar- 
iness of the characteristics selected as racial markers and their non- 
congruence with other characteristics, for] ^"^ groups which seem alike 
[in one respect] often have grave dissimilarities [in another. You] have 
to know what makes for homogeneity - [in what respect people are 
being judged as alike - before you can look for its consequences. To- 
day] race is a symbol for homogeneity; [emotionally it seems to reflect] 
the extension of ego to your particular group. [The size and supposed 
homogeneity of this group thus depend on your point of view. Take,] 
for example the history of the Enghsh ["race" from] prehistoric to mod- 
ern [times: it is a gradually wider extension, incorporating and mixing 



Two: The Psvclioloiiv ot Culitin' 471 

ditTerent groups -] Saxons, Jules. C'cllic [groups], and No^nan^ (them- 
selves mixed). 

[But supposing that distinet "races"" could be defmitelv identified.) "' 
could culture elements be explainable in terms ot racially determined 
psychological determinants [such as intelligence]'.' And as a corrollary: 
were this true, would it matter'.' If. lor example. [\i>u could demonslrale] 
the fact that a Zuni were more intelligent than a Navajo, would you 
ha\e the right to explain the greater sophistication o\' Zuni clan and 
ceremonialism, [and other aspects ol' Zuni] culture, on this basis'.' 

ri. r2. ek ^j\^q (]ys{ problcm is how we are to assess and compare] the 
intelligence o\^ races, [to see how it might inlluence the le\el of their 
culture]." [Here we must not confuse the intelligence o\' persons with 
the characteristics o( groups, for] ' ' there is no relation between per- 
sonal intelligence and the status of culture. [Moreover, we shall ha\e to 
beware of a serious methodological difficulty, for] '^'' you cannot test 
intelligence by [means of] tests which involve superiority for a person 
whose cultural experience makes him familiar with the subjects under 
consideration [in the test. His performance will] depend on his experi- 
ence, [not only on his native intelligence.] 

^'' [We shall also have to distinguish] lack of intelligence from lack 
of emotional participation, [as for example if the test] stimulus is not 
relative to [a person's] experience, or if he has some negatix ism [about 
the test. Besides its connection with cultural experience, therefore,) the 
stimulus connects with a whole [emotional] field he\ond [the realm o\' 
strictly] cultural values, and you have to get [some sense ot] the s\mbols 
of participation for this person, to back up your understanding [o( his 
behavior in the test. Actually, this problem points to the fact that our 
notion of "intelligence" is ill-defined and fails lo recogni/e that) ■'^•''•ck 
there are two types of intelligence, and they are [quite] ditTerent: the 
intelligence which insists on thinking things through for iMieself [which 
we may call] native intelligence; and social intelligence, which consists 
in adjusting to social and cultural pallerns. [The ditTerence is well il- 
lustrated by] ""^ the psychotic, who is often alarmingly intelligent but 
who applies his intelligence to problems that are not \alid. usualK those 
that have already been better soKed. ^"^ '' Ihere is intelligence involved 
in using cultural forms, but [native] intelligence is not [what is ncx'essar- 
ily] required. 

^^ Actually, to carry on a culture, both intelligence and siupidii> are 
needed. " '- Too much intelligence and initiative m a population would 
make the culture advance too fast, and ^o beyond the grasp of ihc 



472 ^^^ Cull lire 

majority or the median [individual] (in the normal curve of frequency). 
'- Look around you and see how little true thinking goes on - for 
example, when a person presses a button and watches a light go on. '^ 
More intelligence is required in using a ["primitive"] fire drill than in 
pressing a button to turn on the lights. ^^ Turning on an electric light 
by means of pressing a button is in our culture an act of faith. It does 
not require the intellect or comprehension of forces involved that mak- 
ing fire by friction demands of an individual living in an exotic culture. 
The so-called primitive will have a great knowledge of the properties 
and qualities of woods and techniques of manipulating them. We, [on 
the other hand.] may understand none of the complexities of electrical 
circuits, the property of a sub-culture within our own - the electricians, 
analogous to the country yokels and their knowledge of a [rural] envi- 
ronment unknown to us - and in turn the electrician may not be able 
to explain electrical phenomena to the satisfaction of the physicist. ^^• 
" We as individuals are not more intelligent than primitives because we 
make light by turning a switch instead of by the use of a fire drill. That 
is group intelligence, based on historical factors. *'- ^^ It is not race 
that is evolving, but culture. The culture shows "intelligence," not the 
individual. 

^^ [As the example of the light switch shows, it is important to] distin- 
guish between the [mental] life of a culture and its [technological] 
power.'- Psychology [as such] doesn't help you to understand its life: 
here you must get at historical factors. The intelligence of the people of 
a group does not determine whether it has a high or a low culture; this 
is historically determined. An individual Oklahoma Indian of low cul- 
ture may of course be much more intelligent than an Indian of a high 
culture such as the Pueblo. ""^ Thus the business of trying to estimate 
the intelligence of a group on the basis of its cultural artifacts is on a 
very shaky basis. [And in any case,] the anthropologist thinks of the 
world of culture as not racially defined. 

" [The notion of| "racial memory" [is another example of the confu- 
sion of individual psychology with group affiliation, and of history with 
biology.] "Racial memory" is not [racial at all; what is so labeled is, in] 
reality, the memory of cultural forms in early childhood which are dear 
to one. The fundamental truth [of the matter] is that it is not a matter 
of the nervous system, but a matter of emotional significance. 

[An attempt to argue that race influences culture through the opera- 
tion of differences in intelligence would run into several obstacles:] ""^ 
( 1 ) [when considering race, we must start by asking] what biological 



Two: The Tsvi/ioloi^v of ( uliuvc 473 

differences are significanl when ii ccmucs to the tjueslion (.)f abilily lo 
adapt; (2) we know very little as to what mental traits arc associated 
with physical traits, ^'' or about the [psychic] potentialities and abilities 
of a group [(as opposed to an indi\idiiai)j; '"^ and (3) the relation o^ 
intelligence to culture is h\ no means close - it is a fast and loose 
relationship. 

'" [Yet, someone might contend.] the white race [has been responsible 
for] an accumulation of social goods of a high order. [If this is not due 
to] superior intelligence, then why is it so? Because there is no stable 
relationship between physical natuic, [incliidiiig membership in the 
white] race as such, and the development of culture. " There is tremen- 
dous cultural variation in the same race. '^^'^ You will find indi\iduals in 
our midst who don't participate in "white" culture; you will find seg- 
ments of the population (such as peasant farmers) who di>n"t participate 
in "white" culture; and you will find whole groups - white communities 
in the Caucasus - who don't participate in the traits ascribed to 
"white" culture. '" A degree of parallelism between the cultural and the 
racial [does exist, but it is] due [only] to geographical afllnity. [Geo- 
graphical connections are also important in understanding how it came 
about that the high development of western civilization was produced 
by members of the white race] - '^' the strategic locality of the Mediter- 
ranean in relation to ancient culture centers, for example. ^^ Enough 
time has not elapsed for us to rule out the intlucncc o\' ihc piirelN geo- 
graphical factor in the accumulation o[' culture. \\c must lun confuse 
history with appraisal. 

There is no correlation, therefore, between race as such and the de- 
gree of development of culture — ^~ only a histi>i"icall\ -determined asso- 
ciation. '- ' ' Between race and culture there is really a psychological or 
emotional plane, and [it is here that] the [only] efTect o\' race in culture 
[might lie].'^^ 

[Now, I have already suggested thai the grouji which is identified as 
a "race" is really a cultural unit, identified on the basis of its emotional 
significance. But is there, on the other hand, some racial determination 
of emotional tendencies?] '''' U we assume that psychic qualities follow 
in the wake o^ physical qualities, ''^- ■^' [we should find] an association 
between race and mental characteristics [(as opposed to culture itself) 
- characteristics such as] *' temperamental dilTerences. .Are there certain 
expectations of temperament to be looked for m dilTerent races' 

'-■'' It is probable that certain physical characteristics imply certain 
mental characteristics.'"^ ''^- '^- "" ^'"' '*' Kreischmer's [studies ol] physical 



474 ^11 Ciilmiv 

IS pes, [lor example, try lo give substance to] the intuitive feeling that 
there in a relation between physical constitution and mental set.'^ 
["Mental sets" refer primarily to] '' divisions of an emotional order, 
made by psychiatrists, such as schizoid and manic-depressive - ''' types 
o( psychotic behavior. [The validity of the correlations] is as yet to be 
determined, '''" but we must leave the door open for some theory of 
association or physical type and psychological difference.'^. 

^'- f- [Can such correlations be linked with race?] Are there, then, 
racial differences in emotional characteristics, or psychic-emotional na- 
tures'.' [Kretschmer's subjects all came from the same local population;] 
^••^ we don'i know whether the gross physical differences between races 
are of the same order as differences within a group. [Mental] tests in 
regard to differences between races have been of an intellectual, not an 
emotional, order. [Moreover,] ^' temperamental phenomena and their 
various aspects are capable of only meager definition, [especially as ap- 
plied to races]. That is, the Negro and American Indian are at the poles 
while the White race shows no uniform temperamental face but is indi- 
\idually heterogeneous. ''• ^- And as soon as a temperamental facet be- 
comes an overt behavior trait, such as using the hand, then it becomes 
culture. 

'- Thus temperament is highly culturalized; but it may also be racial. 
Personally. I believe'^ ^~ there is something to the "stolidity" of the 
American Indian - "^^ that the Indian has a basically different emotional 
makeup than the white man. (You must [at least] keep your mind open 
to possibilities. Liberalism with a closed mind is as bad as obscuran- 
tism.) '^^''- "^^ Indians have more of a diffused than a concentrated emo- 
tionality, "-"^ and they are less able to dissociate emotionality [from its 
object]. A purely rational appeal doesn't work [with them]; feelings must 
be involved. ''^- "^^ [Perhaps]'^ they have the seeds of sentiment more 
than we have, ''' and perhaps on this basis a more solid family hfe. But 
as to whether there is a physical basis for [these aspects of] emotional 
life [we cannot as yet say -] we can only make plausible guesses. 

[Whatever their source,] ^^ emotional ties and personality differences 
are difficult to isolate within'^ the cultural pattern. We must deny the 
power of ''"• ^' intelligence and temperament ''' in shaping culture as a 
negative which we cannot explain, but admit the possibility of its exis- 
tence to a degree. [That is, we must not discuss these factors] on a 
completely negative basis.^o hi [But as regards] cultural complexity, it 
would seem that historical antecedents are determinant. Culture is not 
the immediate expression of intelHgence, race, or emotion, although 



Two: ///< I'syc/iology uj Culiuiv 47<n 

these factors may enter into its growtli. If there is a luntianienial eaus- 
alit> [in ciihurej. it is history. [Any other) determinants of eullure jean 
he onK] seei^ndarx. All the cuhures we ha\e studied eome \o ii> \Mih a 
iich eiu ironmenlal and cull in al in short, historical background. 



2. '"' ///(' supposed psycholoi^icLil ainsiiilon of culture 

[ rhe question of racial causation of cultural lorin has led us to psy- 
chological causation, through consideration of intelligence and temper- 
ament. But] the sense in which ps\chology can be said to give us the 
causative factors of culture is strictly limited. '' The difllculty of apply- 
ing psychological criteria to culture [is a topic to uhich ue shall return 
at length, in later chapters.] 

'' Anthropologists ha\e [pointed out that) '- the trouble with the 
pincK psychological interpretation of culture is that it ignores time and 
space. '^^'^ If psychologists have one factor in common, [it is that they) 
ignore history or have a sort o[^ histor\ ad hoc. ''*■' [Thus e\en such 
radically different psychologists as] Watson and Freud often lend to 
disregard the time dimension and talk as if the indi\idual were just 
about to create some cultural phenomenon iic novo. '' [But an\ such 
individual has] a cultural heritage; and culture, [in turn), has absorbed 
the [creations of the] individual. '■'■ The history oi' the culture is of great 
importance in interpreting cultural causation, although it can hardK be 
precisely placed in historical terms. 

"■•^ To understand [the individual's] relation to [his or her) en\ironment 
you must study the whole mental background, and the potential energy 
of the psyche, not [just the] dynamic flow. '' The subject must be cultur- 
ally defined to be psychologically treated - '" personalit) must be de- 
fined culturally betbre you talk about psychological causation. 

'*'" [It is true that] in one sense all culture causality is psychological 
- [in that the individual is the effecti\e carrier o\' tradition]-'' '''" '^ 
but because the culturalist abstracts his materials, he loses touch with 
the reality of basic psychological functioning. Ihen. these abstractions 
have sometimes been iXMsonali/cd as a psychi^logicalK -apposite "da- 
tum": the group mind, or the group belief. "' When a pattern is ab- 
stracted and becomes [recast as] a [psychological) "problem." il is a 
bogus problem; for there is a tendency to treat abstract patterns as if 
they functioned as such. [i. c. psychologically). I-or example, [in speak- 
ing ol] the fuiictuin o\' religiiMi. abstract patterns are shulHed and one 



476 III Culture 

seeks to translate [these] patterns into a psychological situation - [sup- 
posedly the "cause" of religion, but really only] the social psychologists' 
atier-ihe-e\ent rationalization. There is always an enormous mass of 
purely historical material involved, [which they ignore]. 

dm.'ib In language, too, this has taken place. ^' For example, the loss 
of English [inflectional] forms, etc., is blamed on Anglo-Saxon culture 
'^ by psychologists o^ language [who speak of] the "English mind" and 
the "English language"; *' but it is to be truly blamed [only] on the 
usual [process of) simplification in language. ^^ [These processes] have 
no validity when applied specifically to persons. ([Consider] the verb 
system, with its [infiections expressing] time-sense and [the actions or 
states ofj individuals, [such as the 5-ending on 3rd person singular pre- 
sent tense]. [That our verbal inflections have simplified in these direc- 
tions is not due to the "English mind,"] but to historical growth. [The 
process is a formal one rather than a social-psychological one, as we 
can see when we observe the existence of forms violating the supposed 
psychology of time-sense and individualism:] 2 + 2 is 4, she comes to- 
morrow.) The child seizes upon suggestions in language as absolutes; he 
has no alternative of his own. So we can't say that the individual neces- 
sarily participates psychologically in the extracted "psyche" of the lan- 
guage." 

" Thus a psychological attack on the causative processes of culture 
is not in all cases justified. ^^ Every set of cultural patterns has its own 
psychological goal; and ^' there are different levels and different denom- 
inators of the psychological aspect of culture. That is, [the psychological 
relevances of such different patterns as] the language, the parliament, 
and so on [cannot be the same]. The psychological disturbances [of 
patterning - individual variations and innovations -]-^ do not define 
and cannot dictate absolutely the forms of culture, but rather are a 
conditioning factor or jumping-off place for the understandable and 
typical forms within a particular culture. The varying aspects of culture 
are subject to the impact of individual psychology in varying degree. 
There is a general similarity of the psychology of the individuals [in a 
particular community], and what we must notice-"^ are these psychologic 
peculiarities which would not be allowed to affect the traits of a whole 
culture. [However, at the same time] there are probably forms of person- 
ality which do make for segregation of cuhure patterns. The problem 
to be solved is "how much" and "how." 

"" [On the one hand,] there is a colossal resistance of the inherited 
[forms] to the psychological nuance of the moment. ^"^ Cultural forms 



Two: The Psychology of C'uhure All 

are rarely disturbed by psychological needs il llic\ can be slrelched or 
retained in any way - witness clumsy [systems ol] orthography (re- 
tained tVom the past]. Institutions have a way of staying put out of all 
proportion to their real or supposed usefulness. " [On the other hand.) 
culture is possessed of a great many disassociative forces, such as cul- 
tural specialization, which seems to be opposed to the integration of 
individuals or culture. Rectifying this disassociation is cultural inertia, 
a great tactor in nullifying the impact of individual psychology.-'' "' This 
is culture conservativism, [in which we see that culture] is not totally 
and completely responsive to the psychological needs. 

[We must therefore distinguish clearly between cultural form and psy- 
chological function.] '^ [To see] form as function, as in Wundt's psschol- 
ogy, is naive. We can detect [large-scale] direction in language, but ue 
can't correlate it with any large-scale psychological facts. '- Culture 
forms themselves are not directly explicable by psychological terms. 



/•/ 



3. The [supposed] environmental causation of culture 



•^^ Are environmental [factors] determinants [of cultural form?] ''' En- 
vironmental considerations have [some] usefulness in the stud\ of cul- 
ture, but [as culture determinants] they are insufficient. '^- '*'" The argu- 
ment of environmental [determin]ists, like the cultural geographer 
Huntington,-^' is one huge fallacy. "^ Though it is a culture on which 
[environmental] influences impinge, they forget this, [declaring instead 
that] "America [was] destined to be agricultural -"* [because of its] allu- 
vial plains. But [what about] the Amerindians, [who occupied this conti- 
nent for millennia without farming those selfsame plains, e\en after 
agriculture was known to them? This interpretation ol] history as [envi- 
ronmental destiny] is naive, [as is the view that] Canadian Indians must 
have less intelligence because they did not exploit the Saskatchewan 
plains [agriculturally], as opposed to the Anglo-Saxi^n [settlers) who al- 
most immediately used them as wheatfields. [The reason this argument 
is naive is that] the mere presence of an economic stock-in-trade, [such 
as alluvial plains suitable for growing wheat], is not enough: you must 
have [the appropriate cultural] patterns. 

"^ We ourselves don't know the full possibiluics o\ our en\ uiMimenl. 
[nor can we see these independently of our culture.) Culture ilhin\ics the 
environment; we have habits, not an inventoried knowledge of the cos- 
mic possibilities. [And our habits may depend more on our history ol 



478 ^^^ Culture 

contacts with other parts of the world than on the initial state of our 
own iieographical setting. Our] use of coffee and tobacco, [for instance, 
IS due to historical] accRlents. We might have many [other] plants [in 
our cnvirouFiient that are] usable as stimulants and narcotics, [but we 
iiznorc ihcni.j-^ '''' it is hard to see the environment except in terms of 
what you want. 

^''" [Moreover,] the environment always has what you need if you are 
m a position to get what you need; unhappily, you are not always in a 
position to get it. "" We'd be sunk in the Eskimo's environment despite 
our fine technology, because the environment lacks the raw materials 
usable by our system; but an Eskimo would be equally helpless in our 
more "benevolent" environment, unequipped with our culture. 

" Thus there is more to the problem of environmental influence on 
culture than the simple example of the absence of snow houses in the 
Congo. [As with the psychological interpretation of culture, a strictly] 
'- environmental interpretation of culture ignores the interrelationships 
between cultural traits, and the history of the trait patterns. ^^ [Most of 
all. the] great difficulty [with the notion of environmental causation] is 
that the cultural pattern determines the functional nature of the envi- 
ronment. '' The environment plus a datum of culture is a different thing 
from the environment alone. ^^^ ^^ [In any case,] "environment" must 
include the cultural as well as the physical environment, ^^ for beyond 
the purely physical environment is an environment composed of the 
ideas of the people who live there. '' The real environment [includes] 
the cultural potentialities of these ideas, plus the basic [physical] envi- 
ronment. 

'- Facts of environment are only important, then, if the natives think 
they are important. "^^ '^^ The cultural stock in trade means that you can 
redefine the environment in those terms. Culture insists on seeing things 
in its own terms; it defines what is beautiful and what is not. Environ- 
ment as such is of no value to the culturalist; what is important is 
environment as defined by culture - what the natives have uncon- 
sciously culturally selected from the environment, and [their] cultural 
evaluation of it. '^' [A people's] response to their environment is condi- 
tioned by their cultural heritage; it is not an immediate response. ""^ We 
see nothing beyond what we are trained to see. 

'- The culturally-interpreted environment, therefore, is just as impor- 
tant to a study of culture as a culturally-interpreted psychology. "^"^ Both 
the psychology and the environment have to be well activated in cul- 
tural understanding before being of much use [to the ethnologist]. [Be- 



Two: The Psychology of Ctilnnf 479 

fore assuming any sort of] '' geographical deleniiinisiii. one nuisl con- 
sider the cultural urge. [Thus environment does indeed have an etTect. 
but it is as] a culturally-defmed enxironment. Enxironmenl as dellned 
by those participating in the culture is important [only] as a background 
factor in defining the direction o( culture, [not as a significant cause]. 
[Indeed,] primitives often fiout [their] environment because they are niU 
culturally ready to take advantage of [the full potential of its] geogra- 
phy. They will go out of their way to secure things not in the immediate 
environment. ''• '^^'^ [What is important are] the forms and attitudes al- 
ready developed by culture; on these patterns en\ ironment has a facili- 
tating effect. 

[In other words, the main direction of "infiuence" is just the opposite 
of what the environmentalists would have it.] " environment is fitted to 
certain forms of culture patterns - or rather, en\ ironment is utilized 
and made relevant to a culture pattern (such as rice or wheat agricul- 
ture, etc.). Psychological demands ask for a cultural response, and cul- 
tural patterns, [in turn], demand solving; whereupon en\ironment is 
required to fulfill these demands. Whether it does fulfill them is an 
environmental or geological or ecological problem. But environment 
does not dictate - culture pattern dictates. Environment is [only rele- 
vant in its] culturally weighted aspect, and one en\ironment ma> be 
favorable or unfavorable according to the prevalent culture. 

[An environment that does fulfill culturally-dictated demands will not 
cause its inhabitants to look beyond their own cultural pattern, no 
matter how "rich" it may be from the point o{ \iew of an alien tradi- 
tion.] '^ So long as nature gives us some food we don't 2.0 an\ further. 
[It does not seem as if human beings are impelled, because o\' some 
inherent drive toward the nutritionally perfect diet, to investigate and 
invent novel ways to exploit their particular locality.] Some bogus dieti- 
cians say we need such and such a diet; but isn't [the diet the\ recom- 
mend] a mere recording of the norms o\^ [cultural] habit? [While dieti- 
cians claim we need a certain balance o( meal and \egetables.) the Es- 
kimo [get by] with all meat, and [large populations in] the Orient [sur- 
vive on] all vegetables. Personally, I have faith'^ that an> people can 
work out its diet; we get too excited about it. [And \se fail to notice that 
many of our dietary recommendations, and notions about the eHects of 
food substances on our well-being, depend nu^re upon \'ooi.\ ssmbolism 
than on dietetic necessity. For the cultural aspect of diet also includes] 
food symbolism, as well as linguistic symbolism. [It is a s\slem of ratio- 
nalizations governing dietary habits.] Nbu can ralionali/e the asparagus- 



480 III Culture 

eating habit once you have it, [while the effects of] coffee may be a 
collective illusion; and the dietetically perfect may lack a good symbol- 
ism [and therefore fail, as the malnourished do for physiological 
reasons, to enjoy a sense of well-being.] 

[if the local geography should prove inadequate to a people's cultur- 
ally-defined needs (nutritional and otherwise), it is at least as likely, if 
not more likely, that people will try to secure those goods from else- 
v\ here, than that they will reconsider their own locality and their accus- 
tomed ways of exploiting it. Indeed, in our own culture, however 
\aunted for its technological proficiency,] "" there is [a good deal of] 
ecologic ignorance. We import [certain materials], and wars are fought 
[to insure our ability to import them]; but why not turn back again to 
recheck the environment? In a siege we might be pressed to [make an] 
inventory of our environment, [and we might find many possibilities 
not as yet tapped.] 

[But it is not only in diet that environment supposedly influences 
cultural destiny.] "^ It has been said that Greece was "predestined to a 
high culture" because of the "happy blend" in which it combined hilly 
w ith maritime country - the hilly [country fostering] individualism, and 
the [maritime providing] harbors for communication. [The futility of 
such statements should by now begin to be clear. We have only to re- 
mind ourselves that] Mesopotamia, [where a high culture emerged 
earlier than in Greece,] was a plain, [to begin to realize that] nothing 
in the environment as such forces [particular cultural developments]. 
Environment is only favorable by and large. From Neanderthal man to 
today, not all [of cultural history] is to be credited to the specifically 
Greek environment. Our [present cultural] pattern, [deriving from] our 
Renaissance tradition, [places] perhaps relatively too much emphasis 
[on Greece as the source of all we see as lofty in our civilization, any- 
way.] We might just as well indict the Greek culture and environment 
for war and paranoia.-*^ To pick on the Nile valley, as does Elliot- 
Smith,-^'^ is just as bad. 

[What can finally be said, then, about] ^^ environmental influence and 
Its relation to culture? "" The environment is important as a detail, and 
'' as a negative factor ^"^ by setting limits - it cannot give you what it 
does not possess, [regardless of your cultural pattern]. ^^ The relevance 
of the environment does have to be considered: we live in it, and we are 
subject to its limitations. But our culture manages to transcend certain 
environmental limitations, as in the case of tea, which we [drink but] 
do not raise, and rice, which we [eat but] have not cultivated. Even 
among the most primitive people there is trade. No environment is self- 



Two: The Psyclwlofiy oj C ullurc 4S 1 

declaratory. ""' Thus cinironnicnl can iic\cr he iinokctl as the priniar> 
cause [of a cultural pattern]. Thai it both positively and negatively sets 
limits, is the best we can say - and it is doubtful that wc can approach 
both these limits at the same time or even, ordinarily, either, liniron- 
ment is a modifier and lefiner of eiillure. [not more.) 

'•'' Where the ethnologist finds a relation between the environment 
and a culture trait, therefore, it is not a simple response-relation but a 
rather complex relation, the behavior show ing relations to pallerns aris- 
ing in other areas. ^"^ The tipi, for example, is not [best understood as) 
a response to the environment [in which it is found], [in that environ- 
ment,] timber is scarce; so that the [tipi] poles are cherished, [and have 
to be] carried around with you. ^'^•mm- ih ^J\^^. ijpjj jv, largely an adaptation 
of a previous type of house, the semi-permanent bark Iiounc o\ the 
Eastern Woodlands, a conical type of bark lodge. The lodge was modi- 
fied when people moved into an area where bark was not available. "' 
Carrying the poles o( the tipi from time to time, the Plains Indians 
fight with the environment as much as working with it. ^"^ Out o\' sheer 
conservatism you stick to the old pattern and apply it to an unfavorable 
environment. 

'^ The student of culture may tend to underesiimaie the en\ ironment's 
importance, but it is even more overwhelmingh true that anlhropo- 
geographers underestimate the culture-impetus. They might say. [for ex- 
ample, given the combination of] rainfall, softwood cedars, and her- 
aldry-carving on the Northwest Coast, that this kind o\' counirv was 
predestined for heraldry - it "could not but develop." [But we know, 
of course, that parts of the Northwest Coast are now shared by settler 
populations whose culture scarcely includes heraldrv at all.) '^ Tver) 
time you point to environmental determination you can point to similar 
people in a similar environment with dilTerent responses. '*" [What is 
more "determinative'', therefore, is the specific cultural history, in 
which] - as with the Plains Indians - once a pattern is developed, 
people worry themselves into keeping it. [even if the environment 
changes, and trees are more, or less, abundant than before.) Tlie eye 
that sees the occasional grove is the eye o\' culture, not o\' immediate 
perception. 



4. "'■ ''^- ''"' Economic Pcfcrnilniifion of Culture 

dm. lb ^j\^^ question of w helher] ec^MUMiiic iaciors determine or cause 
the form of culture is a difficult problem. [The greatest dilTicully facing 



482 III Cultwc 

the economic dctcrminist is to distinguish those economic "causes" 
from their cultural setting.] Any economic scheme of Hfe is itself a highly 
cultural phenomenon; we cannot talk of a pattern of abstract economic 
needs apart from cultural needs. '^ The stock elementals [of the econo- 
mist ] don't carr\ \ou very far [toward understanding human society 
and culture): the economist constructs "economic man," with needs, 
and this man doesn't act as real men do psychologically and culturally, 
lb. dm xhcre is no universal pattern because the economic needs are al- 
ways [conceived] in terms of the culture itself, and so they are always 
highlv svmbolic. For instance, we have needs such as an Easter bonnet 
that are hard to justify [in other than symbolic terms]. For the econo- 
mist [this need] is as important as such as a morsel of bread (though 
no{ biologically). He never attempts to explain why Easter bonnets are 
\aluable; he just accepts their value after the event, and studies their 
prices, etc.. not the rich psychological problem [their value poses]. '^ We 
can't sa\, then, that a scale of needs is primarily causal when the 
"needs" themselves are at least partially conditioned culturally. 

ih. dm jj^g culturalist cannot place faith in any one aspect of culture 
as the sole intluence [on the rest]. ^^ [How are we to be certain that] 
basic material, biological needs are more important than immaterial 
symbolic needs, or aesthetic needs? "^ The concrete phenomenon in- 
volves any, some, or all of these [aspects of culture] in particular cases. 
Or [all these "causes"] may be always there. [For example, once] the 
church is established, [there emerge] vested interests [in the maintenance 
of its institutional structure and its officials, such as] the bishopric. Eco- 
nomic determinants may not be the root causes [of this phenomenon] 
- the tradition of Christianity as a cuhural phenomenon may be much 
more important [in determining] the cultural or spiritual "need" for 
bishops (or, on the other hand, the "tolerance" of these economic para- 
sites). 

''"' If you want to say that the final challenge and test of any social 
order is the economy, [in the sense of the biological maintenance of its 
members], you are right. But to what extent does this final test operate 
in the [daily] round of life? '^ [It is true that] sooner or later [a social 
analysis must] get into the biological world's tyranny, and this gives 
economics some truth. But what of the symbolic, nonbiological tyran- 
nies? Do religious needs take precedence over the material? Although, 
in our civilization, they don't now, they did - and so [the question of 
precedence of needs is itself) a cultural matter. That is, we cannot say 
absolutely or a priori [that one or the other of these "needs" is more 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 483 

highly \ahicd]; such theorists [as (.\o sa> so] arc [ihcinsclvcs] immersed 
in CLihurc. (Wc arc \iclinis of history loo.) One can point to all sorts of 
e\aluations in priniili\c societies, such as class-distinction, izhost-tear. 
taboos, etc.. [which nia\ seem ahsi^lutely rundanienlal to their mem- 
bers]. Sonic societies ha\c aesthetic moti\alions and determinants for 
example the Japanese, as opposed to [American] pu>necr society. ''^^ Hic 
emphasis o^ value shifts indefinitely from societ\ to society, and Uom 
lime to lime. There is a danger, thererore. in stressing the insistent val- 
ues of one culture [as if they applied for all places and for) all lime. 

'*'" The question of economic \alue and needs thus goes far besond 
the confines o[^ economics, for the world o\' \alue o\ the economist is 
not the stark and real utilitarian world he wants but a conventionalized, 
symbolic world. Despite our pragmatism, our [economic] criteria are a 
posi hoc interpretation. '^ Before we can sa\ what the causes [of cultural 
form] are we need to know some of the [cultural] picture itself and the 
e\aluations in it. Too many determinants are in\t>l\ed hisiiM-icall\ \\'or 
us to] pick out any grandiose one. 

'^"^ Significanll\ [for the question of economic determinism], material 
causes are not necessarily always present. For e.xample. [the lV>rm ol] 
Jewish late culture [cannot be explained] merely by the loss o^ the mate- 
rial elements of culture. [In this case as in any,] the history behind [the 
form] is always involved: plenty of other peoples have lost political 
prestige, and so on. Human beings ma\ be power drixeii. but it is cul- 
ture that determines the patterns [o[^ their beha\ior]. and the en\iron- 
ment [its] limits. You can't explain capitalism because o\' a supposed 
"human nature" or basic necessity - it ma\ be due negati\el> to the 
loss of other values, [whose loss] ma\ change the terrain entirel>. so 
that the dominant individual may be forced into other patterns [if he 
is] to tower up [over others]. [Consider] the scientist, who liula) grubs 
unknown in a laboratory; or the banker. whc\ with the K>ss o\ prestige 
of bankers since the Crash, is m>t the palternable figure now. but a 
shabby one. Perhaps [there is now occurring] a shift to political leaders, 
[where towering indi\iduals can now he found, such as] Roose\ell. Hit- 
ler, Mussolini, and Stalin. 

"' [indeed,] there may e\en be ci>nnicls between cultural needs and 
material needs. F\ir example, oureuhuiai need foi competitK>n. iiuli\id- 
ually and collectively, may be harmful it ma\ dwarf the human (x.t- 
sonalily, driving to suicide and insanity. [b\ the wa> it both) encvuiragcs 
ami discourages the indi\idual. The s\mbi>lism o\' capitalism [wi>uld 
declare that it] is an egi>-satisf\mg [form i>l] societ\; but statisticall\ not 



484 til Culiurc 

even in thai can ii he universal for all individuals [(that is to say, not all 
individuals' egos would be satisfied in this manner)]. There is a cultural 
s\mbolism, a mythology - not a biological [necessity] - rationalizing 
[the supposed appropriateness of capitalism] for all societies. [Where] 
the Middle Ages [saw] a theocratic-Stoic "structure of the Universe," 
Capitalism [sees] biological "'human nature." 

'^ [So all-encompassing is the evaluation of] economics [today] that 
modern literature is at its mercy. Whether it bolsters up these preferred 
ideas or attacks them, literature is a mirror of our ideas of economic 
dominance. Yet, it should be a function of literature and art, because 
they are wishful thinking (and should be so), to [offer] phantasy and 
suggest desires, [including] desirable alternatives [to our present society]. 
[Art should be] more than the servant of economic forces. [If it is only 
this, perhaps] artists may be too well regarded by the system, and cease 
to be artists. Or [else the artist] may be (and traditionally is) a perpetual 
revolutionist. 

[The cultural theorist, too, must recognize that the emergence of eco- 
nomic questions to the foreground of cultural inquiry, as if they took 
precedence in determining other aspects of cultural form, is but a part 
of our present system of cultural conventions, with its insistence on a 
biologically-rooted, materialistic "human nature." If it is the task of 
theory to rise above mythology - to be more than] ^§ a legitimised 
collective lunacy^' - '^"^ [then,] to find out what are the relative prece- 
dences of cultural values is one of the cultural theorist's grand problems. 



[Summary] 

"''•'- Like racial and psychological "determinants," therefore, envi- 
ronment [and its exploitation in a material economy are]-^^ not funda- 
mental as a defining cause of culture. The causes of culture cannot be 
determined. '~ Culture is only a philosophically determined abstraction 
and cannot have a physical-like cause. 

'^"^ [There is something fundamentally misleading about the search 
for] causative factors in general, [in the study of the social world]. ^^ 
Cause [itself] is a relative concept; it is not compelling, but in variable 
sequence. ^"^^ ^^ The causative relation expressed as A causes B is never 
experimentally borne out,^^ ^"^ for there are always extraneous effects 
and elements that make a pure cause and effect relation only the conve- 
nient fiction of mathematics and metaphysics. ^'"' ^^ We never deal with 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 4N> 

real ■■entities" as sueh, [e\eii) in the pinsieal seieiiees - ^^ for science. 
[renuned as it is iVoiii the particulars of real-world cNenls,]^"* is a pyram- 
idal fiction, of which physics is the ultimate zenith. The (supposed) "rig- 
ors" of the social sciences, such as the clan. etc.. are fictional constructs 
[too]. ''"^ In luinian affairs it is just social comention that enables men 
to talk o\' eqiiixalenls at all. 

''' We might better lease the pyramidal fictions to the philosophers. 
For our worlds of fictions are not congruent: '''" '•' to the social scien- 
tist, as to the artist, the world is defined by things which are mi hoc. as 
they seem on the surface, while [the world ol] science is not. [I.e.. the 
world of science is defined by what supposedly lies under, or is ab- 
stracted from, superficial appearances.] '*'" The world of the plastic art- 
ist is one where there are no accidents. For him things are what they 
seem to be. 

'^' Is [the scientist's world] our concern in ethnography? '^'" The persis- 
tence of entities in the [physical] world is a very different thing from the 
persistence of entities in the social world.''"' There, it is the condition o\' 
the thing being received by the human intelligence, not what the thing 
really is, that is important. '^' Social science operates in the world o\' 
rclativc^^' fictions: the "world of meanings." as J. M. Mecklin [has put 
it.]^^ nis, hi |j j^ .J Yvorld of "as they say." dealing with "what a thing is 
said to be worth," not what it really is in the physical sense. ''' [Our] 
causal relations, therefore, are of a derivati\e nature. Speech meanings 
are fictions, [though speech is] located in the physical world, as things 
of the artist are. But the facts of the physical world are of minor impi^r- 
tance in the realm o[^ social phenomena. '*'" In social phenomena, no 
matter how carefully you define your terms and set up \our formulation 
there always must be a large amount o\^ leakage [between definition and 
instances]. Thus in the social world the physicist's causal sequence is 
debarred because the social world is an artificialls [constructed] world. 
We must [abandon the search for those causal sequences.] and restrict 
ourselves to typical sequences. 



Editorial Note 

This chapter is reconstructed from notes on the lectures ol No\. ^V 
and 16 (first half), 1936, from undated notes on the same topic in fall 
1935, and from notes on several lectures in 1933 34 (No\. 7. Dec. 12. 
Dec. 19, and part o\' the lecture tW" Jan iM There is ielali\el\ little 



486 m Culture 

ditTcrcncc in content among the three versions of the course, except that 
the 1936 notes omit the section on "economic causes" (placed under 
"environment" in Sapir's 1928 Outline). I have used the 1936 notes as 
the organizational framework for the chapter, but I have retained the 
economics section as a fourth "cause." Although the 1933 notes do treat 
the economics section in that way (as a fourth "cause"), they do not 
otherwise provide the best organizational framework for the chapter as 
a whole, because in that year Sapir evidently interrupted the discussion 
o^ "causes" with several sessions devoted to classroom discussions of 
American cultural patterns (smoking and piano-playing; see Appendi- 
ces). Moreover, the 1933 notes also contain some recapitulations and 
possible reworkings of the material by the student note-takers them- 
selves. 

Among Sapir's published works those most relevant to the material 
in this chapter are: "Language, Race, and Culture" (ch. 10 o^ Language, 
192 Id): "Racial Superiority" (1924e); "Are the Nordics a Superior 
Race?" (1925a); "Language and Environment" (1912b); and "Psychiat- 
ric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business of Getting a Living" (1939c). 



Notes 

1. BG has "This question at once arises..." 

2. This discussion of music in the 1933 notes is juxtaposed with classroom exercises and 
discussions on the history and distribution of piano-playing. See Appendix. 

3. DM has "as they have been set up." 

4. For wording here and many of the same arguments as are included in the lecture notes, 
see Sapir's papers, "Are the Nordics a Superior Race?" (1925a) and "Racial Superiority" 
(1924e). 

5. BG phrases this as a question. 

6. Tl has "In determining culture..." 

7. T2 has: "Cannot enfold {[unfold?]) a culture from a race, but unfold it in the group 
which is defined as a member of a race." 

8. i. e., focused on the biological as symbolic of difference. 

9. See Sapir ( 1924e). "Racial Superiority," which argues that claims about racial superiority 
rest on an emotional basis - the feeling of loyalty to one's ethnic group - rather than 
on any biological sense of the term "race." 

10. BW has: "Reason believe change envir change Race & similarly develop homog by mix 
- Groups which seem alike often grave dissimilarities". 

11. R2 has: "Race has no influence on culture. Culture has no connection with the intelli- 
gence of the race." 

12. BG has: "Distinction between the psychological life of a culture..." with "psychological" 
crossed out... That technology is meant here is suggested by the discussion of cultural 
progress in ch. 6. 



/u(' Ihc l\syclu)lo\i\()1 Culture 487 

13. See Rl: "Race has its elVeci on culuire on a psychological or cmoiional plane," R2 

"There is really a psychological plane between race and culture, i c . the elicit ■ 

in culture is really in psychological or emotional plane." 

14. Hmphasis original. In 19.^5 -.^6, however, Sapir seems to have expressed nu>re skcplicum 
about any racial connection with psychologv. inckklmg Kretsthmers tvpes BN\ has; 
"Assume are psychic types (this probably not true) / still not race / psychic as in race 
cult (?) all ('.'I physical types. Is a trait physical, psychic, or what. Cultural probably." 

15. See Ernest Kretschmer, Physique ami Cluinuicr (1925). 

16. HI has: "(Sapir rings a note here that Boas does in '/'//c \tinJ of Pnmiiivc Man - guess 
that there is a possible connectii>n between phvsical tvpe and native psychic constitution 
(Boas cited small Esk. community as theoretical possibility.))" 

17. CK has: "Sapir has a prejudice that it may be said that the Indian has a basically 
dilVerent emotional make up...". T2 has: "Sapir believes there is something to the stolid- 
ity o^ the American Indian." Througluuit this sectit>n Sapir seems to have emphasi/cd 
that his statements suggesting racial dilVeiences in temperament represent onlv personal 
opinions and guesses, not well-founded claims. 

18. CK has: "[Sapir] thinks Indians have seeds of sentiment..." 

19. i. e.. distinguish from. 

20. HI has: "not on a posilivciv negative basis." 

21. See "Cultural .Anthropology and Psychiatry" (Sapir 1932a): "We are not, therefore, to 
begin with a simple contrast between social patterns and individual behavior, whether 
normal or abnormal, but we arc, rather, to ask what is the meaning of culture in terms 
of individual behavior and whether the individual can, in a sense, be looked upon as the 
elTective carrier o\' the culture o'i his group." See also "Tlie Emergence o\' the Concept 
of Personality in a Study ol" Cultures" ( 1934a): "In spile of the often asserted impersonal- 
ity oi culture, the humble truth remains that vast reaches of culture, far from being in 
any real sense 'carried" by a community or a group as such, are discoverable onI> as the 
peculiar property of certain individuals, who cannot but give these cultural goixis the 
impress of their own personality." (Note: this passage seems to h.ive a typi^graphical 
error as printed in SWES p. 594.) 

22. LB adds: "Language the otricial symbol o^ time sequence but not pragmatically (e.g.. 
gesture, etc eke out): and many fossils, psychologicallv (gender in European languages)." 

23. On psychological "disturbances," see Lani^iuii^c (I92ld) p. IS2-3, where "disturbantx" 
refers to idiolectal variation: "The desire to hold on to a pattern, the tendencv to 'correct' 
a disturbance by an elaborate chain of supplementarv changes, often spread over ccniu* 
ries or even millennia - these psychic undercurrents of language are e.xcxx*dingl> difTicull 
to understand in terms iif individual psychologv, though there can be no denial of their 
historical reality. What is the primary cause of the unsettling of a phonetic pattern and 
what is the cumulative force that selects these or those particular variations of the indivi- 
dual on which lo Hoat the pattern readjustments we hardiv know" See also the discus- 
sion in "Whv Cultural Anthropology Needs the Psychiatrist" (19.18c) on whclhcr Two 
Crows could change the order of the letters of the alphaK't, or the hislory of malhcmal- 
ics, by denying, respectivelv. that A is first and / last. i>r that 2 + 2 = 4. 

24. i. e., what comes to our notice because it si.iiuls out as dilTea*nt from the communiiy 
norm'.' 

25. In 1935-36, Sapir app.iiciiil> discussed integration and disa.<»cKiation in indi\^ual 
psychology as well. BW has: "Integration and dis;issiKiaIion Integration thing wA 
things which apply to you personallv. /VssiKiation technician Suicide in div«Kiatn>n, 
Have to integrate in long run. Fhing wh. not linked too formal, lose force " 

26. .See Ellsworth Huntington. C'ivillzaiumanJ Clinniu-. \a\c I'nivcrsity Prcvs. 1915 (3rd ed. 
rev., 1924); see also Huntington. Charles ClilTord and Fred A. Carlson. Thf Geographic 



488 III Cull lire 

Bums of Sonciw Nc\s \oTk: Prcnlicc-Hall. 1933, published 1929 under the title. The 
Environnuntiil Basis of Social Gcoi;rapliy. 

27. Sapir evidently gave more examples ofeultural patterns in the use of plants and animals. 
LB has: "(Calilbrnia aeorn; Plateau food - use and disuse offish, fowls Polynesia, cows 
India, milk Orient)". 

28. LB has: "Sapir: faith that any people..." 

29 Sapir apparently referred here to an article entitled "War and Paranoia." I have not been 
able to identify the reference. 

30. See Grafton tlliot Smith (1915) and (1930). Elliot Smith's Egyptocentric view of human 
cultural history was much debated in anthropology in the 1920s, along with W. J. Perry's 
ChiUn-n of flw Sun (\92}). 

31. In the context of his notes on shifting emphases of value and needs, and in questioning 
the thesis that materialistic factors are paramount, BG has: "Culture is a legitimised 
collective lunacy. The hereafter is the locus of unfulfilled obligations, hence its excuse 
for being." 

32. Note that Sapir's 1928 Outline places economic determinism under "environment". 

33. HI has: "A / B - C is a fiction in the physical sciences..." 

34. See discussion in ch. 2. 

35. DM has: "The persistence of entities in the social is a very different thing from the 
p)ersistence of entities in the social world." 

36. Emphasis added. 

37. John Moffatt Mecklin, American historian. See Mecklin 1924, 1934. 



Chapter 4. The Elements o\' Cuhure 

The C\>nfcnf oJC'ulfurc 

'"'" [To ask what are] ihc dclcniiinaiUs of culture, [as we ha\e done in 
the preceding lecture, is also to ask,] what is culture made up of? '' 
What does culture embrace? '*'" To ascertain this is by no means simple, 
because we have no a priori structure, or skeleton, o( culture. Culture 
feeds upon itself, and the criteria of culture "stations" or focal points 
are in turn culturally determined. ''' It is impossible to draw up in .ul- 
vance an intelligible table of contents or invenlor> of culture. 

[As a starting point, however, we may say that] ^^ culture is defined 
in terms of forms of behavior, and the content of culture is made up of 
these forms, of which there are countless numbers. "" [The most diverse 
aspects of social life must be included:] putting salt on meat is as much 
a cultural [form] as is worshiping God. 

^^- "^ [Some writers, such as] Graebner, Foy, and Schmidt, [attempt 
to] inventory the contents of culture ^~ by making lists of culture traits 
[which prominently feature material objects -] food, clothing, etc.; [but 
their approach has major] ^^ deficiencies, for the listing of objects does 
not constitute culture. '^- [Indeed,] the classification o\' material objtx'ls 
as such is not particularly useful. ^^ Objects are only the instrumentali- 
ties which are sign posts to culture. The most important thing about 
them is their utilization in patterns ha\ ing meaning. ''-' Kven a cathedral 
is not really a cultural object a.s such, w hile e\en a clitT ma\ be made a 
"cultural object" used to cite boundaries o\' territory. ^^ To the archaeol- 
ogist, [though he depends so largely on material objects as a smirce of 
evidence,] objects are of value only as inferential signposts to vanished 
cultural meanings. ^-- ^^ They only become objects o( culiurc with refer- 
ence to their use, when they are placed m a context of meaning. An 
object - whether it be cathedral, headland, paddle. arri>\\ -point, or pol 
- is in fact only a cultural potential. ''- Our cultural subject mailer. 
therefore, is not objects at all. but patterns oi behaxior.' "' [And these 
in turn must mA he treated as if the> were objects.) Modes of behavior 
are not objects, but culture. 



490 III Culture 

'^- The type o\^ analysis [presented here, then, focuses upon] valued 
types o\' behavior patterns, ot^ which material objects are [merely] signs 
and ssnibols. The object as such is nil - it only becomes a thing {versus 
a nothing) as and if it is employed or interpreted. The 'Thing Ap- 
proach" is a tetishistic point of view that doesn't lead to the heart of 
culture. " [For] culture cannot be defined in terms of things, or lists,- 
or [e\en] overt patterns. [Instead,] culture [must be] defined as valued 
kinds of activities. You do not define culture by naming objects; [rather,] 
objects and things symbolize value situations. 

^*^ How do the items of culture arrange themselves? - •■'• ^"^ In a 
cultural pattern, [which we may define, for the moment, as] any clear, 
specific formal outline abstracted from the totality of behavior, ^' [and 
involving] the [evaluative] judgements of a culture. '^'' '''' As an example 
of a culture pattern, [consider] education. "* [In a sense the] ideal [of 
education] is the projection of the ego into the future by impressing our 
ideas on the young; '^' it is the self-preservation technique of culture. 
The pattern of education [thus incorporates] all kinds of values. [It also 
includes] the set-up of institutions, administration, etc., with [official] 
degrees serving as symbols of advancement to a higher status. [A cul- 
tural pattern reaches into many realms of social Hfe.] 

[The view of cultural pattern and cultural contents that we will elabo- 
rate here is somewhat different from certain other uses of the term in 
anthropology today.] ■"' There seem to be two points of view as to cul- 
ture patterns. ■■'• ■"-• ^^ One is a functional point of view: [assuming] a 
well thought-out"^ scheme of fundamental [human] needs, ""^ the inclina- 
tion of a type of behavior would depend on relativities of [its connection 
to] the basic needs. ([But, as we have pointed out in the preceding chap- 
ter,] ^^ when we try to classify patterns from the viewpoint of need, [we 
run into difficulty: how and] by whom are needs to be judged?)^ '■^' ^^' "■- 
The second [approach to] culture patterns is an index, a series of head- 
ings ordering what are merely assemblages of cultural patterns. '"^' "- 
This is not a functional pattern, but a language list, •"- merely language 
categories by means of which we artificially organize culture. ^' In any 
index of a culture pattern, definitions of headings must be given to 
decide the presence or absence of a head, such as "war"; and so the 
question evolves into a more verbal argument. Moreover, various de- 
grees of intensity within the heads [(i. e., relafions among the headings)] 
call for thought and allow an addifional margin of error. For example, 
[how would one index the headings involved in] education, [the culture 
pattern alluded to above?] '^ [And if we use a heading such as "Reli- 



Two: The Psvclu)lo\iv (if (^uliurc 4*^>I 

gion." [claiming, "ihcrc] aic iu> peoples williDiil rcligii)ii."' whal do wc 

'"'^- '' [Here we iiuisl| einphasi/e ihe iieeessily for the amhropologisi 
to study a culture m ils own leiins lo assemble cultural patterns 
through the leiminology of the nali\es iheniseKes. |()lher\Mse| "' ue use 
only ad hoc schemes. "^- ''• '-^ Thus the point olMeu m Wissler's Man ami 
Ciihiiir, which constructs such a scheme, cannot he utterly accepted.^ ^^ 
[Nor can the work] o\' Roheim, whose attempt to interpret Australian 
society in terms of his own symbolism (must be considered aj failure.* 

■'• '- Such [a scheme as Wissler's. an ad hoc t\pe o\' indexmgj classifi- 
cation, is good only for ordering assemblages of cultural patterns - an 
index for convenience in comparing different [cultures]. '''' liul the IcncIs 
of comparability of cultures vary greatly in different aspects, from lan- 
guage at the one end to religion at the other. Thus although language 
consists of articulate noises having symbolic \alue for some society. 
[and for it alone.] languages are convertible from one culture to another. 
Is this possible for other configurations of culture, when we compare 
dissociated elements in one society with those of another? ''^ [All too 
often,] in comparisons of cultures, use is made of patterns o\' fictional- 
ized concepts and these concepts are compared. {""' RadclilTe-Brown. for 
example, is a conceptualist.)'^ '"'^ This involves difficulties because 1 1 ) it 
is almost impossible to compare forms of behavior from patterns: (2) 
forms of behavior are unique to each culture and patterns are highl> 
inexact classifications;'" (3) since cultinal forms are historically deter- 
mined, this increases the difficulty; and (4) there is uncertaini) as lo the 
interpretation of similar forms in different cultures. ''- Who is lo judge 
the use or value of a pattern - the natixe or the i^bseiAcr? The conform- 
ist or the rebel? 

si. bg.ii2. dm [Nevertheless, it is not impossible to classif\ culture pal- 
terns, as long as we focus on] Jon)i. rather than function. ''"' I'or despite 
our [supposed] pragmatism, our funclional ciileiia are [onl\ a] post hoc 
interpretation. This is why we can classity form so readiK and (yet) 
baffle at classifying these experiences fimctionally. ""• ''^" [Now.) what en- 
ables us to see culture objecli\ely'.' There are three reasons [or. in 
other words,] three criteria for discoxenng and classif\ing culture pal- 
terns: 

(1) ^'- ''- Human beings have the abilil> lo (diiiereniiaie and| detine 
some experiences as against others through the .senses, and cI.ismIn 
activities in physiological terms. Ihat is. ''-• ^'"- ^^ in a classificalion 
throueh the sheer leslinioin o\' the senses, the culture patterns have 



492 l^t ^ uliiirc 

a \cry fundamental relation to physiological activities; ^'~ they have a 
phvsioloiiical validation. '^^^ Paddling, for example, impinges on the 
senses diVlerenily from making a word. ^' [The two activities involve] 
variant physiological movements. 

^2) s'. h2.'bg. dm [There is already a] rough and ready theory of the 
classification o\' function, and the functioning of society, [constructed] 
by a society itself and later by the observer.*' ^- The observer's theory 
may revise or even reverse [that which the society itself has]; "' [but for 
both, the presumption is that] everything is explainable. 

1 3) h:. hg. dm. si jhg ihjj-j reason lies in the technique of reference 
which all societies develop through words. Words are very important 
instrumentalities in defining form and even function, of and by them- 
selves. ^^- ^' The ability to classify in advance comes from the use of 
words; e. g., having two words, religion and superstition, indicates two 
classifications. A society's classificafions depend on the type of language 
used. "•'" You will see culture differently according to the symbolic im- 
plementation, the terminology, you work with. 

h2, SI xhese three items give a pretty firm feeling for form in culture 
- ^^ that is, they give cultural classifications in a strictly formal sense. 
^~ Therefore it is easy to discover forms of culture, despite our relentless 
pragmatism. And ^^ form criteria are the most important in classifica- 
tions. ^^- ^~ Functional definitions and criteria come later; ^^ they are of 
value only after the event. ^~- *" They are more difficult and more subtle; 
we don't know enough about society to get [to functional criteria] yet. 
The contents of culture [must take into account both] form and func- 
tion, [but as yet we are on a firmer footing with the first of these than 
with the second, although] we may know more about functions in the 
future. ^-^^ ^2- ^' Are the needs of man definitive and circumscribed, and 
thus easily satisfied, or are they an illusion? ^' [If you simply assume 
they are definitive you will fail to recognize] the limitations and creative 
possibilities of culture. 

°' Thus the functional point of view has its limitafions. [In emphasiz- 
ing form rather than function, at least for the time being, my approach 
differs from that (for example) of] "" Malinowski, who is an anti-formal- 
ist. 

[But before leaving the question of classification behind, we may pro- 
pose our] ^g own classification of culture, '^ in terms of the classification 
of behavior patterns. Behavior patterns may be classified pragmatically 
or empirically, according to the way they are related to the following 
broad classes of activities: 



Two: The Psvchdloi^v of ( ultiirc 4v3 

1. Patterns relating \o ccDnoniic lite the foDtl ciuesl. and the quest 
for shelter. 

2. Patterns relating to the i")ri)duetu)n of material gi)ods. of value per 
se or of instrumental value: manufaetures. elothing, ornament. 

3. Patterns relating to individual de\eU)pment and mutual social in- 
terrelations as in kinship, marriage, war, etiquette, language. 

4. Patterns formulating the relations of man to supernatural or other- 
worldly powers: religious activities, sorcery, shamanism, death. 

5. Patterns formalizing the desire for aesthetic experience per se, or 
instrumental [in realizing it]: dance, graphic art. music. 

6. Patterns relating to the attitude o\' man to sustaining ideals; the 
vision quest, hunger strike, etc. 

^^ [It is important to emphasize that] this is not a hard and fast classi- 
fication. ''' It is impossible to draw up an intelligible table o'i contents 
or inventory of culture in advance. [The classification given here is only 
a convenience which must necessarily fail to capture the way in which] 
^^ cultural elements [and patterns, in a given society,] aggregate them- 
selves together, for this varies in ditlerent societies. You must try to 
visualize a kaleidoscopic variety of patterns caught up, in this way or 
that, by pattern configurations or ideas and taking color, habitation 
and name in terms of this ideal specific to a local time and space. 

hg. dm |j^ .^ descriptive study, then, the author's task boils down to: "^^ 

1. Working out carefully the landscape of cultural forms as the\ natu- 
rally fall together. 

2. Starting out all over again as a psychological work on individuals 
as individuals in their own framework, and see hin\ they work out their 
own needs. '"^ 

[A descriptive study should attempt, ultimatel>. \o c^Micern itself thus 
with both cultural form and function. For comparative purposes. hi>\\- 
ever, a concern with function is problematic] ''^ .Again, it is important 
to realize the difficulties of comparing the contents of culture: [consider] 
the difference between education in our culture and in. say, F.skimo 
culture. A prayer in Western society may equate with a primiii\e dance 
Form is itself more important than function; in language the form re- 
mains the same but the function differs. I-.g., the word "hussy" dernes 
from "huswif' but with an entirely different meaning, while a new word, 
"madam," takes the formal place o\' •"huswif.* [And the ctMicepl o^ 
"function" is itself unclear.] ^''" If we take cultures as a whole il turns 
out to mean simply the cohesiveness o^ a group and the belonging oi 
individuals to that group. But when we get down to specific things 
we've got to watch our step.'"* 



4^)4 III Culture 

The Purpose of Culture''^ '^'-'^'^ 

[Lci us coniinuc our discussion of form and function in culture with 
a broader consideration of cultural "purpose."]'^ '^ [Surely a great many 
ol] the [supposedly] fundamental purposes of culture are really indivi- 
dual necessities and the rationalizations of those needs. ''Preserving the 
heritage/' "controlling aggression," and [accounts of] "learning to 
smoke" [are examples of such rationalizations in our own society]/^ [It 
would be a serious error to mistake our own society's rationalizations 
and conceptions of need for universal purposes.] Some purposes we 
want to hold on to - those which [really do represent] our biological 
needs we should keep because they are fundamental. But we can always 
realTirm our biological purpose in such a way that [our other purposes 
will] seem right. [In other words, in keeping with the] ^"' pragmatism 
[o'i American society,] ^- we will always try to find tangible purposes to 
any phase o'( our culture. 

[Yet, from a cultural standpoint, even our most obviously biological 
purposes, such as eating, are expressed only indirectly.] ^- Why was it 
necessary to culturize our needs such as food? Why this food and not 
that? Why prepare it this way and not that? In short, why did man have 
to evolve a more indirect method of satisfying his food needs instead 
of just going and getting it? [The challenge to the economic or biological 
determinist] is to try to prove the need for all this indirectness in regard 
to our purposes. ^' For culture is not exactly squared to needs. Culture 
traits may at some point change their meaning: for example, [an income 
is necessary in our society for an individual to acquire food and other 
biological necessities; but, let the income grow large enough - say, to] 
an income of 75 million - and, [as so] often, [the "purpose" of the 
trait] changes into an expression of "ego," or the assertion of it to gain 
[status].'^ Biological and psychological needs are satisfied by culture, 
but in addition, culture adds, through its own momentum, much more 
than these needs. ^'^-'^'' [Indeed,] a potent social pattern may fiy in the 
lace of reason, of mutual advantage, and even of economic necessity. 

[What, then, is the relationship between cultural pattern and funda- 
mental biological and psychological drives? Is it a mistake to suppose 
that such drives are related to culture at all?] '^ [Here let us consider] art, 
[for the aesthetic is often said to lie at the opposite pole from biological 
necessity. It is sometimes even defined in this way. But this view is 
Itself culturally determined, and should not prevent us from] assuming 
a psychological base for aesthetic expression. American culture is not 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 495 

[particiilai"I\] coikIucInc {o llic elc\cK)pnicii( i>r acstliclic expression. (A 
strong] con\cnlion inliibiting |lhc exploration ot"\isiialj form (is part of 
the Ameriean] religious [tradition. deri\ ing from) the Puritans and from 
evangelical fmo\ements in] I'ngland.'^ Moreover, for great cultural de- 
velopiiicnl [m aesthetic forms] there is a ucc(\ tor a rich cultural back- 
ground. From a cultural standpoint, il is possible to find (a society with) 
no artistic expression, due to lack of cultural background. (There may 
also be some] repressi\e mechanism o[' a cultural sort, such as milita- 
rism, and so on. From the viewpoint o{ instinct and innateness, there- 
fore, I do not den\ a physiological base or genetic relaluMi with cultural 
patterns, [even in the case ol] art. It is fundamental, [iiut culture may 
inhibit drives as well as develop their expression.]''' 

'^' Indeed, any tundamental drive may be used b\ all manner of [cul- 
tural] purposes — [although the fact that cultural purposes cannot be 
specified in advance] does not mean there are not some typical 
purposes. '^-- '^' Among the different purposes that may be gi\en. some 
are functional: music, tor example, may be [thought ol] as a recreation. 
This "function" is only a secondary rationalization, ho\\e\er. (as we 
can see when] the form of aesthetic expression sur\i\es although its 
momentary purpose disappears. [So, for instance, musical uorks mas 
be performed today tor purposes entirely different from those which 
prevailed at their creation, as when sacred works are performed at con- 
certs.] ^~ A second type of purpose concerns the association [o\' a cul- 
tural pattern] with other parts of culture. Really, music is simpK a part 
of a total pattern which includes the kind of clothes worn [at musical 
occasions], the social status [of musicians and audiences[, and so on. 
The purpose of music is so vast thai il inlcipenelrates all of culture. ^'• 
^~ Music has every possible type of purpose. 

' ' [Similar considerations pertain to] religion. [What is its "purpose"".' 
From one point of view,] religion is the all\ of a symbolism of status. 
Although this may be a secondary factor, secoiularx factors are often 
very strong. From another. ps\choanal\lic point i>f \ie\\. [it may repre- 
sent] wishful thinking, [such as] the desire for immortalits; while the 
divine father idea [represents) the transfer o\' an attitudmal set from 
childhood: [the image ol] childhot>d blessedness - o\' the child in a 
happy state - [is linked with) the father image and thus begins with 
heaven. [To choose among these \iew points, or to infer some fundamen- 
tal drive explaining religion, is impossible.) "' We can't sa\ what drives 
are tundamental in religion. [Nor can we sa\ that drives have altered, 
where the forms o\' leliuious acli\il\ ha\e altered.) We can"! sa\. lor 



496 i^t Culture 

instance, that sadism [was responsible for] burning [people] at the stake 
and made it cruel, but that such sadism is lacking now. Psychological 
sadism is the same then and now; the important matter is [not a change 
in the nature o\' such motives, but in] how culture allows one's in- 
dulgence of sadism - [whether in realms] economic, religious, or intel- 
lectual). These causes may shift in importance in time and space, and 
in conceptual and actual [arenas]. Maybe religion feeds on basic ego 
and libidinal urges which may be redistributed. 

'' The attempt to explain the "purpose" of any cultural manifestation 
[is vulnerable, therefore,] to a frontal attack, [which can show that there 
could] result any number of explanations for the actual content of the 
patterns. You cannot find a simple reason [for the form of a pattern] in 
the function of patterns - this is secondary. '^^^"^ Any student who 
has worked through a considerable body of material [in comparative 
ethnology] is left with a very lively sense of the reahty of types of organ- 
ization to which no absolutely constant functions can be assigned. 
Moreover, the suspicion arises that many social units that now seem to 
be very clearly defined by their function may have had their origin in 
patterns which the lapse of time has reinterpreted beyond recognition. 
A very interesting problem arises — that of the possible transfer of a 
psychological attitude or mode of procedure which is proper to one 
type of social unit to another type of unit in which the attitude or 
procedure is not so clearly relevant. Undoubtedly such transfers have 
often taken place both on primitive and on sophisticated levels."^ 

''' [Still, even if] functional explanations [of particular cultural forms 
are] of limited usefulness because of the pitfalls they present,^ ^ [one may 
nevertheless speak of cultural purpose in a more general sense.] ""^ [In 
this sense] there are two main purposes for culture. The first is a specific 
purpose: [to constrain the individual] to act in the same way as [is pre- 
scribed in] behavior patterns. The second is a general purpose: to actual- 
ize basic impulses in a harmonic fashion. ■"^ Culture has the same pur- 
pose as [other forms of] adaptation to an environment - to actualize 
[(i. e., satisfy)] primary needs - [but it does so through a system of] 
mental substitutes. '^^ ■■' Culture may be a symbolic field, a fundamental 
system of indirections which '^ [present] the possibihty for a mulfifor- 
mity of expressions and '^- '^ allow the fundamental psychological drives 
of each individual to harmonize with each other, through secondary 
symbols of reference. The cultural pattern is a powerful system of chan- 
nelized behavior-2 which actualizes certain basic impulses and '^ gives 
the possibility for personal realization.^^ 



Two: The P.wc/io/oi^v of C'uhurc 497 

[From the point of view o\' iiuli\ idual psychology, you could say thai) 
bg. dm y^^. purpose o\^ cuhure is to serve as the total stock in trade for 
the realization and expression of the ego. ''• '^ But there is no genetic 
relation between certain impulses and certain [cultural] patterns. 



Culture Traits and C 'onip/cxcs 

''- Orthodox ethnology sees culture as the historical accumulation ol" 
culture traits. '- [The concept of) culture trait C' or cultural clement) '- 
[is a means by which] anthropologists study the mo\ements o\' patterns 
without trying to evaluate them, or to determine their interrelationships 
with other parts of the culture. '-■ ^' [One attends to] individual elements 
in the complexes of culture. 

^~ What are these elements of culture which the ethnologist talks 
about? [They include such phenomena as, e.g.,] 1. cross-cousin mar- 
riage; 2. dowry; 3. buying ties for Christmas; 4. chewing gum; 5. writing 
on a blackboard with chalk; 6. artificial heating; 7. Saturday night 
baths; 8. playing the piano. '^' Culture is analyzed into thousands o\' 
elements, ""'- ■"- without limitation. '^' The cultural uni\erse is an element; 
a type of behavior and [the culture's] philosophic explanation of it may 
be two traits, ■■' brought together. 

^^ What is a unitary cultural trait? Is it a unity depending on descrip- 
tion or upon historical factors? "^^ Cultural traits can be o\' any si/e. '* 
However, when you make them universal you get into the psychological 
rather than the cultural world. '' Disintegrating a given element [into 
traits drawn from a universal set] leads to an implication o\' [common] 
humanity and [common] psychology. (Anthropologists [o\' this bent] 
find nothing unique in the cultural world.) '^ You then explain things 
([i.e., the occurrence of particular elements in particular places]) in 
terms of diffusion rather than in terms o( parallelisms. [Deciding on 
what is to be considered a unitary element is a loaded question, there- 
fore.] '' Parallelism [as an explanation can be a useful] corrective note 
to the idea of universal traits [who.se occurrence is always due to] cul- 
tural contact. '^ Yet, these sorts of explanations after the fact must al- 
ways be, in the absence of exact knowledge, a kind of "Just So" slory.^ 

''• '^ Can traits be gathered together \n\o complexes' Hiere are two 
uses of the word complex: ( I ) Traits which are functionally inlerrelated. 
e. g. the 'iiorse complex." '' This is a "natural complex." (since it re- 
flects the] integration of traits naluiall\. [aiul the fact that an individual] 



498 lil Ciiliurc 

trait (among them] never occurs alone. (2) '^- '- Traits which are merely 
historicalK linked - e. g., Graebner's complexes,-^ '^ arbitrary associa- 
tions o\' unrelated traits. This conception of culture [imagines] an atom- 
istic universe in which elements are grouped and regrouped according 
to fortuitous winds o\' history. ■■' [The focus is on] isolated histories of 
elements, '- fortuitous in their associations. 

'- [This approach] will never lead to a true philosophy of culture 
because it neglects psychology. It does have its value in preventing 
thoughts o\' automatic associations, e. g. that cannibals have no music. 
'•^•- '' Thus the term ""complex" is useful when it is confined to meaning 
the togetherness of certain traits at a particular time and place, without 
any universal or necessary connection being assumed. "^"^ But American 
anthropologists have tended to emphasize the fortuitousness of the 
coming together of the traits in a complex, [to the neglect of those 
intrinsic connections that might genuinely be sought.] ^' [For example,] 
Christianity and its component parts, however small and seemingly in- 
significant, are a complex [in the "functional" sense] and divisible into 
traits which may lead far outside Christianity into irrelevant and con- 
trasting fields. There is great resistance of [some] elements to analysis 
and separation, resistance offered by the emotional make-up of people. 
Some other associations are not resistant to separation, however they 
may seem to one outside the culture. 

" In history, trait analysis is very important because it shows the 
flexibility of culture (language, [for instance,] being forced to express 
what people desire to express and not remain so rigid as to prohibit 
communication of thought).-^ ^'i The emphasis on diffusion as of really 
great importance was very surprising when first introduced; it had been 
supposed that each intelligent people would invent the things they 
needed. '^ [But some ethnologists came to see trait diffusion as a kind 
of Darwinian] battle for the success or failure of ideas and culture- 
elements, [whose] survival value was intrinsic. [The atomistic nature of 
the approach is what creates the problem: the trait does not have an 
inherent value regardless of all other aspects of the culture.] '^"^ One 
must have social sanctions before value may be attached to any indivi- 
dual creation, d"^- ^^^ 'b- hi [jhat is to say,] the prestige-giving background 
of culture is imperative to the diffusion of culture and complicates a 
simple [picture of trait] diffusion. New ideas don't count - ^'^ they don't 
"bite" - and traits do not diffuse, unless they are buttressed by symbols 
of prestige. '^ The buttressed ideas and elements succeed; the others, 
[mere] phantasies, die.-^ ^i j^^ personality of the carrier is always a 



I wo Ifif I*\vtliolof^y of Cullurc 400 

facliM" in JilTiision. loo. as uiih ( haiinccN Johiiii\ John aiKl his seed 
corn, or Ahco Vwo Cnins aiul ilic lumping style of women's dancing.-* 
So is diffusion \ ia [social principles such as) family remo\ai or marriage, 
for people tend to keep up the old culture in their new surroundings. •'* 
Thus the sui\i\al \alue of an element is both iiilrinsic and extrinsic. 

[Ha\ iuL! mapped the disiiitiulioii o\' traits, the anthropologist is faced 
with the problem of disco\ering the point from which they diffused.] "^ 
Wissler's r(7//t'/t'J system of diffusion [(which places the point t>f origin 
of a trait at the geographical center of its distribution)! may be critici/ed 
as simi-tlislic. [as ma\ an\ of those s\stems uliich insist on but a single 
point c>f c>rigin.| "'There ha\e probabis been man\ tentative beginnings. 
The problem presented here b\ the cultural anthropi>logist is largely 
artificial; Old World and New World agriculture, for instance, are not 
reall\ the same "trait." This tendency to deal with atomic culture-ele- 
ments, in terms of isolable traits - as if there were iu> l.ippertian I.ih- 
cnsfiirsorge involved-'^ - is antipsychological. Our terminology is our 
enemy too, for the mere use of the same term [(such as "agriculture")] 
pre\ents our seeing differences. ([This is a good reason to] use nati\e 
names!) 

dm jj^g interest o\' anthropologists is fortunaiel\ gradually shifting 
from the trait analysis and description w hich was [once] the [be-all] and 
end-all o\^ the discipline. ^^ For the trait point of \iew does not tell us 
much about culture. *'^- '*" [Consider.] for example, the Plains [Indians'] 
arrangement of their camp in a circle. "' as compared with the smooth- 
ness of our table. Are these binh traits o\' ec]ual [significance]'.' The 
purposes for which we use tables might equall\ alKns the use of a rough 
table. What about the bull-roarer o\' Australia, and the Noolka bull- 
roarer'.' (Bull-roarers ha\e more prestige in anthropological circles than 
the polishedness of tables.) Are the\ the same trail.' 

"' We may well be made imhapps. when we deal with atomic elements. 
at the diffusion vs. independenl-de\elopment dilemma. [I'or the equa- 
tion o{ the Australian and Nootka bull-roarers is) unfortunate. \Shal 
work does the bull-roarer ilo. culturalls'.' Ihe Noolka bull-roarer is a 
game, owned b\ a cerlain lineage. It is onl> one game aiming man\. 
played for prizes - pri/es being the important part, a segment o{ the 
potlach "trait." [Similarl\.| it diK'siil tell sou .in> thing about Plains 
Indians [just] lo kiunv that the> ha\e their camp in a circle. ''•' lo enu- 
merate traits is o\' little [help]. ''-• '^ althmigh our catalogue of traits 
gives us the illusion ihal somelhmg has been said. 



50U l^^ Culture 

bg. lb. h: ^in sum,] it is useful to follow up the distribution of a trait 
but only as a preliminary study or point of departure, for a trait list 
provides only the signs of the presence of cultural dissimilarities (differ- 
ences from our own [culture]). ^^ The isolation of these traits and the 
reconstruction of their history is important for the way it emphasizes 
the vagaries o^ historical accident in the processes of development. "^ 
To gi\e an example: historically our English language is a stranger to 
us. [By tracing the history of forms] the linguist can blow up our senti- 
mental psychological configuration. [Thus the expression] "damn bitch" 
[unites forms derived from] Church Christianity and Norman hunting - 
strange bedfellows. Complexes don't necessarily belong together [just] 
because they do historically occur together. There are indeed some acci- 
dental complexes and configurations, [and trait histories can help reveal 
them.] ^*?- ''' But they can never take the place of the dynamic study of 
patterns. '^^ No culture consists of traits save in the atomistic sense. 

dm. lb. hi. h2. bg yj^g ^j-^j^ J5 really the enemy of the pattern - it is of 
no importance isolated from its configuration and too often has been 
elevated, as by Graebner, to fetishistic significance (festishistic because 
attaching too much importance to the materiality of the thing pointed 
to). No trait belongs to any one culture. "^ We can't claim any [particu- 
lar] trait as "ours" - ^^ there is diffusion everywhere. To realize this 
breaks down some parochialisms of thought (consider the connection 
of the Dakota corn farmer with Mesopotamia, or the history of the 
alphabet); but ^^ traits have no meaning}^ '*™- ^^ Some old-[fashioned] 
historians and anthropologists are sfill very much concerned as to who 
first cultivated wheat, who discovered barley, who invented the alpha- 
bet, etc. - ^^ but it doesn't matter. What matters is the meaning pattern 
[in which these elements occur]. It is after the event to say that the 
alphabet was an important invention; in the beginning it wasn't impor- 
tant at all. Shall we sing a hymn of praise to Irish monks, missionaries, 
Latins, Etruscans, West Greeks, Cadmus, or [to alphabet creators of] 
the "East" - Phoenicians? [The alphabet existed] before them, though. 
(Columbus effectively "discovered" America to the European con- 
sciousness, though others preceded him. [Who is the great "discoverer," 
then-^]) 

'^ We don't know today what are the really great ideas. Nor did they 
m the past. We can't know what a culture-element can do cumulatively 
- hence many "great" men in history are so [only] retrospectively, mer- 
ely m terms of their specific ancestry to modern man psychologically; 
and such evaluative history must be rewritten each generation. [In its 



Two: The Psychology of Culiitrc 501 

early days the alphabet was] jusl a pallcrn. [deriving] from Fgypi and 
with prestige-value to the Semitic peoples, but not completely under- 
stood. [Only by the] accidents o\' history [have we acquired alphabetic 
writing rather than some other form, for it is] not the alphabet [as such] 
that does the work but the cumulative history. These lew scralchings 
meant little to the Sinaitic people (like runes, [in a later age]). Ogham^' 
likewise died, although as [a system] it was quite as spectacular or as 
dull as the Sinaitic alphabet - and yet few have e\er heard of Ogham 
writing. Much oi' history, then, is invidious intellectual ancestor-hunt- 
ing, reevaluative [according to the values ot] the present time-level, not 
in terms of actual beginnings and contemporary importance. (Our ele- 
mentary education [is full oi' such] systematized pabulum - "Eskimos 
live in snow-houses," "The Phoenicians invented the alphabet," "It gets 
colder as you go north.") 

"^ The order of the alphabet is traditional; like a spell, [or the rhyme] 
"eeny meeny miney mo," [it has no intrinsic significance.] From the 
trait viewpoint it is right to connect [alphabetic order] with all these 
peoples, for it is a singularity, [a product ot] historical continuity onl>. 
But from the cultural-complex viewpoint [the connection would] not 
[be right.] Although you can't build a complete picture of culture with- 
out [any elements, or] traits, the alternative - to attach a once-for-all. 
[supposedly inherent] significance [to a trait] - is just as wrong. '*"■ '^- 
Traits are nothing in themselves, only fossils and habits full o\' irration- 
ality and [laden with] prestige. '^- ^e- '^''" The study o\' "traits" is valuable 
for distributive historical studies, but not for psychological synchronic^' 
explanations of culture. [Notice, for example,] the dilTerent horizons of 
u, V, w, X, q, and j historically; [they entered our alphabet at quite dif- 
ferent times.] [But as regards our culture today,] we don't care about 
any of these things; we don't live under the dispensation o\' "culture 
traits" - nor do primitive people, probably. (F.ven Thor. [a trait wow 
usually connected with "Nordic" peoples,] ma> be I gro-F'innic [in ori- 
gin]; and the pre-Indoeuropean people in England were "Nordic" (in 
many ways, though Nordic traits are often supposed to "beliMig" lo the 
Indoeuropeans.]) 

dm. h2, bg While traits ma\ be isolated from a purel> descnpti\e or an 
historical standpoint, the latter is the real criterion for the culture trail. 
[In other words,] there is no real criterion for a culture trait sa\e histori- 
cal continuity. Description is suitable for large-scale, complicated trails 
[(showing the component parts),] but not for simple trails. ^^ For the 
trait an sich is nil: its functions change from age to age. IriMii jx-ople lo 



502 ^^^ Culture 

people, and even, perhaps, from individual to individual. ^^ Contrast, 
for example, the historical study of the alphabet with its value as a 
symbol oi' education for the child of tender age: here the alphabet has 
dynamic value. Traits take on new significations from time to time, and 
hence it is impossible to construct history from them. [Trait analysis 
suggests] descriptive unity, as between Old and New World agricultural 
traits; historical unity, as in the relation between Christianity in New 
Haven and in Abyssinia; but cultural traits don't really exist. They are 
remade in each culture, according to its mythology and its rationaliza- 
tions. 

'^ [As our discussion of culture elements illustrates, we] serve two 
masters, psychology and history - the meaning and the "how come" 
sides of anthropology. '^"^ [From a cultural point of view,] the [only] 
main purpose of studying traits is to give the necessary preliminary 
stock-taking of the culture; "^ but the historical background [of culture] 
is not necessarily congruent with the situation today. Things mean what 
we think they mean, [not where they have come from.] ^^' ^^ Trait "eth- 
nology" is really archaeology, [just] not of things dug from the ground. 
It is not cultural anthropology. 



lb 



The Geography of Culture 



oi. h2 j^Q study of the diffusion of culture traits [has made much ofj 
the logic of [their] spatial distribution. *■' From the [geographical] extent 
of a trait, [one speculates as to whether the trait's occurrence is due to] 
old heritage or to secondary factors of distribution, [with most occur- 
rences] probably due to distribution, in the last analysis. ([For a discus- 
sion of] diffusion, see Wissler's Man and Culture.) 

[There has been much success in tracing the paths of diffusion by this 
means; yet the procedure has its limitations, especially for the more 
complex societies.] '^ As civilized man transcends space as well as time, 
the [diffusional] picture is even less clear than in primitive societies. 
[Consider, for example, the spread of ideas through] university contacts: 
it is not topography, but the carriers [of the ideas] that are important 
[in determining their spread.] ^- [Actually, this is true of any process of 
diffusion:] the distance as evaluated by the carriers is different from the 
actual location. '^ We must weight geography, [measuring] not mileage 
but cultural-mileage.''^ 



Two: The Pswholoi^v of Ciilttin' 503 

[This includes llic facl that sunic ideas spread more easily ihaii o\\\- 
ers.] "^ There is little resistance to the spread of a myth - e. g.. (we find) 
Grimm fairy stories in oriental settings but not so with a kinship 
system. [But although a myth, or elements of a myth, may spread rela- 
tively easily,] "' the significance o\' the tale \aries ni>t as part ol" the 
tale-trait, but subjective to the particular culture [in which the tale is 
found.] The Nootka suitor-myths [can ser\c as an example. Among the 
Nootka,] '^'^^ the legend oi' the suitor winning a supernatural bride is 
embodied in the marriage ceremonial which symbolizes status. The leg- 
end [occurring] in the ceremonial is the same thing as a story in another 
locality, but the ceremonial one is a topaii (pri\ilege). while the other 
tale is recreation. [So profoundly Nootka is the significance o\' the tale 
in its Nootka context, that it is] "^ a disappointment to an informant 
with knowledge of its wider distribution as a lilerar\ product, [to learn 
that the tale does not belong to the Nootka alone.] 

[Likewise,] the Star-husband myths of the Plains may be f(nind 
among the Klamath;^"* and "^- "■' tales of magic Hight occur in ancient 
Japan, in South America (Upper Amazon), and all over North America, 
as the same story but with different motives for the flight. "' This is no 
mere parallelism, '' [but a tale] adopted by different peoples and re- 
interpreted into local terms. "'" The elements o\' these m\th tales that 
are added or subtracted are as important as the common elements that 
are preserved throughout the myth as distributed. ''• ''"' [A more com- 
plex,] large-scale example is the difTusion of Christianil\. Documeniar\ 
and terminological evidence are important in identif\ing the complex. 
•■' with whose spread there are changes - [here and] there a differenl 
emphasis, and a modification. ■^'' 

qq, ii. r2 yj^g interchange of traits does not require friendK relations 
between groups; even with a hostile relation there ma\ be much borrow- 
ing. '^ Diffusion is [perfectly] possible under conditions o\ war. '- But 
traits are never taken over exactly as they are received. '<'' '' '- instead. 
borrowed elements must be assimilated to the already given back- 
ground; and this assimilation is selective. " Ofien. the subject culture 
picks up what may be considered very insignificant or trilling within 
the complex of the parent culture; this trifie or aspect may. however, be 
just what the subject culture is then m need of (or what it is entirely 
unconscious oiy '- [The assimilation into our own culture) of ja// music 
from Africa, or of [elements ot] southern speech \'\om the Negro, are 
examples where it is just some aspect of a larger thing that is taken in. 
qq. ri Piobably any element might be assimilated. pro\ided it may he re- 



504 Hi Culture 

interpreted. '' A culture may [even] adopt a trait the essence of which 
is antithetical to it, and refit [this element] to its general pattern. 

'- The anthropologist has not done much work on the process of re- 
interpretation of traits by the receiving culture, [so we can make only a 
few general remarks about it]. Culture never somersaults: the process 
of reinterpretation is gradual. The technique of assimilation [must re- 
quire a certain] preparedness, [on the part of] the receiving culture, to 
accept new things; selection [of the elements to be absorbed]; and integ- 
ration [of the new traits] with something old and already ingrained. {^^ 
[Here] the terminology is tremendously important. If you can call new 
customs by old names, they seem more acceptable.) '^^ In other words, 
there is not only a cosmos of re-interpretable traits; there are also com- 
munities of receptive peoples. 

[Are nearby peoples most likely to be the receptive ones? Such recep- 
tivity is one way to think about] ^'^ ^^' "^^ the concept of culture area, 
although the concept [first] arose from the need to arrange and system- 
atically classify museum specimens for exhibition. '^- ^^ [It represents a 
regional] "clustering" of characteristic culture traits and complexes. "^ 
If traits were distributed only on the basis of chance, the distribution 
of any trait would be incongruent with that of other traits; ^^ [where, 
however, we find an] amassing of traits by areas, [we speak of] "culture 
areas." 

^^ The English ethnologists have tended to neglect the [geographical] 
spread of culture traits. '-'' The idea of [cultural] evolution is more popu- 
lar there. Frazer, for instance, was more interested in pointing out the 
typicality of the primitive reaction [than its regional differences].-^^ ^"^ 
The Americans, on the other hand, have sometimes attempted to mark 
off culture areas all over the map. Yet the reality of culture areas as 
clear-cut entities seems to vary greatly. '^' ^^ Though it has a didactic 
value, this type of classification can be - and too often is - overdone, 
for not all people can be fitted into such a scheme. '^ Too much of a 
fetish has been made of the culture-area concept. [It works] best for the 
Plains and the Northwest Coast; but elsewhere a passion for classifica- 
tion has run away with us, and one thinks other areas are of equal 
weight and cogency. '^' ^2 ^ g^^^ [points out in] "American Myths" 
[Scientific Monthly), the classificatory habits [deriving from] biological 
and zoological taxonomy have done anthropology a great deal of harm. 

t2, ti, ck ^^1^ regard to the mechanics of culture action, European 
[ethnologists have a somewhat similar] concept: the culture stratum. 
They are not so interested in area. ^^ But the "culture area" is a relatively 



Tno: The Fsycholo^y of C ulturc 505 

simple concept in America as compared with the ureal complexity of 
[cultural] stratification in the Old World. '■' [The luropean elhni>Iogists) 
tried to work out the stratification of primiti\e cultures by " describing 
distinct, disconnected cultural traits, naming the resulting pot-pourri of 
indiNkiiial iraits a '^'ullure."* and searching for i>lher places with similar 
combinations. [A given locality may have many such "cultures." in stra- 
tified combination.] '' This is the Ciraebnerian point o^ view. " .As be- 
fore, here we can talk of [both] historical and psychi^logical culture 
strata: [both points o\^ view would apply.] 

" Is the culture area ([or stratum]) a mere description of culture (low. 
or is it, aside tYom that, a psychological unit'.' The latter! ^- Although 
the culture area concept can be criticized [on the grounds] that there 
isn't the same degree of relation between [any] two traits [constituting 
it], there are. however, assemblages of people who understand each oth- 
er's culture and feel themselves as a unity. [Our conception here repre- 
sents] a sort of cross between political science and anthropology. '-• ^- 
This is the true psychological meaning of culture area: "" ^- "'' a nascent 
nationality. '^'^- '^' Under the dominating idea in an area there is a nascent 
feeling of unity; it is a potential "nationality," in the sense that a "na- 
tion" represents a communality of understanding. For example. '^ [con- 
sider] the Siouan and Cheyenne partleche: what you say o\' the Sioux 
attitude you can say of a dozen other [peoples], and this is the psycho- 
logical value of the culture-area. '''' A Sioux captured by a Blackfool 
would feel at home in the culture even though [in the hands of] deadly 
enemies, whereas (say) a Pueblo [Indian] captured by a Plains tribe 
would not feel at home - he would not know what [his situation] is all 
about. 

"^ Some of our culture areas are ver\ real things in the psychological 
sense; others are pretty weak in the knees. How nianv culture areas arc 
psychological realities? "■- On this basis. Plains culture. Southwest cul- 
ture, and Northwest Coast culture are valid areas, but the others ([in 
North America]) do not have a sulTicient psychological basis of unity. 
'-''• •■- [As we have said,] the culture area really is a nascent nation, and 
many nations probably arose in just this way [thus we may wish lo] 
compare the different tribes in the I*lains area with the dilTereni cily 
states in Italy. But this notion of the culture area should never be con- 
fused with the notion o\' the state. '^ The stale is a method for compro- 
mising or solving antagonistic points o\ view; ^'^^ '' the Plains iribcs. 
with their uniformity o\' [cultural] patterns, are a cullural unily. the 



5(J5 ^^^ Culture 

psychological ground [tor a state, if you will, but as yet lacking this 

method.]^ 

ck. .:. .1 What vital culture areas, [in this sense of the term,] could we 
recognize a hundred years ago in the civilized world, before modern 
mdustrialisni set in'? [A list might look as follows:] 

1. Occidental (Western European) culture, with its American deriva- 

ll\CS. 

2. Saracenic (Islamic) culture in the Near East. 

3. The culture of India. 

4. East Asiatic culture - Chinese, with Japan as a derivative of that 

(also Korea). 

5. F\^ssibly a Turkish-Altaic culture area {'^ though probably not). 
[At least the first] four of these are ""^ vital culture areas, cosmoses 

that in spite of tremendous diversities within them are psychological 
unities. '- In the course of time the cross-fertilization of traits has devel- 
oped a common pattern of culture with '- ""^^ "■' a kind of commonality 
of feeling which transcends local and political differences. "^ This is 
what anthropology should have meant by culture area. 



Editorial Note 

This chapter covers the lectures of Nov. 16, 23, and 30, 1936 (Rl, 
R2, QQ, CK; of the three lectures, QQ and CK have little material on 
the first two). Also included are two lectures from 1935-36, one un- 
dated (Jan. 3?) and the other dated Jan. 10, 1936 (BW, Tl, T2), as well 
as lectures from 1934 (Jan. 23, 30, and Feb. 6; DM, H2, LB, BG, SI). 
The organizational framework for the discussion is provided by the 
1936 notes and by Sapir's 1928 Outline. 

The 1936 notes are sparse for the introductory sections, when Sapir 
apparently discussed the relationship of form and function. Most of the 
chapter's material on this topic comes, therefore, from the earlier ver- 
sions of the course. The 1934 notes, though rich, present some organiza- 
tional problems. Some of the notes are probably out of order. 



Notes 

1. BG also has: "The contents of culture 'ought' to be reduced to modes of behavior. Tliere 
are no objects of culture; there are only modes of behavior." 



luo: riic Psvdioloi^v nf C 'ulmrc 507 

2. SI has: "Cultiin' cannot bo dclnK-d m icnns o\ things Chsis") or overt patterns. (Mandcl- 
baum's classific. useless.)" 

Rl has "Education - two pluise." It is not clear what phases Sapir had in mind, or 
whether they applied oiil\ to our o\k\\ culture. 
R2 actually has "thought oi." Rl and lUi do not have this word 

Included under the "functional piMiit oI'mcw,' Rl also has: "Imi^ortant psychological 
pallerns philosophic point of view - (Ditricult to carry out )" 

6. LB adds. "Language ditto." 

7. R2 has: "points out that this [Wissler's culture pattern) is not a lunciioning pattern, as 
his is." 

8. See Roheini 1932 and 1934. presumably the works Sapir might ha\e had in mind. 

9. See Benedict's comments, in a letter to Margaret Mead, on a paper Sapir gave at the 
1932 meetings of the American Ethnological Society: "The speech was on Function and 
Pattern in modern anthropology, and it was aimed at RadclilTe-Brown..." (in An Anihro- 
poloi^i.sl III Hark, M. Mead. ed. [1959]. p. 325). Benedict's opinion of Sapir's paper was 
largely negative. The paper itself, if it ever existed in written form, is now lost, and Sapir 
did not comment on RadclilTe-Brown in his published writings. 

10. Tl also has: "Conflict between systems and styles of culture and the actual, prevalent 
forms themselves." It is not clear, however, just where in the oxerall discussion this p^)int 
belongs. 

11. DM has: "The rough and ready theory of function that the society or that the individual 
has." BG and H2 have observer, not inJividual. 

12. It is not clear whether this classificatory scheme is Sapir's or Beaglehole's; I suspect the 
latter. Sapir may well have proposed that the students try to come up with a satisfactory 
classification so that, in comparing the proposals in class discussion, it could be shown 
that no one a priori scheme was preferable to another. 

13. BG has. in an apparently parallel passage, "Analyze the fundamental functions of soci- 
ety." 

14. This passage in DM comes right after the passage about (descripti\eK ) seeing how m- 
dividuals work out their own needs - a discussion o\' "function," that is. But it is not 
certain that the "it" in "...it turns out to mean..." actually refers to "function." 

15. Rl links the heading, "Purpose of Culture," with "functions." See also the section enti- 
tled "Function and Form in Sociology," in Sapir 1927a, "Anthropology and Sociology." 

16. T2 has: "BrilTs explanation of smoking and his mental method o\' reaching that point, 
the shrinkage of space." 

17. Tl has "kudos." 

18. This line in Rl actually reads: "Convention - form - inhibition - religion ^.....v 
England - puritans -". Note that Rl does not specify visual form, but I infer that this 
may be meant, because the "art" section seems to be set apart from the "music" MXlion 
which follows it. 

19. Rl has. in the margin next to this paragraph on art. "Ramifications of a word" 

20. I insert this passage from ".Anthropology and Sociology" because Rl has, at thi 
"Psychological - attitudinal sets". 

21. What the Outline actually has here is: "The functional point of \iew Its limi(ation:». Hjc 
pitfalls of rationalization." 

22. R I has "possible behavior". 

23. R I has more here, on "Secondar> s>mboK ol congruence" (V) but (he pasvigc is illegible 

24. LB adds parenthetically here: "(educationally inhibiting element in our culture the 
'mucker pose'; when one dares to be as linguistically clever as he can. he startles not 
only others but himself too." 

25. See, for example. Graebner 1911 and 1924 



508 l^t Culture 

26 11 adds •Discussion on canonistic writings - Bible (Old and New T), Koran, Vedic 
poems. C'onrucian classics, etc., as a trait. 

27. DM adds: "Here is the nuclear element, the spring board for your thesis on the economic 
determination of social status and prestige." 

28. Hi has: "(Did Alice Two Guns live at Cattaraugus? Did the jumping style of dancing in 
Women's dance originate here at Coldspring or over there at Cattaraugus?)" The refer- 
ence IS again to an Iroquoian group. 

29. See Lippert 1S86-87. 

30. HI cues Sapir's (I9l6h) paper on Time Perspective [see Ethnology volume: CWES IV] 
"for the principle of [trait] distribution and antiquity, and the principle of broken distri- 
bution and antiquity and time... the logical method." HI comments, "Sapir seems to 
have altered his position since 1916; he no longer insists on the logical explanation 
culture, trait, and culture complex in terms of distribution, sedation, etc. For in 1933 he 
says. "No trait belongs to any culture; Trait is the enemy of pattern; traits have no 
meaning." 

31. An early Irish system of writing using notches for vowels and lines for consonants to 
form an alphabet of 20 letters. 

32. LB has "psychological at-one-time explanations". 

33. Similar wording, and many of the same ideas and examples, can be found in Sapir's 
1916 Tunc Perspective in Aboriginal American Culture: A Study in Method. The view of 
culture is somewhat different, however. 

34. See F. Boas (1891), "The Dissemination of Tales among the Natives of North America," 
/ Amer Folklore A: 13-20. 

35. At this point LB gives a long list of what are apparently further examples of ideas 
some of which have diffused and others have not; those that diffuse become rationalized 
according to the local cultural setting. Thus "the plank house [occurs] from the panhan- 
dle of Alaska to the Klamath River of northern California, [where the local culture] 
rationalizes [its construction from] redwood: you can make this selfevident (a soft wood, 
etc.) - but the Algonquians use birch bark [for a similar type of house]." Another 
example is "the medicine-bundle: the psychology of the present functioning element has 
nothing to do with its history." Other examples include the division of the Bible into 
sections, the history of Jewish law, the four (or sometimes six) cardinal points, the Na- 
vaho "unique origin-myth of the horse," short-story "plots" (Cinderella, Ulysses), and 
our "master formulae... putting a value on services, attaching figures to intangibles (unin- 
telligible in other societies)." The examples are not cited in enough detail to reveal what 
specific use Sapir made of them. 

36. See Frazer 1917-20, The Golden Bough. 

37. The definition of the state given in LB occurs next to the section on "Culture Areas" 
but is actually included under another heading: "Sapir on Culture and Neurosis." 



Chapter 5. The Patterning ofCuhurc 

'*' The Confli^nrciu'vc Point of I lew 

[In the prcxioLis Iccliirc. I nicnlioncci llic concept of] "■'^ '• " "culture 
stratum": the description ot a pot-pourri of indi\ idual. distnict. discon- 
nected cultural traits [that happen to occur al a particular historical 
period in a particular region]. '' This is the Graehnerian point of view, 
[among w hose detects one might mention methodological problems; for 
although the stratum is supposedly defined in terms of historical combi- 
nation,] '^^'' without documentary evidence it is ditllcult [o tell the age of 
traits. 

ck. ri. ti ^1,^ contrast,] the point of view [put forward m this lecture] is 
configurational: "^^ the emphasis is not on the factualitv o( every bit of 
behavior, trait, or element, but on its position in relation lo other ele- 
ments. '"' [That is to say, this point of view] emphasizes the placement 
of a cultural element rather than its content. '■^ [Consider.] for example, 
[the difference between] handing someone a nickel and handing hmi an 
unshaped bit of metal. [Though the substance o\^ the two ma> be the 
same, the latter is not part of our system o\' coinage and has not the 
same meaning -] "^'"^ [a meaning in terms o( which] a dime [(say) ma\ 
be exchanged for] a bar of chocolate, or a doll. The dime, the chocolate 
bar, and the doll are [culturally] equated. [c\cn though the> are physi- 
cally very different objects.] "^^^^ '^' Such examples have a methodological 
significance: the principle oi' setting significant acts in a tight-filling 
configurational scheme. ' ' The meaning o\' the act is not lo be judged 
by its abstract content, but by its placement in the life of a pci>ple. 

" [With respect to trait analysis,] this sxmbolic or actual placement 
[of a cultural element] in a pattern of culture [ that is. the elemenl's) 
psychological value - places a configuration upon a trail or complex. 
The logical analysis [o\' traits] can [otherwise) go too far and can (end 
up] being reckoned without cultural conicxt Hut [to remove a trail from 
its context is to strip] the trait o[ that latent or total cultural content 
that acts upon its meaning, response, and pi>silion. 

[When viewed out of context, a trait's historical import may become 
severely distorted: for. over time.] " iIk- \alues and configuration (in 



510 III Culture 

which the trait occurs] may be completely transformed or reversed, due 
to changes in customs which may or may not be directly associated with 
the transformed trait or complex. When a pattern or complex begins or 
ends IS uncertain; all that can be ascertained are the relationships among 
several o( them. [The once] intrinsic value of coinage, for example, is a 
question o\' faith having arisen in deferred credit and thus has become 
another pattern. [More important than questions about the historical 
origins of patterns is] the question: what is the range of a pattern? What 
does it embrace in the psychological context of a culture? 

" [The importance of pattern, as compared with the overt content 
o\' an act of behavior, is illustrated by the possibility of] conflicts of 
classification {[i. e., behaviors that can be classified in terms of two 
conflicting patterns of meaning]). Biological and physical factors, [no 
matter how "overt," are always susceptible to multiple interpretation as 
to how they are] classified and defined by cultural pattern, as when it is 
uncertain whether a man walking [in a particular way] is happy, drunk, 
physically disabled, on a slippery floor, etc. °' [Hence] the fallacy of 
judging the essential nature of a given culture [element] from external 
appearances. 

[As compared with the culture stratum view] '^^ of Graebner, "^ Father 
Schmidt, and others,' therefore, °'' "^ [we gain] a more intimate under- 
standing of culture [when we turn our attention away from the spurious 
concreteness of individual elements ("traits") and begin to view it in 
terms oi^form. "'-' For behavior follows forms, [like a gesture following] 
a curve pattern that begins and comes definitely to a closure. The clo- 
sure comes when all the elements contributing to the behavior are pre- 
sent and aid in the end of a set of responses. A behavior response gets 
its meaning in a setting of a behavior pattern. [For this reason there is 
a] feeling of uneasiness, incompleteness, and dissatisfaction when one 
or more of the elements in the behavior pattern is missing or replaced 
by an unexpected element. The lack of salt in a meal, a dignified friend 
calling you by your first name after [only] a short acquaintance, a man 
leaving the room during a lecture - [in such cases] we would feel uneasy 
until we could place the action. (The walking out of the room is not [in 
itself] the significant part of the act. The important part of the act is 
the meaning - [why he walked out.]) Until we can interpret the act, we 
are in a non-closure state. 

"'•"'-• A glance at configurative ("Gestalt") psychology [would confirm 
the importance of pattern in perception; one sees this in action also, as 
with the] "^ lapse and closure of an action pattern.^ People act with a 



Two: The Fsvcholoiiv (tf Culture 511 

feeling of closure in the tiiuire. CeiUim eleiiieiiis ha\e great importance 
in the pattern. We reconstruct a plan o\ our action; each element has 
Its relation to the pattern. The significance o\' each act depends upon 
its place in the pattern, and if we feel strongly the pattern m which the 
act belongs, our reaction io the act is "right."" Hut patterns t>verlap: 
[suppose we are] discussing politics with a friend, w hen his child comes 
in[to the room]. How should we react to the child'.' [What pattern of 
conduct should now appK'.'j Intuition means the abilit\ to see the map. 
the pattern c^f conduct. iniaginati\el\. It is not the overt conduct thai 
matters, but the arrangement. 

"'■ Words tick off these configurations of conduct. C onsider. lor exam- 
ple, the words "tradesman*" and "■bandit"* in relation to configurations 
of experience. "Tradesmen** refers to such people as Chicago business 
tradesmen, a [realm ot] experience one is used to. [Suppose. houe\er. 
that we encounter] businessmen [in a less familiar locale, as. perhaps.] 
in the bazaar trade in Asia, a trade based on bargaining; and [(the 
bargaining ending to our disadvantage) we call the ba/aarmen] "ban- 
dits."" But they are not "bandits** - they are "tradesmen ""; ue call them 
bandits because we see their activity against the background o\ our 
configuration of behavior - [our expectations about how trade is car- 
ried out.] Thus words do not describe objecti\e things as much as place 
objects in the behavior configuration. 

""^ [The point is that] we do not see things, we see significances. For 
instance, we may "pretend** these are all t's: t. T. ^. [etc.].' >et lhe\ are 
all different. 

''' [Let us consider a few more] examples of general patterns in beha- 
vior that are definable aside from content. '''' To a painter, the whole 
world can be expressed in paints. Painting a rural barn, the ariisi does 
not paste pieces of wood on his canvas to get the texture more exacl. 
[He relies, instead, on a pattern of visual relations that is definable quile 
apart from the actual substances of which tlie barn, on the one hand, 
and the medium of paint, on the other, are composed.] Or. (when I grcx*! 
a child somewhat abruptly.] the child"s mother "pretends"" m\ brusque 
greeting [can be taken] as a nice one. and that that is the one I realK 
meant. Interpretation [- placing a beha\ioral act in a pattern of signifi- 
cance - is what matters. iu>t its physical content] Conduct is seen nol 
as what it is overtly, but in relation to a pattern, to a geometric plane 
[if you will, or a particular] context; "^' " [and contexts ma> overlap) or 
be switched, as in humor, [which we might think of as] an unconscious 
mathematics of chaimed cc^ntexts. 



512 III Culture 

"' (The problem o\' locating the pattern in terms of which an element 
should be \ leued is all the greater when we] observe cultural phenom- 
ena [deriving from a culture other than our own.] Inevitably, one places 
these "objective" phenomena according to one's own patterns - and 
(ineviiablv, too, one] experiences a shock on discovering the existence 
o{ entirely dilTerent patterns in a given culture from those that had 
obviously seemed to be present. ^' Cultural phenomena are [always sub- 
ject to] a double response, therefore."^ An ethnological specimen is 
viewed [quite dilTerently] by an anthropologist [who sees it] in terms of 
a naii\e culture, and a miner who, respectively, [sees it in terms of] his 
own. Cologne Cathedral, viewed as from the local or Catholic culture 
\o'( Cologne itself, will have a different significance] from the view of an 
anti-German Iowa farmer. When anything is viewed, one's own culture- 
confines are always present in varying degrees and aspects. ([This pro- 
pensity to embrace new experiences or cultural elements within its 
framework is] what we might define as the "carrying-power" of a 
pattern.) 

^*-' [In short,] a pattern is a theory of activity having meaning in terms 
of the typical event of a given society. (We may distinguish a pattern 
from the total configuration.) ^^^ ^^^ '^^- ^'' ^^ A pattern is form, seen 
functionally. '^' Things which seem the same are not, unless they function 
similarly. " [Indeed, in reviewing the problem of culture "traits"] my 
purpose is to show differences in seemingly similar objects - [functional 
ditferences that arise because the objects participate in different cultural 
configurations.] 



"^ The Patterning of Culture Exemplified: Speech 

^^ [Although we may define] cultural patterning [in terms of the rela- 
tion between] form and function, [our cultural] analysis [is not thereby 
made simple.] ^"^ The problem of form and the problem of function are 
very much more subtle than is generally envisaged. '''' °' [To illustrate 
these problems, let us consider] speech; °' for language is a [particularly 
convenient] example of an elaborate [cultural] pattern that keeps itself 
going as a self-contained "organism" or system of behavior. ^^ [it is 
also a good illustration of the complexity of functions and of the inap- 
propriateness of viewing pattern through an alien lens. For] linguisdc 
analysis does not rest content with "overhead functions"; and pattern 



Two: The P.\Vih(>li)i;\' of Ciilinrc 513 

nnisl be undcrslin>d in (ciiiis o[' I lie uliiniatc analysis inluili\cly tell by 
any normal member of a gi\en comnumily. 

^-"^ Language is the supremo example oi the fael thai the U>lal lunc- 
lioning of patterns is dilTerent from the functioning ofa specific pattern. 
In two languages one nui\ fiiui the form (si>iiik1) and the lunciion 
(meaning) of elements to be the same but the patterns totally dilTerent.^ 
^' it is the internal economy - the conllgurational analysis that is 
completely different in all languages. ''•^''" [Suppose.) for example, that 
in language A, [the form] wnln means 'house*, and in language B there 
is also a form wala meaning 'house'. Yet although [the two forms] are 
linguistically and culturally the same they can still be [significantK] dif- 
ferent. Why? ■' Because there may still be a difference in the morphol- 
ogy or configuration of the languages. In language A. [nula consists of] 
uii + la. Mil means 'to dwell', and hi means 'that which is used'. In 
language B, however, wala [is composed from] n- + -ahi (where ahi = 
"house', and u- is a prefix marking neuter [gender]).^' [Thus the two 
forms are] functionally different in the two languages. ''' [To put this 
point another way,] in language the same formal elements plus a dif- 
ferent configurational union may equal two patterns, resulting in two 
separate languages. 

[What, then, is the role of meaning, in language?^ Does function, m 
this sense, determine form? Do meanings, as located in the world and 
its physical characteristics, explain the linguistic configurations in which 
people talk about them?]^ '- Although the exigencies o\' adjustment to 
the world are fairly uniform - hunger and [the search for] food, etc. - 
the languages about these ["necessities"] are very ditTerent. '■'-''^ Meaning 
or reference are articulated by speech - we don't A//('u the world before 
we have speech. If we don't have symbols, we don't ha\e meanings. 

^' By "speech" I mean the way in which groups symboli/e thoughts 
and ideas, [in their totality, not just the indi\idual word]. '- [Consider 
some expressions using the English word drop:] \ou ihnns matches in 
the air, and they drop: but also one drops in attendance; and one drops 
out of sight. Now. there is a certain beha\ior to the word «//('/>, in that 
there is a uniformity to our conception o( the word e\en if we use it in 
violent ways. Yet, you may also be able to express the same thing with- 
out using that word. In agreement, for instance, >ou can sa> 'uh-luih" 
instead of "I agree." Thus the [wider] concept [you want to express] 
may be analysed in another way. There are languages Navajo, [again, 
for example] - that have no word [specificall> ] meaning drop. " Instead. 
in Navajo, analysis shows that [the expression we translate as] "drop' 



514 111 Ciilniir 

means ihe passing through space of stone, or mush, etc., showing that 
obieci as the main subject o\^ thought. "• '- [The Navajo is] interested in 
the ivpc of object which travels through space. This object is the nuclear 
idea, while the "dropping" idea comes in only as a prefixed element, 
adding an indication oi^ a downward direction.'^ *' Thus [the Navajo] 
docs not express "drop" in our sense. 

" 'Give' is the same way. '*'" It is an illusion that languages express 
necessars fact instead of convenient expression for necessary fact - [an 
illusion] that makes us fallaciously believe that [the English sentence] "I 
will give it to you" is exactly equivalent to the Latin Id tibi daho, for 
example. Not only are the words not equivalent [in the English and the 
1 aim.] but in the Navajo nade-c'a't the idea of giving is not even [explic- 
itl>] expressed. ^^ [That is,] all languages do express the concept of giv- 
ing but Navajo has no word for give though it expresses this through a 
specific arrangement of patterns. ^' [Indeed,] there is an amazing variety 
of configurations [invoked] in expressing the sentence 'T will give it to 
you" in dilTerent languages.'^ 

[Thus there is no necessity that the meaning expressed by a particular 
word in English should be expressed in the form of a word in some 
other language.] ^'~ A word is anything the language says is a word; and 
" the overtones in words are irreplaceable, being incapable of syn- 
onyms. "^^^^ •■' Actually, in language words as such do not have meaning 
without context. ""- Even though a form may have a typical meaning 
usually associated with it, context can change this meaning entirely. ''• 
■■- Thus the form itself is not important - meaning is given by the 
context in which or to which it fits. ''' Implication bears 90% of the 
work of language." 

[The same flexibility in the relation between form and meaning holds 
true for grammatical categories, as a means of expressing] " a group of 
concepts, or one whole concept. "- ^^ [For example, consider] the use of 
the plural in English, [expressed with a grammatical tag.] ^- Should we 
also have a tag denoting "brightness" versus "dullness"? [Perhaps it 
seems more appropriate to have a grammatical expression for plurality 
because] plurality is more fundamental. " Surely we know the difference 
between one and more than one, so we use plurals, while we don't use 
ditTerences in color all the time. "■ '^ But it is a difference of degree, not 
of kind. Some languages do not allocate to plurality the same impor- 
tance that we do [in English]. [Even in English,] we sometimes make 
a plural reference in the singular; »' plurals in Enghsh are used only 
spasmodically according to idiom. '- And some languages have no plu- 



Two: 7 he I\s\ch(>l<>i;y of Cuhnrc 515 

rals lhc\ oiil\ sccni lo.'- ('''■^'' In inaii\ AiiK-iican languages what 
seems al first sight to be a true plural of the nouu turns out on closer 
analysis to be a distributive. ) '' We look (or such things (as plurality] 
because ihey are a necessary concept to us: noiuis must ha\e number, 
[we assume]. 

'- [Similarly, we suppose.] number is akin to gender; and we think o\' 
tense as being \ery important. " But even tense forms are interchange- 
able under common usage; '' and there are languages, such as ^ana. 
without tense tags. '-• " In Nootka, the first sentence of the story locates 
the time b\ denoting the tense. [After thai, tense] is not referred to 
again. [The story] goes on in a general or present tense, and people [just] 
know what's what. '- But they are very dogmatic on the aspect [o\ the 
verb]. '-■ " Aspect is the geometric form o\^ time:'^ all e\enis [can be 
conceived of as either] a point or a line, and this [dislmclion] is formal- 
ized by certain languages. '- "She burst into tears" is a point, while "she 
lived happily ever after" is a line; and this in Nootka is more important 
than tense. " [Event shapes such as] (1) Momentary, (2) Duralive. {'S) 
Graduative, (4) Inceptive, (5) Pre-graduative, and (6) Iteratixe (based on 
1 . 2. and 4) are aspects found in Nootka and in some other languages, in 
vai"ying combinations. Formally they are \ery clearly defined principles, 
whether [they are represented by] individually integrated ssmbols or 
not; that is, there is some ficxibility in the content o'i the form. " So 
the difference between what is formally necessar\ and uhat is k^gicall> 
necessary must be considered. '- Language is concerned with meaning, 
but it is also [- and more fundamentally -] concerned with form. [One 
might even say that] " language is niainly concerned with form, uith 
meanings a concern oi^ psychology.''^ 

""^ [There are many instances when the behavioral form provided b> 
a pattern does not follow, or no longer follows, in any straightforward 
"logical"" way from its content.] Consider, for example, \erbs that are 
not entirely active [in their meaning but are treated as active m the 
linguistic structure:] in I-nglisli the subject "I"" is logicallv implied to be 
the active will in "I sleep"" as well as "1 run."" [A sentence like) "! am 
hungry" might, [m terms of its content, be logicallv) belter expressed 
with "hunger"" as the active doer, as in [the (ierman) /;;/(/; liuninri [or 
even the I'rench] /'ni fnini. In some languages, however, such as Sioux, 
a rigid distinction is made between truly active and static verbs, [in that 
case, pattern and content coincide more "logicallv"" than m l-nglish.) 

[It seems, then, thal| when we get a pattern o\' behavior, we follow 
that [pallernj in spite of [being led. sometimes, into) illogical ideas or a 



516 



/// Cu/lurc 



feeling ol inadequacy. We become used to it. We are comfortable in a 
groove o\' belia\ior. '''^'^^' [Indeed,] it seems that no matter what [the] 
psychological origin may be, or complex of psychological origins, or a 
particular type of patterned conduct, the pattern itself will linger on by 
sheer inertia, which is a rather poor term for the accumulated force of 
social tradition, and entirely different principles of psychology come 
into play which may even cancel those which originally motivated the 
nucleus o\' the pattern of activity. Patterns of activity are continually 
getting awa> from their original psychological incitation. 

■^•^ Thus a culture pattern does not present itself in a definite time 
frame - only as a relative point of completion. [To understand the 
operation of a pattern] needs a long view, both backward and forward. 
"'^ In English, we have lost the feeling for gender in the noun; but, 
illogically, we [still] have genders in the pronoun - [reflecting] an ar- 
chaic classification of the universe into masculine, feminine and neuter. 
([Note that other classifications are perfectly possible, as for instance a 
classification into] big and little, as in some African languages, or ani- 
mate and inanimate, as in Algonquin [languages].) Once a pattern of 
expression becomes solidified, we unconsciously run our behavior 
pattern into that mold. 

[Many examples of the psychological force of pattern in behavior 
could be drawn, too, from the sound systems of languages.]^^ [Consider 
the sounds] ng and / in Nootka: [if a speech sound were only a set of 
muscular movements of the vocal apparatus, then once you know how 
to make the sound you should be able to make it anywhere; but this is 
not so.] These sounds are used by the Nootka only in sacred chants and 
songs (where / is the ceremonial variant of n). '^'-^'' Such special song- 
sounds are, at least so it would seem, pronounced with difficulty by 
Indians under ordinary circumstances, as in the handling of EngHsh 
words that contain them. The obvious inference is that one may react 
quite differently to the same speech-sound entering into dissimilar asso- 
ciations. This fact has, of course, a much wider psychological signifi- 
cance. 

"'^ [Similarly,] for English-speakers [attempting to speak German,] the 
sound tz [sic], occurring as German z at the beginning of a word, is 
more difficult [to pronounce] than zh (French j), but not because we 
have never pronounced it. [In fact we have pronounced both of them. 
But only the French sound is provided for in the] configuration [of 
sound relations we already have in English; see Table 1]: 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 



517 



Table 1 : Configuration |of some English consonants) 


Between vowels: 


At beginning of word: 


-zh- 


-sh- 


sh- 


X 


-z- 


-s- 


s- 


z- 


-V- 


-f- 


f- 


V- 



We have the feeling relations o{ X - [the configuration in which a 
sound of a particular sort, namely r/?, could occur at the beginning of 
a word - while] ts, though expressed as German r, is thought of as two 
sounds, t + s, [a kind of combination forbidden, in our English sound 
pattern, from occurring at the beginning of a word.] [Or, consider the 
English speech-sound] n/i and [the sound one makes when] blowing out 
a candle. Behavioristically they are the same, but their conte.xts are 
different.'^ 

[To understand the significance of an act of behavior, or even lo be 
able to produce it at all, depends, therefore, on a pattern or context of 
its occurrence, which gives it meaning and possibility. And a given act 
(like the candle-blowing sound) may have more than one context, more 
than one pattern according to which it might be interpreted.] These 
choices of configuration are evahuitions rather than measurcnu'ni.s. 
[Measurements have to do with objective characteristics of an act or a 
thing: evaluations have to do with choosing the configuration within 
which it has meaning.] 

"^^ Indeed, a configuration once understood can give meaning even 
if you don't know [exactly] what to do with [the details ot] \our struc- 
ture. "-'^^ In language, the elements are discovered after the pattern is 
known, not vice versa. '^^ Once the form is satisfactorv, configuraiional 
[relations] give the ability to make meanings ad hoc. [Consider the 
following] illustration, [concerning the parts o\' speech in) ^'ana.' '^-*' 
[The parts of speech are not somehow naturally given - as we can sec 
by considering problems in their definition, history, and comparison. In 
the Indo-European languages, for example, the relations between nouns 
and adjectives have changed over time. In many languages, loo. there 
may be so close a formal relationship between ad|ecli\es and \erbs that 
it is not clear that they are really distinct categories. Indeed.]"* if in a 
language, verbs and adjectives have the same phrasing they must be 



518 



/// Culture 



the same, lor \'ana, compare [the following "Verbal"] and "Adjectival" 
construcluMis [(see Tabic 2)]: 



Table 2: Yana constructions 


-Vcrbar' 


ni-sa-||si|ndja 


present definite 


'I walk away', etc. 


ni-sa-||si|numa 


present definite 


'you walk away' 


ni-sa-||ha ndja 


past definite 


['I walked away'] 


ni-sa- |ha|numa 


past definite 


['you walked away'] 


ni-sa-||ti|ndja 


indefinite 


['I ...'] 


ni-sa||ti numa 


indefinite 


['you ...'] 


"Adjectival" 


dyul- ||si|ndja, etc. 




'I am long', etc. 



[The glosses of morphemes are:] 

ni - a single male being walks 

sa - off, away 

si - present tense 

ndja - 1st person singular 

numa - 2nd person singular 

ha - past tense 

ti - indefinite [or quotative?] 

ku-sindja - do not 
[These examples show that] the paradigm for the adjective [in Yana] is 
the same as for the verb; all adjectival forms are classified as verbs. 
Nootka has the same, as do many other languages. Forms get estab- 
lished and become comfortable; they are then imposed on further ex- 
perience. [We can see this in the] reduction and interchangeability of 
parts of speech. 

""^ [Whether in language or in other cultural domains, therefore, it is 
the configuration, not the content, that determines an element's mean- 
ing.] Just as you claim that giving a person a piece of paper is equivalent 
to giving him a fatted calf (and can prove this by the structure of the 
culture, [with its use of paper money or notes of credit]), so you can 
prove that every adjective is a verb by the structure of the language. 
[(I.e.. in a particular language, with its particular configuration.)] 



I'wo: I'lw /^Wilioloi^y oj i'uliurc n h) 

^'"' Thus we are very nai\e to look for exact eqiii\aleiKcs in the 
palleniiiig.s o\ hmguage. or loi thai matter in all o\' euUiire. ''^* The 
complete meaniniz does not lie m the specific fimctiiMi of segmented bits 
o{ hcha\ ior bin in liiiictions ol w idcr im|iorl. ( lo cite a [cultural) exam- 
ple: paying a visit may be due to | requirements ol] reciprocity, not lo 
immediate pleasure.) '*'"• ''■'^ Simple necessary functions which can easily 
be linked w ith cnert beha\ ior are mU the point o\' analysis they do 
not necessanl\ constitute a pattern. '"' ''-' "' |()nl\| a complete formal 
analysis - plus a complete understanding o\' the forms' functioning - 
will gi\e us pattern.''' 

""^^ Language, in its very nature, is s>nibolic; and ssmbolic behavior 
lies more in the unconscious realm than does functional behavior, u hich 
is more in the conscious realm. [The stability of cultural pattern, and]-" 
society's unwillingness to change, are largely due to the symbolic texture 
of behavior, and [our] unconscious attachment to these modes of beha- 
vior that stand for larger contexts. 



SI Yjj^, "Topati" ( Privilci^c ) Pcittcrn cniio)}^^ the Xoofkir 



^'" The handy sociological terms we possess impl\ that the functional 
residues of behavior define logical and equivalent categories. This is 
obviously not so. All culture resolves itself into patterns but not in a 
departmental sense - rather in a terminological sense, [with its own 
terminology (i. e.. the nafivc term)]"- bearing a unifying concept. ^*"^- '"• 
^^ And the culture thus cc^nstituted"-^ is not an incremental, segregatabic 
collection of patterns, but rather a manifold continuity of functions. 

""' [To illustrate this point with another] example of cultural pattern. 
let us consider the concept of topati. "prixilege'. among the Nootka 
Indians " as a psychological aspect of culture. '' and the beh<i\ior in 
regard to this concept. This is no\ totemism. but an idea o)i privilege. 
ck. 1 1, qq v,t-i(Lis, or '- class. '- '- under which are gri>uped such diverse 
things as the right to use certain names, songs, fishing and hunting riles 
and ceremonies, etc. '^^'^ Among the Nootka there were nobles (chiefs), 
comnu^ners who (like nietlie\al \illcins) were attached lo noble house- 
holds, and slaves. How are you going lo symboli/e stains in the society? 
Ihpdii, literally "black token" '"^ (probably originall> a crest). '' is the 
name for certain privileges. '' "'' ranging fri>m I he ssnibolic (such as 
names and songs) lo the practical (rights to hunt and fish). '■ thai pass 
in the lineaue and are the exclusive iii:hts o\' thai line. 



520 III Culture 

^' The Nootka concept of privilege does not easily emerge from mere 
observation. Cultural data [are subject to] multiple interpretation, and 
obicctively similar phenomena [may participate in] completely distinct 
patterns and orientations. ""^ Each topati activity has its counterpart in 
a [similar] activity that is not topati: there are topati songs, [but also] 
other songs; topati names, and other names; etc. [How, then, are we to 
locate the cultural pattern*?] '^'- ^'- "'■ ^"^ Vocabulary may be the key - a 
nati\e term [such as topati] points to the reality of a culture pattern. '- 
The way to define the topati is to determine similar concepts which do 
not have the same value as topati concepts, e. g. nicknames, and songs 
oi certain types. [By contrasting (say) songs that have a topati value 
with songs that do not, we can arrive at a pattern definition for topati. 
This coincides with the native's own interests, since] "^ the native is 
interested in the topati aspect of a topati song, rather than in that song. 

[We must consider, therefore, the realms of activity in which phenom- 
ena labeled as topati are found, in order to distinguish the topati aspects 
o^ the activity from other aspects. For, to define this cultural pattern, 
it would not suffice merely to describe our observations of events and 
add them up. As we have said,] '^"'' ^'' ^^ the content of culture is not 
incremental. ^^- ^' The meaning of an event in a society must be mani- 
fold, because the event is the crossroads of many cultural patterns. "^ 
One behavior pattern is constellated in a group of patterns; thus beha- 
vior can be understood only in relation to these other pat- 
terns... Context is always needed to give the culture pattern. 

"^^ [A kind of context especially] important in this area is the potlatch: 
every feast ceremony or public event is a potlatch - that is, at some 
point property is given away in a certain form. If you wish to affirm 
your status, you must give a ceremonial feast at which you distribute 
property. You don't merely give wealth; you are entitled to give a cere- 
mony which is yours, and you must vaHdate it by distribution [of gifts]. 
Giving a name to a daughter, for example, is an occasion for a feast, 
for the name belongs to the lineage - it has been owned by particular 
people in the past, and it is [therefore] valuable. The potlatch is the 
validation, or reaffirmation, of the privilege. ^^^ [To put it another way,] 
the philosophy of the potlatch is the "holding up" of a privilege. It is 
not a simple economic system, but the affirmation of privilege and hon- 
oring people. 

'^'-'^^ The subject of privileges is a vast one, and a complete enumera- 
tion of all the economic, ceremonial, and other privileges of one high 
in rank would take a long time. [A few may be listed here to give an 



Two: The FsvchnUi^y of (uliurc 521 

indication of the dixcrsily otactiMtics and icalnis of cultural lite inli) 
which topati \aUies enter.]-"' 

1. Lci^c/h/.s. '•'' Legends act as the warrant lor status. Mere precedent 
is not sufficient to establish status; the legend is also necessary. ^'^ Thus 
a man's status is dellned b> the fact that he enters into the activities 
described in the legend. There is a feeling o\' participation in the deeds 
o( ancient ancestors o\' the mythological past. Although many o\' the 
prisileges [warranted] in legend are referred to only by implication, the 
legend is important both as a document |of pii\ileged activities, names, 
and objects] and as a privilege [in itsell], for "^^^ "•'' the right to tell a 
certain topati legend with ceremonial properties. '''' and to tell one for 
gain, is also a pri\ilege. '' The legends belong to [particular] lineages, 
in which '- they are said to have been handed down from generation to 
generation. '- But there are also legends which are not topati. 

2. Names. "^^^ ^'^' '^~- '^' Hooked up with the topati legends are personal 
names, both of individuals and of objects. '- A child at five is gi\en a 
name that doesn't have much connotation; later, [he or she] is given 
another name which has certain rights [attached to] it. '^~ Some names 
belong to first sons or daughters, some are for males [only] or females 
only, and some are for older people or for younger people. '^^'^ There are 
names tor the sons of an older daughter and for sons of a younger 
daughter. (Everything that relates to war is associated with younger 
sons.) ^- There are legends in the line of descent which use these names. 
There is a gradation of names, and the gi\ing o\' names must be \ali- 
dated by the gi\ ing o( property at a naming [ceremons]. ^~- '^^ Names 
are therefore changed from time to time, adding increa.sed status. \ot 
example, a man can give certain names to his daughter as dow ry on her 
marriage, '^^'^ and she can use these for her children. ^''- '- Names refer 
not only to persons, but also to things, e. g. canoes, houses, house posts 
etc., harpoons, caves [?], and rituals[?].''' "'' Howe\er, there arc also 
names which have no topati value, [such as] nicknames. 

3. Ceremonial games. '•'•• ''• '-• ^"^ '- Ceremonial games for pri/es are 
also recognized privileges, often dramatizing some incident in a legend. 
Given at pollalches, they also validate pri\ ilege and are often accmiipa- 
nied b\ a distribution of gifts. ^~- "^^ Songs introducing the games are 
part o\' the privilege. 

4. Songs. ^''•'''' [In addition to] the introduclois song loi .i ceremonial 
game, there is a great variety of songs, [some ol which are tt^pati and 
some not]. Gambling songs, for example. *ire not topati anyone is 
free to sing them. Club songs, love songs, etc. were also not privileged. 



;^-)-> /// Culture 

\\w lopaii Noims. however, were also many, and were named: for exam- 
ple, ••Comnuimcaiing with the spirit" songs, ^^ originally associated 
uiih whaliniz, are now used on many occasions. ^^ Originally they were 
intended to persuage the spirit in a whale to come toward the land 
rather than auay. [Other examples of topati songs include]: 

- ^^ Soiiiis to announce important events, and secret announcement 

songs. -^ 

- ^'^ ^^1 Songs to demonstrate the possession of wealth, often in the 

context of a legend. 

- Lullabies, which also connect with legends. ""^ You often put up a 
pole in the potlatch house, put the baby by it and sing a lullaby; then 
the host has to give away money. 

- ck. qq Woman-purchasing songs C"^ beginning with the engagement, 
possibly a year before the marriage). 

- ^■'^- ^'1 Songs in connection with winter feasts, [especially] the wolf- 
ritual. ^'^ Only certain people can sing them, for acting as Wolf is topati. 
Many other varieties of songs are topati, ^- as are dances of all sorts 
which go with the songs. 

5. Ccremimial activities. '^^' ^"^^ ■■-• '"' Many particular ceremonial activi- 
ties are topati: the lassooing of novices; '-"''' '^^ the privilege of blackening 
the faces of those present at an exorcism; '-'^ acting as Wolf; etc. Very 
often the privilege is owned by a woman, the oldest in the lineage. She 
can transfer the activity to a substitute and pay him for it - and this 
payment also enhances the topati. 

6. Heraldry. '-• '^^ The right to paint houseboards with certain paint- 
ings, and [indeed] all ceremonial features of the house, houseposts, and 
beams, are topati. "^"^^ For the [Nootka] house is a symbol as much as it 
is an instrument - it is something that symbolizes lineage and the status 
of the owner. The paintings on the outside of the house are likewise 
part of the house, as is the totem pole, which can only be understood 
in connection with the house structure. It is carved with symbolic ani- 
mals and personages in myth. The carvings may represent several crests 
ot different families - [the representation constituting] more a social 
system, a crest armorial, than a totem proper. Originally [the totem pole 
was built] right up against the house; the door went through the pole, 
and the poles were merely a variation of the house posts. In order for 
the chiefs to exhibit all their crests they put them outside. Later varia- 
tions put the posts away from the house (and [also gave rise to the] 
development of grave posts, which are probably similar symbolically to 
the house posts. 



Two: The Psvcholo^v of Culture 523 

Behind llic concept i^l" cicsls is. [ajjain.] ihc conccpl o\' pri\ilci!c. u>- 
pali. The cicsi [is iisclt] a privilege, as is llie naming dI" houscposts, and 
ihe legends [represented on iheni]. [Illustrating these legends.) the it^tem 
pole figures are the pictures of an unwritten book. 

7. '■■'^- ''• '■''^' Spcciiil wciys of pcrforniini^ ceremonies are alM> lopati. and 
are often \alidaled b\ family legends. 

8. Chief's privilei^es. '•'' ''' '- Certain symbols o\' status \or the duel 
himself are considered to be topati - ^'^ sxmbols of his otHce uhich are 
attached to it and '■'' inalienable. That is. the\ are not transferable from 
one situation to another as are these other privileges [we ha\e men- 
tioned]. ''' lor example, the wa\ in which a whale is dixidetl up among 
households is according to pri\ ilege. and ''' '•'' the dorsal tin goes to the 
chief. ^"^ So does the tlotsam and jetsam, [for the chief has] '"'' the right 
to property that drifts up on the group's territor\. '- [SimilarK.] the 
privilege of taking the natural resources of a gixen l\pe of land is such 
a topati. ^''- '•'■' The boundaries of the tribe's territory, carefully guarded, 
may also be regarded as the topati of the chief. 

'■''■' It is also someone's special privilege to harpoon whales at the 
beaches where they burrow into the sand occasionally, though he ma\ 
not otherwise own the land, 'i*-'- '^^'^ This is illustrative o\' the [Nootka] 
conception of property, referring not to land as such (for land as such 
is not owned), but to the privilege of performing a certain acti\il\ there. 
'^^'^ The same [is true ol] fishing places. [These privileges are] topati. 

[Now, how shall we define the topati paiiern underlving all these 
diverse activities?] '■'^ One must not confuse the topati with the idea o( 
value, for '-■'^- 'I'l not all valuable things and activities are topati. One 
example is the secret way of preparing whale harpoons: these [prepara- 
tions] are valuable, but they could not be topati since the\ are not made 
intc^ public exhibitions. '-• " You cannot have a lopali unless vou are 
willing to show it in public; " secret practices are not topati. because 
they do nothing to enhance your prestige or that oi sour ancestors. *-"^ 
The topati is always public. It is a token, a crest o\' privilege - '- a 
matter of prestige. Therefore magic is not ti>pali. altlu>ugh it is |u>l as 
vahiahle. "- Rites and ceremonies {o gel i^owei. which are secret and 
private, are not loixili. ""^ Topali and [non-topati forms ol] valuable 
knowledge are inherited differenllv. Moreover. |->ower as such is not 
topati. 

[We can now begin to ideniilv lhe| '■ things characteristic of lopati 
— the pattern definition:-** 



524 tfl Cull we 

1 r2. ck. qq. ri Jq ^c topiUi ii thing Hiust bc puhlic\ ■■-• ''^ it must be 
openly presented to people, known and talked about. 

2 ri, r:. .k. qq. (2 [j ^■^,„l()t he exhibited without cm expenditure of wealth, 

'- and having a feast. 

3 r2. ri. ck Jt jv; the corporate right of a lineage, '^ not of an individual; 
^«'' (it derives from one's] identification with a glorious ancestor. 

4 r:. ri. ck. qq. i2. ti xhcrc Hiust bc a tie-up with a legend ^^ backing [the 

topati]. 

5 ri, ck. r2. qq. ti. t2 j| ^nust be locallzed. ""^ Every topati belongs to a 

place, '- and the legend refers to some place. ""^ (Localization is impor- 
tant [in general] on the North West Coast, and in California too, among 
the Hupa and Yurok.) 

5 qq. ri. r2. ck j|^g individual's right to participate must be clear - "^^^ "^^ 
you must have clear title to the privilege ^'- ^^ and be able to state your 
relationship to it. ^''- '-• "■-- •■'' '•'' The normal way of gaining this right is 
by direct descent, "^ in which both a rule of primogeniture and of male 
descent holds. ''' Other ways to obtain a topati are by dowry, or by a 
ceremonial gift, in which you just hand over a right to someone; "^^ for 
example, a chief may give a topati to another chief, and this is expected 
to be returned later on. "*' A topati can also be obtained by "hitting" - 
by force, [in other words, such as by] warfare or assassination. ^^- ^^ By 
this "might of right," you just kill someone calmly and take his topati. 
^- [Or, you might] steal a box and mask from neighboring tribes, or 
conquer one of their fishing territories. 

"^"^ These samples [of Nootka life involving the topati system] suggest 
that [we should see] cultural pattern always as a configuration or aesthe- 
tic form rather than merely [as a set of] specific events. ^^ There is an 
analogy, therefore, between working out the grammar of a language 
and working out the pattern of the topati. ''• "^ The system of the topati, 
as a [cultural] pattern, is equivalent to a grammatical form, such as the 
system of the passive, '^ [in the sense that] the form gives the back- 
ground, pattern, or configuration to enable the hooking in of a type of 
behavior into a pattern or form of implications. '^ [Thus, for instance,] 
all verbs have passives, although some, such as "to go," are not logi- 
cal;^*^ in the same way, many elements of culture are fitted into configu- 
rations merely by analogy, rather than by psychology. 

[To reiterate:]-^'' '^ this grammatical interpretation of a cultural 
pattern [is appropriate because] ^'- ^k ^ cultural pattern is always a con- 
figuration - an aesthetic form into which a particular behavior, or 
event, may be fitted. ""^ To understand an event, you have to give it a 



Two: The Psycholojiy of Culture 525 

locus; '' [and il is ihc configuralion which] i!i\cs d locus for behavior. 
^^ [However -as \\c ha\e already pointed out ] the meaning of the 
event is manitbld. because the e\enl must be the crossroad of many 
patterns. '-' luich cultiue '"trait" (Its into a number oldilterent conHiiu- 
rations. '' IViiiaps e\en the simplest behavior pattern is complex be- 
cause it fits in and intertwines with all kinds of others - (according to 
the] implications o'( the total cultural pattern. For example, the lullaby 
sung in a pollatch ties in with the whole pattern ottopati. ''^^ And il is 
[this] overhead meaning, rather than the simple function o\' a pattern, 
that helps explain the stability of the pattern in the face of culture con- 
tact. Because the e\ent is the crossroad of many meanings, the mimedi- 
ate and simple function does not go very deep. What is needed [for 
our analysis, therefore,] is the meaning of the overhead valuation plus 
knowledge of the streams o\^ meaning behind the configuration. We 
must know this before we have a functional analysis of any power. 

ri. r2 \^Q must therefore discover the leading motivations for these 
configurations - the master ideas of cultures. '- These leading motiva- 
tions constitute the culture in an anthropological sense. "' They are 
the fundamental dynamic concepts involved in the noticMi o\^ "cultural 
patterns." Nothing in behavior, cultural or otherwise, can be under- 
stood except as seen in reference to configurations. 

^"•^ There has not been much analysis of culture from a configurational 
point of view so far. We see much more clearlv individual psychology 
and [social] institutions; [yet a configurational analysis would be much 
more profound. ]"*' But culture is just as dynamic a thing as hunicm 
behavior. Culture should be defined as a series o\' human activities m a 
configuration. 



[Conclusion: Cullurc as Possible Events] 

''• Culture, then, resolves itself into patterns, or configurations, not 
departments: the content of culture is not an mcremental concept of the 
Wisslerian type. The [configurational] point o( view^' stands o\er 
against an "objecti\e ' dichotomy of data into cultural entities which 
are [merely] the result oWt priori prejudices. For instance, we ha\e ^oo^S 
descriptive accounts of the Plains Indian cultures, but we lack a good 
picture of our brackets - [our own cultural framework. fri>m whose 
vantage-point those descriptions were maile.j "' An idea o^ relaliMly m 
culture [is essential, iherefore. What the Wisslerian t>pe o\ analysis 



526 



/// Culture 



takes as] "abNoliilc"' values are not valid; [their supposed objectivity 
/eprcsenls, instead, a projection of our own cultural system's emphasis 
on sensorv tacts and things. ]^^ 

■' [In our discussion o( language, earlier in this lecture, we saw that 
for] symbols such as words, ^while there may be a] primary meaning 
implicit in the form, there is also a derived meaning - which makes for 
glibness of interpretation, on a personal scale.'*'^ '^ There is never a one- 
to-one relation of symbol and reterent, and this is because of the config- 
urative richness [of the system]. In the symbolic pyramid of a culture, 
\cr\ few bricks touch the ground - there is a consecutive and endless 
passmg o\' the [referential] buck. ^^^ Indeed, symbols become more 
meaningful as they become dissociated from the actual experience. "^^ 
[Mn, the supposedly "objective" types of analysis make] constant appeal 
lo the senses. ^'^ A sensory fact has enormous potency for us - [even 
though] ^'^- '^ an object in itself has no meaning, until it is related to 
something [else] in our experience. '' For example, [even something so 
sensory as] odors are judged by their configurational setting. ""^^ •■' But 
because of this [potency] something like a sensation fetishism builds up 
[in our culture], where values are built up in terms of the thingness of 
things. '' (The above blocked Thurstone's response to the wala experi- 
ment.)'^' 

'^' [This kind of] projection [represents one of the] difficulties of social 
science;-^^ thing fetishes are a danger. [We need to] get the definition [of 
our observations not in terms of things, but] in terms of meaning. And, 
in thinking configuratively, [culture] must not be [seen as] static - as a 
structure - but as possible events. Cultural understandings are to be 
seen in terms of possible behavior. 

ck. ri jhy5 \[ i^ absurd to enumerate a list of things as defining a 
culture. '^' Their participation in the culture, not the fetishistic thingness, 
is what counts. "^^ You must put yourself in a behavioristic relation to a 
thing before it becomes an element of culture. '-•'■ "^^ What gives a thing 
its presentational value - makes it recognizable - is the multiplicity of 
behavioral situations of which it is a part. '^ This is what defines a 
thing. '^- ""^ If we are to understand it, we need to construct a typical 
picture of a series of behavioristic patterns, situations into which it (an 
object) may be placed. For things have no intrinsic values.^^ 

'' Any [putative] culture pattern must, [then,] be tested out as a beha- 
vior sequence. No pattern can be considered as pecuhar, since each has 
Its own behavior-value. ''^ Yet, we can never know all the behavioristic 
implications; and, '^' to apply the behavioristic test requires a vast 



Two: T/u- P.Wiholoi^y of ('u/inri' 527 

knowledge of the culuiral hackyroiiiul. uhicli uc citMit li.i\e. ''•"'' [The 
point is thai] the structure we call culluie. ov social understanding, is 
implicit in behavior itself. ^^ [So. in a \sa\| il is not relevant to sav we 
must test out culture in behaxior. '' Instead, we must see culture as a 
beha\ic^r sequence. '"^ The test of a real grasp of understanding of cul- 
ture is "''■'' its interesting commoniilacencss. '' Thai is what attests the 
realilx o( culture. 



Editorial Note 

This material was apparently covered in only one lecture in I9.>4 
(Feb. 27), but in three in 1936-7 (Dec. 7. 14, Jan. 4). The 1935-6 notes 
are undated. 

in 1934, linguistic examples are discussed first (as in the Outline), and 
the Nootka topati is only briefly summarized. This order was also fol- 
lowed in 1935-36, but the topati example is further developed, (it is 
not clear how many lectures were spent on this material in that year.) 
in 1936-7 the Nootka ethnological example is much expanded, while 
the linguistic discussion is brief and divided (some before, some after 
the topati); and there is a conclusion that must have taken up most of 
the Jan. 4 lecture, although the note-takers' record of that lecture is 
thin. 

Because most of the linguistic discussion comes tYom the 1934 notes 
and is linked, in them, to the preceding introductorx section. I have 
placed this material before the topati, as in 1934 and in the Outline. 

In this chapter I have also included material from the 1927-28 period 
(notes by Newman and Setzler), to clarify Sapir's concept o( "form" in 
culture. Also from Chicago. Eggan's notes from other courses Sapir 
gave clarify some linguistic examples and some details ol' the Nootka 
topati. 

Eor Sapir's other works on Nootka see \oliinics l\. \l. and \ll o\' 
the Collected Uor/<s. 



Notes 

1. Sec CJracbncr 1911. 1924; SchmiJl 1924. |92(> .Vs; aiui other rcprcscnlalivcs of the Kul- 
ittrkreis school of ethnology. 

2. On Gestalt psychology. Sapir wrote to Benedict in 1925: ".. I've been reading KollVas 
'Growth o\' the Mind" (Margaret's copy) and its like some echo telling me what my 



528 III Culture 

iniuilion never quite had the courage to say out loud. It's the real book for background 
for a philosophy of culture, at least your/my philosophy, and 1 see the most fascinating 
and alarming possibilities of application of its principles, express and implied, mostly 
implied, to ail behavior, art, music, culture, personality, and everything else. If somebody 
with an icy grin doesn't come around to temper my low fever, I'll soon be studying 
geometry o\er again in order to discover what really happens when a poem takes your 
breath away or you're at loggerheads with somebody. Nay more, unless a humanist like 
yourself stops me. I'll be drawing up plans for a generalized Geometry of Experience, 
in which each theorem will be casually illustrated from ordinary behavior, music, culture, 
and language. The idea, you perceive, is that all you really need to do to understand - 
anything, is to draw a figure in space (or time) and its relevance for any kind of interest 
can be discovered by just noting how it is cut by the plane (= context) of that interest..." 
(Mead 1959:177). 

3. The notes show several dilTerent designs at this point, all interpretable as cursive shapes 
for the letter "t ". 

4. Tl has: "Responses to cultural phenomena are two - ethnological specimen is viewed 
bv anthropologist and miner in terms of native and own culture respectively..." 

5. B(} actually has these two sentences in the reverse order. See footnote 6 below. 

6. DM has: \\a plus la in one [language], wal plus a in another. 

7. The discussion of words and grammatical categories embarked upon here seems to be 
meant to illustrate the following point: the relationship between form and function in 
language is complex because both form and function have several levels of organization. 
BG gives a good summary: "Language is the supreme example of the fact that in two 
languages one may find the form (sound) and the function (Meaning) of elements to be 
the same but the patterns totally different. The total functioning of patterns is different 
from the functioning of a specific pattern. E.g., all languages express the concept of 
Hiving but Navajo has no word for give although it expresses this through a specific 
arrangement of patterns. The complete meaning does not lie in the specific function of 
segmented bits of behavior but in functions of wider import, e. g., paying a visit due to 
reciprocity and not to immediate pleasure. Simple functions linked with overt behavior 
are not the point of analysis." 

At the same time, Sapir also emphasizes the primacy, or analytic centrality, of form 
as compared with meaning or function. See, especially, excerpts from Tl and T2 in the 
discussion below. 

8. T2 begins this section with "Concept of the world by languages - exigencies of adjust- 
ment..." 

9. At this point Sapir explained what he meant by "nuclear" concepts. T2 has: "Some word 
concepts are nuclear, such as plow; some are derivative, such as plowman.'" 

10. See Sapir and Swadesh (1946), "American Indian Grammatical Categories," on the ex- 
pression of the English sentence "He will give it to you" in six American Indian languag- 
es. 

1 1 . Here Sapir refers the audience to a work by Zona Gale, "Portage, Wisconsin and Other 
Essays," 1930. 

12. Tl has: "Some people have no plural concept. Plurals in English are used only spasmodi- 
cally..." 

13. T2 has: "Aspect is the geometric form of the event." 

14. T2 has: "Language is concerned with meanings, but is concerned with form." 

15. Here Sapir referred the students to his 1925 paper, "Sound Patterns in Language." 

16. See Sapir I925p, "Sound Patterns in Language," for an extended development of this 
example. 

17. There is no indication in the CK notes as to what Yana example was given here. How- 
ever, in an introductory linguistics course at Chicago (E-20), Sapir drew on a Yana 



Two: The Psychology of C ulturc 529 

example, among others, to make a similar argument. Another clue suggcslmg this might 
be the appropriate Yana example comes from C'K's mention, shortly after the "illustra- 
tion from Yana." that 'so you can prove that every adjective is a verb by the structure 
of the language." 

18. The bracketed text represents a siiinMiar\ ol the nialenal in I.-20 inlriHlucmg the Yana 
example. 

19. By 'complete " here Sapir seems to mean ■■nuilti-le\ele(J.'" 

20. See BG (below): The overhead meaning rather than the simple function of a pattern 
helps explain the stability of pattern in the face of culture contact." 

21. Sapir's major published v\orks on pruilege. rank, and the potlatch in Northwest Coast 
societies arc: "A Girls' Puberty Ceremony among the Nootka Indians" (1913b); "The 
Social Organization of the West Coast Tribes" (I9l5h); "A Sketch of the Social Organ- 
ization of the Nass River Indians" (I9l5g); and "Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader" (1922y). 
Although these works all date from the first half o\' his career, the topic continued lo 
interest him in later years. In 1924 he gave a paper on "The Prnilege Concept among 
the Nootka Indians" at the Toronto meeting of the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science (unfortunately, no manuscript or abstract of this paper has been found). 
In the late I920"s he gave a course at the University of Chicago on "The North West 
Coast Tribes" (E92). in which much of the material was organized around the concept 
of privilege; in 1927 he drew on the same subject matter as an example of cultural 
pattern, in "The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society"; and the present chapter 
shows his reworking of the subject in the I930's. See also "Songs for a Comox Dancing 
Mask" (1939e) and the Nootka texts (Sapir and Swadesh 1939, 1955). 

22. In DM. the sentence "All culture resohes itself..." is in a separate paragraph from the 
preceding discussion of sociological terms, and seems to be placed in contrast with it. 
For this reason, and because of Sapir's emphasis on native vocabulary in the topaii 
discussion (as elsewhere). I infer that he means native terminology here, as opposed to 
sociological terminology. 

23. DM has: "The content of culture is not an incremental, segregatable collection of pat- 
terns..." 

24. Rl has "black totem". 

25. Sapir's published discussions of privilege and the potlatch. and the discussion in his 
course on "The North West Coast Tribes" (University of Chicago; E92) are dilTerently 
organized. The miscellaneous character of this list in the class notes, with the more 
organized analysis afterwards, seem lo be related to the methodological points Sapir is 
making: that a culture pattern does not easily emerge from mere obsci^ation; thai a 
pattern is embedded in a context of other patterns; and that the concept of pri\ilcgc is 
a "leading motivation" or "master idea" o\' Nootka culture. per\ading main realms of 
social life. 

A numbered list of topati activities is given in QQ and Rl R2 and C K present the 
same activities in the same order, but discursively. T2 and Tl have much of the same 
material. 

26. "Caves, rituals' comes from R2. but the handu riling is not clear. "Caves" may he just 
"canoes". 

27. It is not clear from the context in CK whether "secret announcement sont's " \vh..u-\i-r 
they are, are meant to be examples of topati songs or non-topati wmgs 

28. R2 and QQ both present these characteristics as a numbered list Rl has a mm, nmul-wi 
numbers. CK presents the same characteristics disvursueU, as do 11 and 12 

29. This passage is only partly legible in the original 

30. The repetition here is not just an artifact oi the editorial pr.v.ss R 1 .nu! m p.irt ( K 
indicate that Sapir himself reiterated the point 



530 m Culture 

31. and more "roar".' T2 has: "ConHgurations: - Child's conception of Santa Claus is as 
real as the British Constitution. " This point, in T2, comes after the topati material. 

32. HI has: "This point of view (Sapir's) stands over against..." 

33. The bracketed ic\t is based on the subsequent discussion of "projection" and "sensation 
fetishism." 

34. Rl describes the waUt example at this point. 

35. Louis L. Tliurstone (IS87- 1955), a psychologist at the University of Chicago. 

36. See chapter 2. 

37. CK has: "Necessity of constructing a sequence of behavioristic situations into which an 
object can fit, if we are to understand it. There are no intrinsic values." 

Rl has: "Construct a typical picture of a series of behavioristic patterns into which 
ihiniis may be placed. Things are not intrinsically valuable." 



Chapter 6. The DcNclopniciU orCiiluiic 
oi. ri. mi y^/t' Concept of Development in Culture 

[Our concepts of ciilliiral dsnaniics. chdiiiic. clc\clopiiicm. aiKl pro- 
gress arc inlinialclx related; hut the\ ha\e not always been distinguished 
tVom one anotlier. ' In order to consider the concept of" development m 
cuhure, we shall focus on the idea o\'\ "progress a perilous subiect. 
to be sure. 

""■The idea of cultmal progress is a relatively modern point of \ie\s. 
"^Indeed. it is [so much] a characteristic of modern man that e\en m our 
time, in spite of all we must believe in progress. Hven the most c\nical 
person has a childlike faith in it. [Earlier ages, such as] classical [antiq- 
uity], did not share this taith. On the contrary: for them the perfect time 
was in the past; "^and they were more likel\ \\o emphasize] stories of 
deterioration, as with the [story of the] Garden of Eden, and the like. 
"For the [early] Christians it was the same; [later.] in the Middle Ages, 
there was a very equilibrated world, neither impro\ing nor decaying. 
All values were fixed; [they were expressed in] an iniernational language 
[(Latin)]; etc. [In this respect] the world o\' ioda\ is a wi^ld i^f an\iei> 
compared to the medieval world. 

"Meanwhile, however, in the se\enteenlh centur\. science de\eK>ped 
and colonization took place. That means a complete breaking up of the 
old world. The notion of progress depends on this; it could no more be 
shaken o[^\ It was founded on that [change]: that on a basis o^ sotiie 
new scientific discoxery it was possible to measure progress, to pro\e 
that a generation was "superior" to the pieceding gener»ition, to the 
"immediate past." "• '-[Today] the idea o\' jirogress is a \ery strong 
element in culture - in our culture and. more and more, m other cul- 
tures. " '-The notion o\^ indefinite perfectabilit> is t.iken for granted. 
[both] in [its] psychological aspect [(the perfectabilit> of the indi\idu.ih) 
and in [cnir] outlook on culture [itself (cultural evolution)]. 

'-But what is the nature o\ progress? "It was nexer proved that this 
progress, [the "superiorit\"' o\' the niiKlern scientific world.) was more 
than mechanical. Men were naluralls tempted to think that this power 
could be applied to an\ thing else. Hut there is something more. 



y-^-» /// Culture 

hi. hi[pi,st o[' all. wc should distinguish] progress from [mere] develop- 
ment, ^-(evcn from] development with a tendeney\ [for the concept of 
progress implies some evaluation of the tendency, i. e. that it represents 
an improvement. For example, a tendency to reduce the elaboration of 
some cultural form may be considered a] simplification, or a deteriora- 
tion; ii muv be progress, [but whether it is or not depends on one's point 
o^ view.] [Most importantly, we must recognize that] ^'- "'the various 
le\els o'[ a whole cultural complex [may differ as to how a concept of] 
progress [applies to them.] For example, the individual's [cultural] stock- 
in-trade [may develop differently from that of the] culture [complex 
taken as a whole]. Paradoxically, then, as against growing complications 
[at one level we may need] the idea of compensatory simplifications [at 
another.]- ^"And where culture change [is seen as increased cultural] 
complexity, [we must make a distinction between] analyzing detail and 
finding a much more rich culture; for this we must know the meanings 
ot" objects in culture. The total complexity of the culture of a small 
hamlet may be higher than the splendid Greek cities. 

[It now seems clear that] ''''the earlier anthropologists oversimplified 
in emphasizing the progressive piling-up of power in the development 
o'i culture. But contemporary [anthropologists] go too far in the other 
direction by denying progress [altogether]. ''-^I [(Sapir)] am not wholly 
\\ iih those who would discard the concept. You have to be unreasonably 
broadminded to feel we are no further along than Neanderthal Man. 
'^'However, "progress" (at [whatever] level) [is so far only] an intuitive 
concept. Is there any one idea, or formula, [for what constitutes ''pro- 
gress"]? 

qq. r2. ck, h2. nyj^g general concept of progress may be usefully split up 
into three conceptual strands: '^^^ ^■^^ '^'- '^'^(1) technological progress or 
advance - the material, industrial, or power point of view; (2) "spiri- 
tual" progress - the moralistic point of view; and (3) the cyclical devel- 
opment of patterns - the aesthetic point of view. 

(\)Teelmologiccd progress}^' ^^ Since the dawn of civilizafion there has 
been a progressive improvement in the amount of knowledge of the 
physical environment and an applicadon of that knowledge to our use, 
"the better to use and combat the physical elements, ^^it is a long step 
from making a big fire with no matches or a fire board to central heat- 
ing. '^Similarly,] the fact that I can take a railway and travel quickly is 
progress, because I do that with a minimum of effort. (Let us take as 
given the reality of that kind of value.) '=''' ^i' '^^ 'Hn the field of power, 
then - ""'that is to say, the ability to utilize the environment - ''^' i^- •■'' 



Two: The Psycholn^v of Culture 533 

^~- "human beings ha\c k>st essentially nothing since early times, *-''bui 
have, instead, conserved and added lo [the technological repertoire). 
^■•^This means progress implicitly. "At least, it means mechanical pro- 
gress. *■•''• ^''Although specific techniques ha\e been \os\, we have equiva- 
lents for every process ever de\ eloped, apparently; and we ha\e greater 
technological power than e\er before. 

"^'A good example of a great [technological] contribution is the tin 
can - a high point because it involves many technological processes 
and is o'i use to a great number [of people]. ^''- "'• "In terms o{ power, 
the tin can is more important than Etruscan vases. "^^^ ^'For the fact that 
objects are used in cultural sequences - their place in culture - is what 
makes them important, not the objects themselves. '^^''To set going a 
[cultural] current which means maximum utilization of the means at 
our disposal with a minimum of effort - this is progress. 

*-''This [definition of progress] is objective, not subjective. [Thus tech- 
nological advances are easily recognized as such, despite other differ- 
ences in cultural background.] Technological superiority is always cop- 
ied by peoples with less superior knowledge who come in contact with 
superior technical knowledge. Either they learn how to handle advanced 
power devices or they are killed off; ^'[and, besides,] people continually 
hunt for ideas which give much with little effort. For example, the Es- 
kimo woman readily takes over the sewing machine. [Moreover, on the 
level ot] the individual there is a rapid self-orientalion to a new cultural 
element (such as the tin can). ' 'As the knowledge of the use o^ po\ser 
becomes common property, '^'- '^^'^ "the accumulation o\' power cannot 
be stopped. ("'[Note] Thurnwald's'' idea o\^ the cumulati\e nature o\ 
material culture.) 

''"^This concept of progress, of course, includes the dc\ elopment i>f 
ideas, since the ideas have at least the opportunity or potentialit> o^ 
giving power. "Increase of knowledge, then, is also an nistrumental pro- 
gress. '^'^Power and ideas are inextricably associated: ''''[the ideas) enable 
us to anticipate the solution of possible future problems; '- ''the> give 
us the ability to predict; and they pa\e the way for the ideas ot the 
future. '-''• ■'• "^-Mathematics. for example, [enables us to make] scientific 
projections [which, in turn, furlhci our technological] power. "''[Hven] 
pure mathematics [can be seen] as power as an economical uay ol 
thinking - which may be applied to other problems. Mathematics en- 
ables one to go through the imaginars to the real; this is power, ''[llie 
example of mathematics also illustrates how] the accumulated pt>uer o{ 



5^4 ^^^ Culture 

ihc past is used to build power for the future, ''^- "^'because a certain 
system o\' mathematics was essential for Einstein's theory of relativity. 

^^Mt is interesting that non-European groups very readily take up 
ideas that have technological power even if they are unfavorable about 
other ideas. ^'^Primitive man does not resist technological power [in the 
least; rather, he] "^'is hospitable to it. '-''[Yet, this ready acceptance sug- 
gests a] fatality about the use of power [that is perhaps the] most essen- 
tial fact in culture. 

"[In sum,] the increase of power in certain lines shows progress, [al- 
though there remains the question of| whether fast progress is at the 
expense of certain elements such as esthetics, beauty, or peace. "• ^-Actu- 
ally, the occasional retrogression and loss of power only heightens the 
stature of the actual accumulation of progress in the long run. "^-Despite 
occasional setbacks, the conservation of man's energy has constantly 
increased through technological inventions which increase our powers. 
'''There has been no loss of vital mechanical processes, but, instead, an 
adaptation of new methods, as in the sciences. ''-Technological progress 
[involves a] growth in point of view as well as in technique; and [it 
results in] an ability to orient oneself in the world with increased effi- 
ciency (and success). 

(2) Spiritual progress. '-■''• ^-- 'I'^Now, about spiritual progress it is more 
difilcult to be certain, ^''- ""'for we are dealing with intangible values. ^'' 
'-Largely a question of opinions and ideas, this factor is under the influ- 
ence of subjective impulses more [than technology is]."^ "Culture is 
ghostly and full of fantasies - but nonetheless forcefully demanding 
and exacting. Moreover, spiritual progress is also conditioned by the 
culture itself. ^^- "^'Each group has certain preferred modes of behavior, 
[and considers certain moral] traits desirable; but these [preferences] 
contradict each other in different cultures. [They change according to] 
time and place. 

ri.ck.qqj)Q thcrc sccm to be certain kinds of behavior, certain desirable 
traits or values, which people in general do tend to grope towards? "^'Is 
there, for example, a general feeling of value in the immaterial world? 
'^'i- ''•'It is certainly true that every people persists in thinking that some 
sorts of actions are better than others, ^^and they place some special 
value on "high ideals." ""-[Note, too, that] the "spiritual" (or moral) 
includes the behavior traits by which people get into contact with other 
people. These are the behaviors which get a man called a "good fellow." 
[These generalities are rather vague, but we can still use them as a basis 
for asking whether] ■"'■ "^-there is any development of consciousness - 



Tuo: The PsVihohtiiy ofCulturc 535 

■"-any means developed Idt ihc iiulixidual consciousness lo sur\i\e. Has 
there been any progress in imagination? 

"■''iWliat may be taken as the essential is the process of identificaintii. 
and this means the question o\^ [society]"" itself. '^(I'hus we might 
rephiase our queslion about ciMisciousness as:| Is ihere an\ tendency 
in the history o\^ culture for a growth of imaginalK>n (in the sense kA'] 
substitution of other egos for one's own consciiuisness? ''''And has there 
been any widening o\' this tendency? '-• ''I think we conserve our con- 
sciousness by identifying ourselves with the [social] group: '-for our 
consciousness sur\i\es with the group. ^''Knowing you can't conserve 
your own consciousness [beyond] death you depute it to others, to the 
group as a whole. The wish to conserve the reality and permanence o\' 
your own consciousness is served by identil'ying it with a group. 

^■^Now, the idea of identifying oneself with members o{ one's own 
family is easy - ''[seeing] one's continuation in an identity with one's 
children. '^^'"The idea of identifying oneself with people of another coun- 
try is difficult. [In fact, the psychological processes in\ol\ed in identi- 
fying with one's own group may be what makes it dilTicult.) ''''The hos- 
tility toward other groups may be interpreted as due i(^ the adjusting o{ 
control of impulses to one's [own] group. ' 'Thus the consciousness o\' 
different groups [entangles them in] the parado.x of self-defense. ''''Want- 
ing to aggrandize one's own group, one belittles others. 

[How far does the control of impulses go?) "If 1 am a member o\' an 
Indian tribe I kill [other Indians, though] only for good reasons. If I 
am a citizen of the United States I don't kill [other citizens at all). 1 
have extended the range of m\ inhibitions. I cannot [e\en] kill a member 
of another nation if 1 am not protected h\ the ideolog\ of wai. Let us 
call this spiritual progress. It is not disconnected from the llrsi kind o^ 
progress, however, because a society is more elTicient. if people <.\o not 
kill one another. 

^"^In war, too, even if we do remain for the j-iiesent as ruthless as e\er. 
there seems to be progress in our attitude low aid killing individuals not 
of our own group. '^-[Unlike our ancestors of a lew generations back.] 
we apologize for war, '-[and emphasize] the sanctit\ o{ human life, [pre- 
ferring to] save a life rather than save Rheims Cathedral. ^^[C'ompared 
with our forebears] we [ha\e to] tr> harder to rationalize and iustif\ 
war, because our feeling of responsibilit\ for the lives ol those not iden- 
tified with us is greater. There were no pacifists in (iieek times. [!oda\.| 
''''not only is there a pacifist movement but there is more real general 
confiict [(i. e., ambivalence)] in luiinaii beings than ever before, for there 



536 l^f Culture 

IS nuM-c genuine awareness of others' [self-consciousness] and of the 
possibility of identification with those remote from us. -^'The ideahsts 
who identify consciousness with humanity [as a whole, rather than with 
a particular individual or group, may be seen, therefore,] as a step in 
the growth o\^ imagination with reference to consciousness. '^''Our real- 
ization of [the existence ofj consciousness other than our own is here to 

stay. 

^'- ''-Thus certain values have tended to take on increments from [one 
historical] period to another. ''-The world of reference is larger than 
ever before; '''the growth of imagination [means] including more people 
in the group [with which one identifies.] (Christianity is the arch exam- 
ple.) The idea of cleanliness, [too, is an example of a] larger individual 
integration of the progressive tendency to include more people ''^and to 
have more respect for the rights of others.^ '^'^In race prejudice, there 
seems to be real progress visible in the last generation, ''''with a growth 
[in awareness] of consciousness of races other than our own. '^Education 
can be another example: the range of education is growing. It is [now] 
taken for granted that the crowd must be educated, because inasmuch 
as a man is respectable, we must develop his mind. This feeling is of the 
same nature as the feeling of the sanctity of human life. 

•^-So spiritual progress, in the sense of a willingness to give up a part 
of our own consciousness to help somebody else's consciousness, does 
occur, I think. Our feeling of responsibility for the life of those not 
identified with our group has increased greatly. 

[There is an analogy between this process and the development of 
the individual, for] ""^the growth of an individual's consciousness from 
childhood requires giving up a part of our own consciousness in order 
to give happiness to somebody else's consciousness. '^'^The perfect world 
of a small child is bought at a price of limitation of [its awareness of 
the] consciousness of the adults making its world. But as you grow up 
you resign part of your own consciousness so that others may have 
equal rights. We grow up in society and learn to resign or defer many 
of our satisfactions. [Similarly,] in the history of culture we seem to 
catch the growth of an ability to identify our consciousness with others. 
There is a growth of consciousness in people at large, as there is in the 
development of a child. 

[Our assertion of spiritual progress in culture, and in the growth of 
imagination, is on a different footing from our discussion of technologi- 
cal progress, however. For, as we have said before,] ''^there is danger in 
stressing the insistent values of one culture all the time: the emphasis of 



Two: The Psycholojiy of ( 'ultun- 537 

value shifts indefinitely from society to society, and rri>m time to ume. 
[In a way,] culture is a legitimised collective lunacy.' "Spiritual progress 
is also conditioned by the culture itself. This progress is asserted and 
felt but it cannot be proved in the sense in which technological progress 
can. 

Moreover, "• '-what our time views as progress^ may, viewed m per- 
spective at a later date, appear to be a retrogression: for some things 
appear as great during their time, but not so later. '-This gnes rise to 
the concept o{ ''cycle'" in cuhiiral development. [We shall discuss this 
concept mainly with respect to aesthetic forms. But in spiritual] '^'^res- 
pects, too. there seems to be a cycle. '^-- "'"'[As regards] the growth of 
imaginative awareness, and greater concern for the \alue o{ human life 
and individual expression, for example, we seem closer to the (ireeks 
than to medieval people like the enthusiastic ecclesiastic in the heyday 
o'i the power of the Church. 

(3) Cyclical development of patterns. '^'- '^-The aesthetic view o\ pro- 
gress'^ is not endlessly linear, but cyclical, [incorporating both] progress 
and decline. "Perhaps this [cyclical development] is not progress; but it 
is often confused with it. If you study anything that has a form you sec 
that in the beginning it is confused and imperfect; then gradually it 
develops and it arrives at a certain peak; but in complicating the form 
you become expressive by and by, [and this is not always an aesthetic 
advantage]. For instance, the Cathedral of Cologne is perhaps more 
magnificent but less beautiful than others that are more simple. Tlie 
cycle of polyphonic music is the same: the peak has been reached by 
Palestrina; Bach is already a decay from the pure polyphonic point of 
view, [because the polyphony] is complicated uiih harmons. Ha\dn. 
[later,] abandoned the polyphonic patterns [in fa\or o\' the harnnMiic 
ones]. 

'^'^Thus we find certain periods in music, for example, when the funda- 
mental ideas are questioned, considered, and re\ ised. "Within those de- 
velopments we are tempted to say that there is progress. '-But there is 
a confusion here between the aesthetic and the techm^logical. [Cycles of 
change in the arts involve both.] For example, in a s\mphon>. '* ''the 
elemental musical idea - the aesthetic [clement ] is the simple tune, 
while the harmonization o\' the tune is technological, ''[a harnessing ol] 
power. '-• ''In Jazz, the achie\emenl is entirely technological, since the 
melodies and themes are threadbare; '-only their uorking has been em- 
phasized. '^The technology [of jazz) is exciting but not creative - a 
mere bag of tricks. Wagner is the great accelerator i^f technological 



538 lii Ciiliurc 

advance in modern music: he set instrument makers specific problems, 
''(and added] more horns, for more power. But the excitement of techni- 
cal advance [in the arts] does not endure. Honesty of impulse will out- 
last technical advance: aesthetics is more important than technique. 

'2.^Mn modern instrumental music, [therefore, we have an illustration 
of how I things ^^o through a cycle. ^''[This form of] music developed out a 

o^ polyphonic singing - ^'^'a hint [?] in vocal music suggested a new J 
type o^ music, the instrumental forms, '-''with instruments being used ^ 
instead o^ the human voice. '-[Once] a pattern of instrumental music is 
established, this is developed, '■''and so there comes later a preoccupa- 
tion with technique - more and more comes in the playing with tech- 
nique. ^''- '-The cyclical climax of modern music is reached with Beetho- 
ven. ^"^This plateau is maintained for a time, 'I'l- '-''but then people come 
in who [merely] carry out stunts. ''''([The case of] Wagner, [we might 
say.] is stunts plus genius.) ''''• ""-Then things degenerate and drag on 
until, out of the confusion, a new idea comes in and a new cycle arises. 
'^-We have passed the heyday of [the classical cycle in] music; now we 
are feeling for a new start. 

"''^'[To recapitulate: when] form and technique are well fitted, the peak 
of development is soon reached. Then the epigones, trying to give a 
more personal meaning [to the forms], introduce tricks — modifications 
of technology rather than [changes of] idea - and somewhere along the 
way the cycle may begin again. 

'■"''• '^''Within a given movement, or cycle, various samples of behavior 
may reasonably be compared; [and comparison is necessary, of course, 
for any assessment of progress. Across cycles this cannot be done.] ''''- 
''It is impossible to compare a Chinese musical composition with our 
Beethoven symphonies because they come from different cultural pat- 
terns, and we don't know [the Chinese music's] cycle, its cultural 
pattern. '^^ ''A particular pattern, such as the classic musical tradition, 
[represents] the actualization" of an idea in a [particular] group. '^''Tech- 
nological progress may be hitched to a cycle, [but across cultures we 
cannot reasonably assess how this has been done.] 

'i'<The development of the English sonnet may also be used as an 
example [of cyclical development]. ''''The first sonnets were crude copies 
of an Italian form: then came Shakespeare's sonnets. ii- "''By now the 
sonnet has actualized itself, and it might be felt today that it has said 
all It has to say. "''Now it is more or less of a form, a stunt - it is 
difficult to find an authentic poet today who is doing his best work in 
the sonnet. [So] this is no longer the day of the authentic sonnet, though 



Two: The Psychology ofCiihwc 539 

\\c ha\c pCA\ lccliiu>lc)Liical cxpcilncss in ihc sound [roniij. Allhoiiirh 
there is always a thrill in technical achic\cnicni. this is sometimes con- 
fused with aesthetic Judgenienl. 

''-I'racticalh all aesthetic palleiiis run thn)UL!h such a gamut: a rise 
lVi>in luunblc hcuiiiiungs. an aulhoinali\c i">innacle. a prestige hangi>ver 
— then clown! '^| The progress oi" an aesthetic c\cle. then, means that) 
there is aesthetic de\elopment within an aesthetic idea. The wovV of art 
is an answer to a problem, and at certain stages that prol^K-m i;iii W 
better soKed. 

'-■''• "Take, for example, the csclical dc\ cK^pmcni o\' Hnglish drama: 
'''^'there are spurts of creati\it\. sc^metimes without an> ob\ious continu- 
ity between them, in the Elizabethan, Restoration, late eighteenth cen- 
tury, and contemporary realistic [periods]. ''"'At the beginning, there 
were two relati\ely feeble strands: the miracle plays and the [classic]'- 
tradition. In a very short time the two strands are fused, quite unpreten- 
tiously. ''From this simple beginning, Elizabethan drama de\elops com- 
plexity. ''''But after the rich productions of Marlowe. Shakespeare, etc., 
the development seems to wear itself out. '''The later dramatists after 
Shakespeare had a rich heritage, but they became preoccupied with 
technique, and we have a good deal of artiUciality. Posterity is ne\er 
much interested in purely technical problems. "-[In our eyes] the Elizabe- 
than drania is still great; the writers after that were probably considered 
still greater during their own time, but the\ seem lawdr\ to us 

'•"Thus the set of problems posed in a particular artform starts with 
fumbling, then moves forward to its peak with a few great exponents 
[of the form]. ''''May this be because the set o\^ problems arising out o{ 
a new form get an answer and leach a climax".' ''''• '''Then technical 
problems begin to complicate [the idea], a slow decline sets in. and the 
movement [falls] down. [But despite the cyclical nature o\' the de\elop- 
ment,] ''''there is a real progress in this sort of cycle, '•'' ''and of a sort 
which is to be found in many cultural phenomena perhaps in the 
developnicnl o{ most cultural patterns. '''We can talk o\' [all sorts ol] 
problems in a cyclical sense. Ethnologists do concern themselves [with 
these matters] when they talk o\^ pottery styles, tspes o\ house decora- 
tion, etc. (If we had sufficient evidence we could trace cycles in pnmiii\e 
art - Northwest Coast art. for example: Haida and Isimshian (art 
forms] are "classic," while Bella C'oola |forms| are too bari>que. fuss\. 
and [formally] degenerate.) [Our examples need not be drawn oni\ from 
the arts.] "The history of any religious mosement, for example, repre- 
sents a cvcle. 



540 tf^ Culture 

qq. ck. r:^^^,^ language forms have something Hke a cydical develop- 
ment. "'^- ^^Although the language's development is continuous, it is pos- 
sible to ^Mctlnc a certain set of hnguistic forms - ^^or point to a certain 
stage of development of a form - ^'^'I'las classical. '^''The classical stage 
would ha\c a perfectly consistent and tight-wrought use of forms. 
'^'^Now, people participating in an aesthetic cycle are not conscious of 
it: [so it may come as a bit of a surprise when I say that we are not in 
that kind o'( stage in modern English.] English today is in a kind of 
trough, it has not perfected its own possibilities, nor does it still do 
e\ceflentl> what it did in the period of Gothic. Even Anglo-Saxon was 
a bit "weaker" than Gothic. For example, the weakness of gender in 
l-nglish today is not classical. If you call a ship "she" and the sun "he," 
then there should [(in a classical stage)] be a feeling of she-ness or he- 
ness about any noun; [but, as we know, in modern English there is not]. 
As another example, the suffix -s is used for three categories: [it marks] 
the possessive, the plural, and the third person singular in verbs; but in 
no case is it completely and consistently carried out. All are [only] 
weakly expressed. ''^- I'lFor the verb endings, 'I'lthe classical stage would 
have either "I go, you go, he go," or [else something like] "I gon, you 
gom, he goes," etc. There is some feeling in the verb [?] as [the forms] 
merge toward obliterating the distinction between singular and plural 
altogether. But "i""- '^^''[English's] inconsistency with respect to case end- 
ings is also non-classical, and again there seems to be a tendency to cut 
these out altogether.'-^ ''''[A "classical" stage would] either carry these 
distinctions out consistently or do away with them. 

"■"•[To the extent that English seems to show a tendency toward obht- 
erating these kinds of affixes,] a movement toward a thoroughly ana- 
lytic language may be in progress. '^''Chinese has [already] gone through 
this cycle, "^"^k Scandinavian scholar found in the Confucian writings a 
case distinction in pronouns which was rather weak, a sort of an echo 
of a formerly more synthetic language; but the Chinese has long ago 
become entirely analytic, depending entirely upon [separate words and 
word] order [to express grammatical relations,] instead of [word-]in- 
ternal changes. '•''Thus Chinese has anticipated us by discarding case 
and using a rule of order. 'i^The Chinese, [on the one hand, as an ana- 
lytic language,] and the Sanskrit (or Greek and Latin), [on the other, as 
a synthetic language,] are both, then, classical even though of quite 
different form; ^^- ^''whereas the English is not a classic kind of lan- 
guage, because it is not thoroughly integrated. 

'^'^[Incidentally,] there is no relation between [this concept of "classi- 
cal" form in a] language and the literature which is expressed in it. 



T\v(y The Psychology olC'ulturc 541 

Tibetan, for example, is a fine language from a Imguisiie poinl of view, 
but its literature is drivel.'"^ ''''[To say that the f-nglish language is not 
thoroughly integrated is to speak about something) c|uile ditVerenl from 
the value of what is written with linglish. 

^'•'This idea o^ eyelical [development] also applies m everyday life. 
"[Not only can we trace] the rise and fall of [patterns in] drama, Ciothic 
architecture, language forms, or Mohammedanism, but '•'' ''^ '-"in the 
history of the railroad train or the auti>mohile t>ne may be able to trace 
a similar cycle of development. ''' ''-'[Perhaps even m] democratic go\- 
ernment [we can see] a drifting away [from an original idea]; or in sci- 
ence, "'^where there has been a scrapping o\' traditional bundles [o\' 
knowledge, as with the decline ol] alchem\ and astrology. Certain ques- 
tions have died out. ([But in science, perhaps] '''this is only change, [not 
decline; for] "'■'progress is not possible without destruction.) 

"The cycle is hard to defme starkly, or to isolate. '-^ "During its 
height, in the classic period, the cycle is so vital to the culture that it is 
unquestioned and taken for granted. '^^'^There is a relation between form 
and need, such that at some point there is a complete equilibrium be- 
tween them. But this balance does not remain. "The questioning occurs 
and then comes a long period of weakening. '-As the cycle becomes less 
and less pure, it may be caught up with another meaning - but then it 
is really a new pattern. 

'■■'^There has been no evaluation of primitive culture on the basis o'f 
the cyclical idea. There are many dangers in this point of view, but [such 
evaluation] should be done if we are to understand primitixe cultures. 
"'^[For without some notion that] primiti\e culture [undergoes] climax 
and decay in its own terms, [we cannot usefully incorporate it in an> 
conception of progress.] The primitive is not [just] a barbarian and a 
preliminary to "civilization." It is impossible to compare cultural details 
of one group with those o^ another unless there is a definite historical 
continuity. (In America, Walt Whitman [strikes a] primili\e note; taken 
up by sophisticates in Europe and re-phrased in Ircnch. he becomes a 
decadent.) 

[In sum:] "[we have distinguished] three kinds o\ progress, which gel 
mixed up one with the other. [People of different limes and places h.i\e 
not always accepted all three kinds.] but [(one might suspect)] each \\\k 
of man shall more or less believe in one o\' the three kinds o'i progress. 
As for mechanical progress, man has ne\er lost an\ thing m this realm; 
■"'there has been an increase of power. '''Although the flow of conscious- 
ness has not [grown] in a steady line like power there is an ebb and 
flow - on the whole there has been progress (here loo. "in the gradual 



54 "> /// Culture 

development o^ a consciousness transcending the self, or the ego. [As 
for the third kind:] ^'^^ 'Tor any complex pattern of expression you seem 
to have cvcles of development. 

'-(Perhaps the growth of cycles, with the possibility of a new pattern 
emerging out o{ an earlier one,] is the one vital idea worth saving out 
of the idea o{ progress. '^'[It might be called an] "epigonal" view of 
proizress. '-[As the pattern moves from a] primitive [stage] to a classical 
and^ then an epigonal one, there may be a rejuvenation so that the 
pattern d^Ksni die out. '''The ''epigonal period" [involves] a realization 
o^ the potency of expressive forms - [a certain] progress in knowledge 
of psychic process, [and a] ''-greater concern for the value of human life 
and indi\idual expression. 



[Coda: Symbols of Progress] 

'■^[Just as any idea has its symbolic expression, so it is with the idea 
of progress in our culture:] we have [our] preferred symbols of progress. 
[One of the most important realms for the expression of those symbols 
is education. But there can be a lag between what the culture has come 
to value most - what it sees as its signs of "improvement" over an 
earlier age - and what is enshrined in education, as the sign of an 
improved person.] For example, the prestige of knowing many lan- 
guages has been carried over from the old Renaissance tradition. But, 
particularly in America, we no longer really believe in this. You cannot 
plan [school] curricula unless you know what symbols are authoritative, 
and have the greatest value. The symbols [of progress] are changing 
today; if the change isn't too fast, education may catch up. 

"^^^[The relation of educational symbols to cultural ideas of progress can 
itself be seen as a cyclical pattern.] The English education of Tom Brown's 
Sclwolclays [illustrates] the classical part of a cycle, because those symbols 
were more authoritative in those days. Today no one is in a position to 
say what is a rational curriculum. We don't know what we have tran- 
scended, and what values are going to emerge as significant. 



Editorial Note 

This material was covered in two lectures in 1937 (Jan. 11 and Jan. 
18), but apparently in only one in 1934 (March 6). It is not clear how 
much time was devoted to it in 1936. The principal change in 1937 



Two: T/w Psychology of Culture 54"^ 

seems lo lia\c been an expansion o\' ihe Jiseussion ot"e\elieal develop- 
ment and aesllielic patterns. 

I ha\ e also draw n upon Sapir's leetine on "l^rogress" to the Kuckelcllei 
Seminar. Mareh 1933. notes taken h\ I.. I'errero. These notes show a lee- 
tine eloselx parallel to the 1934 \ersion. whieh seems also to ha\e been 
entitled '"Progress*" rather than " The Conce|M o\' l)e\el(>|^ment m Cul- 
ture." 

For othei" diseussions of the d>namics tireuluUiil and hnguistie ehange 
see Sapir 1916 ("Time Perspeetive") and 1921 (lAtn^^ua^c). The present 
discussion is somewhat dilTerent from these earlier works. howe\er. 



Notes 

1. The bracketed text derives in pari from the fact thai Sapir seems lo ha\e shilied among 
several lilies for this section. In the OUTLINE he has "The Concept oi Development in 
Culture." while Newman (1927) has "Progress." and Setzler (1928) has "Culture 
Change" and then "Progress in Culture." Ferrero and H2 (19.^.'^) have "Progress," while 
HI has "De\elopment \s. Progress;" Tl (1936) has 'Development of Culture"; RI and 
QQ (1937) return to the OLTLINEs title, but R2 (1937) has "Progress." The relevant 
sections in T2 and CK are untitled. 1 add "dvnamics" to link the material vsith the 
preceding chapter. 

2. HI has: "Development vs. Progress./ The individual stock in trade - cultural (HRE) as 
an example) progress at various levels. An intuitive concept (is there any one idea, for- 
mula?) Paradox." 

H2 has: "development with tendencv"/; development vs. progress/ simplification \s. dctc- 

riorialion; may be progress" 

See also OL. SE (below), and discussion of cultural accumulation in ch v 

3. Richard Thurnvvald (1869- 1954). German ethnologist/functionalist. 

4. Tl has: "As with technological progress, spiritual progress is a factor, which, however, 
is under the intluence o'i subjective impulses even more." T2 has: "Now about spiritual 
progress - so what! There is no telling about this, it is a question of values. It is largely 
a question of opinions and ideas." 

5. QQ has only an S-shapcd squiggle here. The context concerns the individual^ ■(«-"fi'"- ■- 
lion with a social group. 

6. HI adds: "Luxury of thought." 

7. B(i adds: "The liercafier is the locus o\' unfulfilled obligations, hence its excuse for 
being." It is not clear where this whole passage belongs, however. 

8. Tl has "technological progress" here, while r2 appaicntlv refers the same statemcnl \o 
spiritual progress. 

9. HI has "the surer, aesthetic view of progress." 

10. See LB notes on "First of Sapirs two lectures \o the Medical SiKiciy." Feb. 18. 1935: 
""Great' music implied absolute standards, illusion. Chinese faces with Beethoven's 
Ninth; No necessitv o^ luiiure here; "cosmos o\ unre.il things ""' 

1 1. Rl has "actuality". 

12. Ihere is an illegible word here. 

13. See the chapter on "Drift" in Sapir's (1921) LatiKtiUfii' . 

14. Editorial apologies are hereby conveved to Tibetans. Whether Sapir would have pub- 
lished a statement like this I do not kni>vv 



Pari II: The Individuars Place in C iiluiie 
Chapter 7. PersonaHty 

'^~ The RcUition of the Imhv'uhtcil !(> Culiiirc^ 

'' [Although anthropologists sometimes entertain notions] to the L\)n- 
trary,- anthropology is very much dependent on the individual, even 
necessitating rapport or good psychological relationships betueen two 
individuals. [This applies, in the fust instance, to the anthropologist's 
relationships with individual informants, from whom so much of his 
information derives.] However important it may be, the fallacy [m an- 
thropological method] is that the results [o( those relationships with 
individuals] are considered - and defmitely stated to be - "culture" as 
a whole. '- [That is,] a person in the field presents the culture as a whole 
without realizing that the information depends upon liic informant. 
[What is true for the anthropologist, moreover, is all the more compel- 
ling for the individual participating in society:] the indisidual has to 
conform and fit together the conllicting [\ersions] o( culture [he en- 
counters. Perhaps we see such a process most clearly when it concerns] 
a foreigner in this country [learning to conform,] or a southerner mov- 
ing north, in the psychological sense, culture is not the thing that is 
given us. " The "culture" of a group as a whole is not a true reality. 
What is given - '- what we do start with - " '' is the individual and 
his behavior. 

^e Analytically, the individual is the bearer of culture, rherefore. an 
anthropologist's generali/.alions about the culture oi' a group arc ex- 
tremely theoretical. They depend upon his [sense ol] sureness and [his] 
ability to extract significant uniformities from indi\iduals* (separate) 
culluies^ and to generalize these into a paitcin. Vol. il nia> turn i>ul 
that his "culture," so extracted, is so formalized that il exists onl\ as 
[his own] mental construct and has no ob)ecli\e realil\ at all. (In thai 
case,] for example, no individual [from the group whose culture il pur- 
ported to be] would recognize il as his own culture in many respcxMs 



546 III Culture 

il would seem foreign to him. [But. if that were so, would there not be 
something questionable about the anthropologist's report? As we said 
before, pattern must be understood in terms of the ultimate analysis 
uuuili\el\ fell by any normal member of a given community.]^ ^g Re- 
member, then, that the sole significance of a cultural pattern depends 
upon [its meaningfulness to the bearer:] the emotional reaction to it. 
This uives a test of the reality of cultural elements to individuals in the 

group. 

[These considerations, however, while deriving from our concern with 
the supposedly impersonal forms of culture, also come within the 
framework o\^ the individual's psychic constitution, or personality.]^^ ^- 
[As members of society,] we accept the forms of our culture; it is [im- 
posed] upon us, and then we consider it right. ^' Even such a thing as 
the English plural, [a cultural form] thought to be individually passive, 
is - [by virtue of being a cultural form -] what the individual wants, 
what makes him feel easy, what has relevance for his specific personal- 
ity. '- '' We identify ourselves with our cultural background, ^' and this 
identification is quite as easy, and quite as possessed of relevance for the 
individual, as an association with any natural phenomena (associations 
which are often, along with other things, thought to hold validity for 
[the individual's] personality). '- There is really no part of culture which 
does not have some bearing on our personality. [That bearing need not 
be anything we are consciously aware of, for] we are often most biased 
when we are consciously most honest.^ 

[Does this mean that the anthropologist's task simply resolves into 
that of the psychologist?] ^^ If the culture of a group is thus in a way 
impossible to formulate, what becomes of the anthropologist's calling, 
and how realistic can his approach be? [In falling back upon the indivi- 
dual, as the "objective" given, we need not reject the concept of culture. 
On the contrary; we provide our formulations with better evidence.] 
i938e ^j^y statement, no matter how general, which can be made about 
culture needs the supporting testimony of a tangible person or persons, 
to whom such a statement is of real value in his system of interrelafion- 
ships with other human beings. [But] if this is so, we shall, at last analy- 
sis, have to admit that any individual of a group has cultural definitions 
which do not apply to all the members of his group, which even, in 
specific instances, apply to him alone. Instead, therefore, of arguing 
from a supposed objectivity of culture to the problem of individual 
variation, we shall, for certain kinds of analysis, have to proceed in the 
opposite direction. We shall have to operate as though we knew nothing 



Two: The Psvcholoi^y of Culture 547 

aboul ciillurc hut were iiitcicslcJ in analyzing as well as wc could what 
a given number o\' human beings accustomed to live with each other 
actually think and do in their day to day relationships. We shall then 
find that we are driven, willy-nilly, to the recognition of certain perma- 
nencies, in a relative sense, in these interrelationships, permanencies 
which can reasonably be counted on to pcrdure but which must also be 
recognized to be eternally subject to serious mcKlitlcation o{ form and 
meaning with the lapse of time and with those changes of personnel 
which are unavoidable in the history of any group o\' human beings. 

\^)yiA [Thus] it is not the concept of culture which is subil\ misleading 
but the metaphysical locus to which culture is generally assigned. '''^'^ 
The true psychological locus of ^/ culture is the Individunl or a specifically 
enuDieratedlist oj indixidiuils. [Notice, howe\er. that we <\o not define] 
^"•^ the individual [in the same way as would] the biologist. The biologist 
has no trouble in defining an individual, [but his definition is not ours] 
i932;i "Individual," here, means not simply a biologicalI\ defined organ- 
ism maintaining itself through physical impacts and s\nibolic substi- 
tutes of such impacts, but that total world of form, meaning, and impli- 
cation of symbolic behavior which a given individual partly knows and 
directs, partly intuits and yields to, partly is iiznorant o\' and is swaved 

by. 

'^^'^ [As anthropologists, then, we may - without too great a sense oi 
contradictoriness — ] believe in a world of discrete individuals but also 
in a oneness and continuity of culture. [The soundness o^ this belief 
rests on] our having a different view [o'i the indi\ idual] from [that o\] 
the biologist. ''^''-'' We have learned that the indi\ idual in isolation from 
society is a psychological fiction. [For the same reasons, culture di>es 
not result from the juxtaposition o\^ organisms, ] ^"^ We have discrete 
individuals, but - in the world of thought - could your indi\ idual plus 
another individual enable you to create American culture? ( I'he answer 
must be an emphatic] no. You cannot dispense with any one individual; 
it is the total sum o\^ individuals that makes up American culture. Pic 
culture historian must realize that every indiMdual [who participates) in 
a culture^ is necessary to its history. 

[in relation to this totality we call culture,] '' '' indi\idualily consists 
[not in the biological definition of organism hul| in the lecogmlion oi 
the differences in the consciousnesses of the indi\iduals [concerned) - '' 
[the recognition ot] discrete personalities. [To the extent that we con- 
ceive of culture as a world o[' thought, we ma> believe in its oneness 
while also recognizing this ditTerentiation] '' [in fact.) we cannot get 



548 ft^ Culture 

a\va> trcMii ihc iiKlividualily [inherent in] the concept of consciousness, 
o\- personality, ^"^^ '' since consciousness is the only approach we have 
to reality. ^^ Only bv an act of faith can we transcend our own con- 
sciousness. ^■''- '-• '' The continuity of the individual stream of conscious- 
ness, which memory links together, causes the recognition of personal- 
ity. ^'^ (That is to say,] this connective memory [- rather than the bound- 
ary o\' the organism -] is our proof of individuality, '^ our indication 
of the reality o^ the individual personality. "^ [Memory is what gives it 
continuity, for] the biological organism is [always] changing. 



[The Concept of Personality ] 

[Now, if our anthropological method obliges us to consider the indivi- 
dual and his personality, just what should we mean by "personality"?] 
" Personality is a certain nuclear entity which is concerned [in all our 
activities] and is objective in itself; [this is our starting point]. The exact 
defmition is difficult, but it is significant that there is a problem posed. 
'- Although personality is hard to define, we act upon the concept just 
as a child works upon its concept of chairs and tables being a set as 
opposed to falling snow. He may not know the words for these things, 
[but he acts upon them as a set just the same]. [Let us attempt to be 
more articulate than this child, however, and consider how the term has 
been used in the past.] 

bg. lb. h2 j^ji^g term] "personality"^ derives from the Greek persona, a 
mask: ^^ a dramatic figure, transcending the petty, and given prestige - 
a person significant insofar as he is not himself, ^s- "^ [In the ancient 
world] personality was artifice, the mask that society used to judge [a 
person by,] and so it was equivalent to status. "''^ [This definition,] equ- 
ating a person's personality to his status, has a great tradition in literary 
[works, even if it has become uncongenial to us today]. ""- "^'^ [Thus we 
may feel] chilled by Homer's lack of interest in Ulysses's personality [in 
the psychological sense,] and by Shakespeare's Toryism; ^^ for even in 
Shakespeare personality is equivalent to status. '^ Shakespeare's clowns, 
being lowly, are not psychologized. [Psychological depth is reserved for 
the higher statuses, as we see,] '"'^ for example, in Macbeth. 

^- It was Rousseau who started the vogue of the individual, with his 
Confessions, ^^ [a work] startlingly new in that he threw aside the mask 
and showed the personality beneath the status or role. "^ [With a sort 
ofj "boasting about weaknesses," Rousseau took the back-stairs interest 



Two: The Psychology of C iiltitrc 549 

in gossip inu^ the arena o\~ liicialiiic. jwhcrc it was subscqucnllv lakcn 
up by other writers - ] Jane Austen, (lor nistance). [Still more recent is 
the view ot] personality as physiology, [a quite) modern (notion, as is 
the idea that] ''' personaiitv may be equivalent regardless ot status. This 
is the coming \iew, (and it is \irtually the opposite of what personality 
was to the Greeks]. 

'^' [As this briefexcursion into the history of the term indicates.] "•per- 
sonality" is an artificial concept having reality [only as we may choose 
to use it. Thus] ''^^"^^ the term personality is too variable in usage to be 
serviceable in scientific discussion unless its meaning is very carefulh 
defined tor a gi\en context. '"'' There are several ditTerent ways of defin- 
ing personality: 

(1) '-■ '^^''- ■' The first definition o{ personality is a psychological one: 
the reification of the feeling of personal identity through continuous 
consciousness. '^^'^ [This definition takes an] introspective [apprcxich. l\>r| 
"■' introspection presupposes the world of the individual consciousness. 
^~ [It is a world where] there is a continuity o\^ personality, it stays put 
- [and this is what gives it reality:] " [its] reality is in fact the mere 
phenomenon of continuity [of moments of consciousness which, if they 
have] no persistence, have little or no reality.'^ "^ The continuity of con- 
sciousness is, in an important [sense], all that I [really] kmnv. That there 
is a buzzing external world is [a recognition] forced on me b\ sociei\. 
[but it is not part of myself in the same way.]'" '- The personality is 
made up of the experiences it has had. and those things which it has 
not experienced cannot be said to exist in the personality. *'^ I'ersonality 
defined in this way [is seen] in terms o\' the events that impinge upimi 
the individual. 

(2) '"'' '''''■*'■ As a purely physiological concept. '"'' the individual [ma\ 
be considered] as a mechanism, ^''^^'^'^ and personaiitv mav be ciMisidered 
as the individual human organism with emphasis on those aspects o\' 
behavior which differentiate it from other organisms. '-• ^'•'-■^ The bio- 
logical definition of personality is a coiKepiion o\ organism; *'^ and 
the biologist is comfortable with this. He doesn't need [a notion o{\ 
consciousness - [or so he supposes] Ihit if it weren't for our conscious- 
ness, how could we recogni/e the identity of organisms' ^'ou get al the 
concept of organism through ciMiseioiisness; ''• ^- could the ciMicepl o{ 
organism, [then, be merely] a projection o^ our own feeling o^ identity 
which surrounds our consciousness'.' '~ This biological definiluMi is not 
very helpful, therefore. We don't really know mirselves as individuals 
in the biological sense, but only as symbols o^ what ue see around us. 



550 /// Culture 

[(Hoxsc\cr. uc may wish to inquire whether there are physiological or 
genetic inlluences on personality as defined in other ways.)] 

(3) ^^ The sociological viewpoint today judges personality by the [so- 
cial] role an individual plays. [In other words,] personality is defined in 
terms o\' a sociological abstraction and emphasis upon formal roles." 
^^ ^^k=[()ther aspects ot] personality, [such as the more psychological no- 
tion ot] nuclear personality, are [treated as] an illusion which disappears 
when vou abstract one's income, status, etc., [and examine the general 
characteristics o\' people filling these categories. By this means, for ex- 
ample, you can trace] the professional character of a businessman, and 
that of a bishop. ^^ Napoleon in the role of Emperor is his personality; 
individual X in the role of archbishop is his personaHty. But Napoleon 
as a reader of The Sorrows of Werther, weeping over what he read, was 
a personality in the psychiatric sense. 

r:. ri. ck ji^Q sociological viewpoint defines personality as a series of 
roles, or [modes ot] participation in society, which a person ^^ carves out 
for himself, or takes part in. A personality [in this sense], therefore, is 
the sum total of the individual's social participations; '"'' the individual 
[is seen] as the collectivity of behavior patterns. That is, all things called 
individuals are merely collocations of certain habits - a series of roles 
in a complex arrangement. "''^[As I have already indicated,] personality 
was first judged from the sociological point of view. Every man func- 
tioned in the part laid out for him by society. ^^- '^ Thus Achilles and 
Ulysses were always heroes, and a slave was always a slave. ^^ Even if 
their acts were objectively similar they were treated differently — as 
arrogance or as impudence, as [an act of war] or of private murder ™^ 
(note that this is true of the Bible and so through Tom Jones and the 
novel up to James Joyce). ^^^ '^ The Greeks were then primarily sociolo- 
gists, [in their definition of personality.] 

[But this definition is] ""^ fallacious, [or at least] " not completely true, 
because it ''''• ^^- '^ neglects the feeling of consciousness - the original 
intuitive sense of identity - which is implied in the psychological defini- 
tion. It neglects our fantasies, for instance, "^^ and instead considers only 
our train of thoughts about the symbolization of the individual to the 
community. '^- ''^- " It is very easy to distinguish between the individual 
and his sociological role. '^ [It is also necessary to do so. Otherwise you] 
confound the status of a person with himself. 

^^ [Moreover, these sociological abstracfions] are not too valuable in 
tracing the genesis of personality, ^g' '^ [For that we will need] a psychiat- 
ric viewpoint, where the basic principle is the priority of nuclear con- 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 551 

stellations in an infanlilc confiiiuratUMi. '"' It is impossible lo asoid ihc 
sociological viewpoinl allogclhcr, since il is economical at times Id make 
status jucigcmcnts and it is the very purpose of society to keep the basis 
of personalil) hidden. No one can atTcMd lo be loo honest with himself. 
^^- '^ But the sociological viewpoint is incremenlal: personality is made 
up o{ [roles] a -\- b -^ c + cL where li is added last and is unatTected by 
what went before. The psychiatric viewpoint, [on the other hand,] is 
configuratiNe. since the basic pattern {n) alTects the total resulting set- 
up. 

(4) '-• ''• ^■'^ Finally, there is the psychiatric definiiicMi o\' personality. 
This is the conception of nuclear personality, based on the sense o\ 
ourselves that we acquire in childhood. ^~ it has no connection with [the 
preceding detlnilion] of personality."'' "^^"^ [Indeed, to distinguish these 
two definitions allows us to see the] independence o\' the indi\idual in 
society from society's judgement of the individual. ^^ Consider aggres- 
sion, for example, in [terms of this] contrast between the socioK^gical 
and psychiatric viewpoints. Sociologically, aggression is defined in 
terms of behavior. Psychiatrically, however, aggression must be defined 
in personal symbolisms, hidden meanings, compensations, projections, 
and the like - so that one's actual behavior ma\ shtn\ no signs at all 
of sociological aggression. 

md, hi jji^g psychiatric] point of view [treats] personality as equi\alent 
regardless of status.'"* '"'' It levels down all personality - ''' that is, it 
makes the data comparable — at "^^- '^' the same general level of child- 
hood, "^' the infantile stage, ""'^- *^' when the patterns are just beginning 
to be fixed. Any particular set[-up] of personality at the starting pt>ini 
has a relative priority and will persist through ihc oihcr [(later)] configu- 
rations.'^ "^"^ Thus the final actualization ma\ be \cr\ dilTerenl from the 
first innate bias but the original ground plan ma\ >et alwa\s be dis- 
cerned. This is the kind of personality judgement that the psschiatrist 
uses. It [conceives of] personality as an integrati\e mechanism."' Overtly 
similar acts may be entirely different [in significance, therefore.) when 
fitted into the ground plan of personality. That is, [an act of| thefi. Um 
example, may be heroism or criminalits. '" 

md. bg Jq know personality in this wise, a lheor\ i>l" perMMialil\ today 
must really take into consideration iwo kinds t>f attitudes toward the 
individual: ^^ that which sees him as a mere culture carrier, or as '"'' ''' 
the sociologically defined '"man brought to trial"'^ ov "cili/en o^ the 
state"; ^^ and that which sees him as an integrated eniii\ in himself. •'' 
a real persona, '"'' [starting from] the geneticall> defined personality 



552 ^^^ Culture 



lb 



plu> the accretions and changes wrought by the experience of years 
[The lirst attitude sees] personality acts as the acts of a man of such 
and such a social status, while the second - the psychiatric approach 
- is rather a filling in of a personality on the basis of discovered nuclear 
characteristics. '"^' This is a Gestalt attack, a mode of observation that 
is aesthetic rather than teleological. [To put it another way, it is] an 
aesthetic interpretation of personality. ^^ My point of view, [then, is 
intended to combine] an aesthetic [mode of observation] with a Gestalt 
psychology of configuration and with the dynamism of the psychoana- 
lyst. 

^•^ The psychiatric point of view flows from within the intuitive con- 
sciousness - '-• '' from the fact that we have a continuous consciousness 
which has not been disassociated since our childhood, [but instead] has 
been building up [from that nucleus]. ''2' ■■'' ""^ I believe, therefore, in a 
concept of Invar icmce of personality. '^- Thus, it is possible for us to 
translate ourselves to our earlier personality without changing our- 
selves. '' [Our present experiences can be seen as the] equivalents of 
experiences [of the past,for we are continually] reliving old experiences 
[and feeling the] same feelings. ^^ It is the task of psychoanalysis to 
interlace present experiences with past ones. "^^^ ^^ [The idea of] invari- 
ance. [therefore, means that] one is never other than oneself. 

•^^ Of course, the ability [for and propensity] towards introspection is 
different in different individuals, [and this affects what the psychiatrist 
actually does. In general, however, what the psychiatrist attempts to 
reveal is the process of| '^' emotional transfer - [the process by which] 
■■'• '^- our [present] experiences and contacts with people around us are 
to a large extent rephrasings or recallings of old attitudes, [deriving 
from] our infantile experience. [If some of these rephrasings seem to 
hinge on quite trivial aspects of an experience, it must be remembered 
that] '^ the trivial may be just as [telling] a part of one's personality as 
the [obviously] important.'^ 

md. r2. ri, hi ^^^t then are the determinants of personality - the things 
which fix this [sense of] primordial self? ^^ This is the weakest part of 
our approach, [because the determinants commonly suggested lie in 
realms poorly understood.] ■■'• '^^ ^^' ^^ First are implications of biological 
structure - genetically-determined heredity - of nervous characteris- 
tics, for example. '"^ Our ignorance of physiology, etc. [is such that] we 
don't know [much about this possibility.] '^^ '^^ ^s- '^ Second are prenatal 
conditionings, experiences, experiences in the womb [that might also 
serve as personality] determinations. '^ We don't know enough about 



Two: The Psycholoi^v of C'uhnrc 553 

[these conditionings] either. '-• '' ''^ Ihird are earls childhood experi- 
ences (up to the age o\^ two or three), post-natal modifications [o\ the 
prenatally-established sell] ~ experiences ol' protoiind anxieties, for ex- 
ample - ''^- '^ [to the extent that these represent] pre-culiural condition- 
ings and determinations. ^^ These three factors. |ii is generally assumed,) 
intluence the basic personality [which, once] set-up, "' (establishes a) 
permanent psychiatric ground plan for the individual at an early age. 

'"'"• '^ The importance o'i the infantile configuration is shown in phe- 
nomena of "regression" to an earlier, easier plateau. ''^- '*" As an analogy 
with a personality in the time-dimension, consider a musical theme with 
variations where the theme is the basic configuration and the variations 
are more and more complex constructs using the fundamental pattern. 
^^ This is an aesthetically constructive concept, whereas the personalit\ 
building up is continuously adjustive. '^ Yet, the form persists through 
all variations: ^^ regression Oust] means withdrawal to an earlier theme, 
to an earlier or simpler level of adjustment, in the persistence of child- 
hood memories and infantile emotional tensions, disco\ered in regres- 
sion, we see the persistence of the fundamental jicrsonaliiN patterns 
throughout life. ^^ If you wish your adjustments to pct^plc to be real, 
you must get back to your primordial self 

[In later life there will always be] ^''- '- a tendencs to lapse inii> the 
nuclear personality unless we can hitch on to a symbol [provided by) 
society. ^- For example, acting as a student is a symbolization by w hich 
we come out of our nuclear personality. We keep on with certain 
studies, etc., because of our symbolic feeling o{ oneness with societ) 
and gratitude to it, even though we have lost interest in their [subject 
matter). "^^ The social process keeps us going - you need a social tradi- 
tion to make you go on. '- Thus personalities are fitted inic^ places [in 
society] in which they have no [intrinsic] interest. Their culture, .md the 
people around them, throw them into a concept which the> did no! 
entertain about themselves. [The social process counters regression, 
then, for the very reason that social roles and their associated beha\ior 
are not based directly on the indixiduaPs "personality" in the ps\chiat- 
ric sense.]-" 

[How might this disjunction come about? Wh> is it that, in our siKUil 
encounters, we do not sinipls pursue an unditTerentiated impulse to 
know one another's personalities as full> as pc>ssible'.' Ihe answer, pre- 
sumably, is that]-' -'"' A is not really interested in what B /.s. but what 
he can bear as symbol . We know each other only as roles. •* We lake 
parts of personality from other people, but we can ne\er entirely know 



554 l^^ Culture 

another's personality. ^^ It is the very purpose of society to keep the 
basis o( personality hidden, and no one can afford [to uncover every- 
ihine.] '- There is something vague which cannot be delved into. -"'" 
Indeed, we don't need each other a hundred percent; what we need is 
an etTective [but] partial participation. Many intelligent and worthy per- 
sons are uncomfortable in being admired, because people need to find 
in you those qualities they admire, [and you know that] sooner or later 
you are going to ruin their picture. Every human relationship is a tem- 
porary implicit contract, [not a total immersion]. 

*- To completely know another would mean sacrifice [of oneself; and] 
-"'" we don't want to be swallowed by another's personality. Even a 
child wants to feel a stranger to its mother - complete identification is 
resisted. Therefore we can never know or afford to know the whole 
truth about personality. [Instead, the] key persons [in our lives, much 
of the time, are] doing duty for what almost anyone else could give. 
[And just as we cannot afford to concern ourselves too deeply with 
another's personality, the same is true for our own.] Being concerned 
with oneself is a sign of insecurity and defiance. [Although we may often 
phrase that concern in terms of claims to our own uniqueness - for it 
is more acceptable to maintain that] "I am one of a million in this 
matter" [than that 'T am interested in my own personality" - most of] 
us get sick and tired of the impulse to know ourselves. (But Proust did 
not.) 

[There is a certain tension, then, in our feelings about personality, a] 
''^^'^" duality of interest in the facts of behavior [as to whether we see 
them in terms of personality or not.] ^""^ In anthropology, [similarly,] 
there are two viewpoints: the psychological - "I wish to hold on to my 
personality;" and the sociological - "I do not wish to hold onto my 
personality." 



[The Uses of Psychiatric Theories in Anthropology ] 

[The approach to personality we will need in anthropology must re- 
semble the psychiatrist's in its emphasis on configuration and genesis 
(i. e., personality development), but its need to incorporate the person- 
ality's social setting will distinguish it from any psychiatric theory pres- 
ently established.]^^ ^g Psychoanalysis is valuable for its way of thinking, 
not for its present formulas. "^^ Let us understand first of all, [therefore,] 



Two: rih- Psvcholo^y of Culture 555 

that uc lake [the ideas ot] I'rcuJ. .Iuiili. etc. |(Mi1\] as \sorking principles 
subject t(.i niodificaliiMi by rurther knowledge. 

i''-k ii jj^,^. \wos{ elaborate and far reaching hspolheses on ihc devel- 
opment of personality w hich ha\e yet been proposed are (hose o{ I-reiid 
and his school. The Freudian ps\choanal>sts analwe the personalil) 
topographically into a primary id, the sum o\' inherited impulses or 
cra\ings - '' the libidinal drive; '''^■*' the ego. which is thought of as 
being built upon the id through the progressive de\eK)pmenl o\' the 
sense of exleinal leality; and the superego, the sociall\ ci>nditioned sum 
of forces which restrain the individual from the direct satisfaction of 
the id. The characteristic interplay of these personalit\ /ones, itself de- 
termined chietly by the special pattern of family relationships into 
which the individual has had to fit himself in the earliest years of his 
life, is responsible for a variety of personality types. -^ (Howe\er.) '^^''• 
1934c. md. hi although Frcud is interested in typical dynamisms and mech- 
anisms of personality formation, he does not construct a theory of per- 
sonality types. -^"^ [On this point and others the Freudian school o^ psy- 
choanalysts are divided.] "'^' .liuig. [for example.] is interested in types, 
[based on the idea that] not all people will develop in the same wa\ 
under the same conditions. [We shall pursue this matter in a later lec- 
ture. But in many respects] "'' Jung, Adler, and Ranke, in re\i>lt agamst 
Freud, overemphasized their points of difference [with him]. 

'^' [For the anthropologist,] Freud's [work] is [useful as] a wa\ o'i 
thinking, not as a body of doctrine. '^'^- '"'' '''■ """ [C\>nsider. for example. 
the famous] Oedipus Complex, in our culture and others. ^^^ The impor- 
tant thing is that certain nuclear situations ine\itabl\ affect the emo- 
tional and personality development o[^ the child, whalever the t\pe o\' 
society [he is born into.] Some type o'( family situation ''' some kind 
of human relationship - ^^- ''' holds everywhere, whether [specincallv] 
on the model of Oedipus or not. "' The child is not born in a cultural 
or social vacuum; [his personal] symbology is subjective to a [particular] 
culture, and it is a mistake to make a fetish of doctrines [of symbologi- 
cal development based only on Furopean clinical material.) ""' ''' Thus 
the Oedipus Complex is simply a common sense human situation which 
may be \\n\n^\ in the Trobriand IshiiuK or vinv where under ditVering 
condititms. true, but with the same simple human situation pallern. '^'• 
"' When Malinowski. m "Sex and Repression in Savage Societv." [pre- 
sented certain] strictures on Ireud bv showing a new modification \o{ 
the Oedipus C\miplex] due to a different siKial context - [so thai the 
Trobriand chikfs] transference o{ earlv bents or sets [tended] toward 



556 f^l Culture 

ihc maternal uncle instead of the mother - ^i Freud's disciples reviled 
hmi. [To ihcm, the essential thing about] Oedipus was the correlation-^ 
o{ transference along sex lines.-^^ ^^ Yet the Freudians should welcome 
Malinow ski's [work,] since although he shows that with a different fa- 
milial sci-up HI the Trobriands the Oedipus complex [per se] does not 
hold, ne\eriheless he shows that even here there is an important condi- 
iionmg o^ the child at an early age by family relationships. Thus he 
extends the basic Freudian concept, rather than upsetting it. 

^»? [For the uses of the anthropologist, therefore,] psychiatric analysis 
must be schematic, save in the actual case study. For example, there are 
many types and actual varieties of jealousy, though possibly the basis 
of all [o^ them] may be a negative reaction to interference by others 
with the libidinal fixation upon a certain individual. [Whether it is about 
iealousy or some other aspect of personality formation,] what the sche- 
matic \ievv would show is the importance of nuclear home attitudes and 
situations for the child - the influence of the parents and their relations 
one to another; the effect upon the unclouded intuitive understanding 
o{ the child; the function of emotional attitudes, and the effect on [a 
person's] later life (at mating, [especially]) of prior nuclear symbolisms 
even though these are projected or transformed^^ later into new situa- 
tions. 

[in summary, the anthropologist can find much of value in the psychi- 
atric approach to personality, but in its outlines rather than its specific 
formulations. In favoring a psychiatric view I] ^^^^^ do not for a moment 
mean to assert that any psychiatry that has as yet been evolved is in a 
position to do much more than to ask intelligent questions. [The in- 
sights we seek are only beginning to emerge.] ^^- "^^^ ^i ^ ^j^^j under- 
standing of personality depends upon the development of a powerful 
dynamic psychology - which will be a genetic^^ psychology in a social 
setting. ^^ Using Freudian concepts cast in a configurative Gestalt 
pattern, it will be interested solely in actual social settings and not in 
stimulus, response, and the rest [of the behaviorist's representation of 
them] - the whole view being influenced by aesthetic considerations, 
which will look for the fundamental theme and then for the recurring 
variations. 



Editorial Note 

Although the Outline begins its section on "The Individual's Place in 
Culture" with a chapter on "Culture and the Individual," the class notes 



Two: The PsvchoUii^y of C uliuir 557 

give relatively little spaee io the material that was to have gone ihere. 
moving instead almost immediateU into the eoneepl of personahty. Ap- 
parently the student note-takers did not reeord mueh o\' Sapir's inlro- 
duetor\ discussion. \hi\ it is also clear that Sapu- hnnself covered this 
material quicklv. without much elaboratit>n. even though so many of 
his publications in the 193()*s were concerned with it. My guess is that 
this section was condensed partly because it would ha\e been repetitive. 
Its subject matter - the theoretical and methodological problems thai 
arise if "culture" and "the individual" are contrastively dellned - is. 
after all, the concern of the whole book. 

For Sapir's treatment of this subject in article form, the reader is 
referred particularly to "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry" 
(1932a), "The Emergence of the Concept o\' [Personality in a Stud\ of 
Cultures" (1934a), and "Why Cultural Anthropology Needs the Psychi- 
atrist" (I938e). I have drawn on these papers to fill in the sketchy class 
notes. Most of the present chapter, however, is devoted to the concept 
of personality. Here Sapir's classroom discussion closely parallels his 
encyclopedia article on "Personality" (1934c). 

The material incorporated in this chapter apparentlv look up a lec- 
ture and a half in 1937 (the second half o\^ Sapir's lecture of January 
18-*^ and the lecture of January 25). In 1933 it was allotted at least two 
lectures, on March 13 and 20. The Taylor notes (1936) are unil.iieil so 
it is not clear how much lecture time was involved. 



Notes 

1. T2 has "to society." 

2. Tl has: "'Despite thoughts to the contrary. ..." 

3. BG has "individuals" cuUurcs (separate)". It is not clear how .Sapir actualls worded lhl^ 
important point. 

4. The second sentence in the bracketed te.xt comes from 112. in the discussion of cutuiti- 
pattern in ch. 5. See also "The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in StKiely ' 

5. Much of the wording of this passage is derived from Sapir ( l9.Ud). "The EnKrgcii.c .>i 
the Concept of Personality in a .Study otC'ultures." SWhS pp 5*>() 91 

6. T2 adds: "Maximum security is desired by all." Perhaps Sapir's pi>int is th.H cultural 
forms can have relevance for the indnidual if only by providing the v. iiiii\ .>( iiii-niiri..i- 
tion with a group. 

7. I insert "who participates" by analogy \Mth the statement in Sapir r'>..i mc \.im 
majority of participants in the total culture, if \ve ma> still s|XMk in terms of a "total 
culture."" Sapirs published writings of this period do not use the exprevsion "indi\idual 
in a culture." an expression that treats ""culture"' as a synonym for "group" or "stviciv " 

8. H2 has: "'person comes from persona. Latin - person, also dramatic mask 



558 Jt^ Culture 

9. Tl has: "Reality is in fact the mere phenomena of continuity of no persistence, they 
have hltlc or no reahty." 

10. LaB adds: "Spht personahties greatest tragedies therefore." 

11 BG has: "in terms of a sociological abstraction from nuclear person, and emphasis upon 
formal roles." 

12. CK has "a given biological organism". 

I.V What R2 actually has is: "Has no connection with other personalities." 1 believe, how- 
ever, that the point is that this definition is unconnected with the sociological one. 

14. i. e , independent of status. 

15. Here H I has a drawing of three triangles; the center one has a mangled top half. 

16. Actually, it is unclear whether Sapir claimed that only the psychiatric view of personality 
sees it as an integrative mechanism, or whether the sociological view (personality as 
deriving from status) was also an integrative mechanism of a sort (presumably less coher- 
ently configured). MD and HI have "Personality as an integrative mechanism" as the 
title of the March 20 lecture comparing the sociological and psychiatric points of view, 
while BG emphasizes the differences between them as incremental vs. integrative. 

17. MDadds. "(Stalin)". 

IK. MD has "man in the courtroom". 

19 R I has. after "emotional transfer": "The trivial is just important a part of one's personal- 
it) as the important." 

20. 1 insert the bracketed passage as a summary of the preceding paragraph, where Sapir 
argues again that personality (psychologically or psychiatrically defined) and social 
status are distinct. This does not mean, however, that the two have no influence on one 
another. For an argument that personality, or at least one's emotional state, is affected 
by an individual's social position, see Sapir's "Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the 
Business of Getting a Living" (1939c). 

21. Some of the wording of this bracketed passage is drawn from "The Emergence of the 
Concept of Personality in a Study of Cultures" (1934a): "Why is it necessary to discover 
the contrast, real or fictitious, between culture and personality, or, to speak more accu- 
rately, between a segment of behavior seen as cultural pattern and a segment of behavior 
interpreted as having a person-defining value? Why cannot our interest in behavior main- 
tain the undifferentiated character which it possessed in early childhood? The answer, 
presumably, is that each type of interest is necessary for the psychic preservation of the 
individual in an environment which experience makes increasingly complex and unassim- 
ilable on its own simple terms." Although Sapir's focus in that paper is on the outside 
observer, he seems to suggest that the participant has the same duality of interest. 

22. Much of the content of this bracketed passage comes from the material in MD, BGL, 
and H 1 cited at the close of the chapter. 

23. MD, HI, Tl, and LB all allude to "personality types" at this juncture (as heading or in 
the text). 

24. CK has: "does not construct a theory of personality." All others have "personality 
types." 

25. The handwriting of this word is unclear. 

26. HI adds: "mother — » to son rather than the daughter - groundplan: - Sapir. - homo- 
sexuality: -". LB adds: "Nostalgia for father in Oedipus complex; hate-love mother." 

27. The handwriting is unclear. This word may be "transferred". 

28. i. e., developmental. 

29. Only in CK, who sometimes puts dates in the wrong place. It is possible that all this 
material comes from January 25. 



Chapter 8. The Problem oi^ Pcrsoiiahiy !> pes: 
A Review and Critique of Jung 



nuL hi 



The Type PoinI of View: In ( rover l and Extruveri 



[In the prc\ious chapter we mentioned that there is a matter of some 
disagreement within the Freudian school o\^ psychoanalysis as to 
whether personalities can be classified into different types. This is not 
merely some trivial instance of internecine warfare. It concerns the very 
natin-e o^ personality integration, and it has many implications for a 
theory o'i personality formation, even if some of the most basic aspects 
of the problem have scarcely been addressed as yet by either side. As 
we said,] '"''• '^' Freud [himself) is more interested in i\ pica! mechanisms 
[of personality formation] than in types. '""■' He is not clear as to w hat 
the basic material o\^ personality is; "' [instead, he seems to take the] 
attitude that the individual is indefinitely malleable, although the ques- 
tion of whether there are physiological types [remains open]. ''' '"'' Jung, 
however, [proposes that there are] fundamental types o\er and above 
the mechanisms - that not all people will develop in the same ua> 
under the same environmental conditions. ''' Wiiile lYeud is [primanlv] 
interested in individual cases, Jung goes in for the "racial mind" and 
believes in types given at birth (preformation, as opposed to epigencsis). 

'^- ''' I believe Jung is fundamentally right [in proposing] a basic typol- 
ogy - '"' various kinds of adjustment ''' in children, over and above 
the dynamic relations [with which i'rcud is concerned). ^^" The impor- 
tance of Jung's viewpoint [lies not in the specific causes' he assumes. 
but in the idea that] childhood conditioning isnl everything: for exam- 
ple, one can't make a hysteric out of every child. With each child, [his] 
study shows, there is a varied type o^ adjustment de^XMiding upon the 
basic personality set-up. These varied ditTerences o^ adjustment arc 
something over and above the emotional conditioning that is due lo 
specific familial [situations.]' 

hg. Ill Cjenetically determined predispositions' ma> be shiuvn. [for ex- 
ample,] in [children's] varying sensitivity to loud noises, and [their] vary- 
ing apperception - sensitivity to objects in the environment. "* ''»^ In re- 



5(-,() /// Culture 

uard to this, [JungV.'] study shows that one child goes out readily to 
meet such objects. He identifies himself with them, explores them, han- 
dles and enjoys them. The other child hesitates, classifies them, and 
always seems to refer them to some evaluated past experience, ^s- ^' 
fVrhaps he values them in terms of some nostalgic feeling associated 
\Mih the pleasure of suckling at the mother's breast. ^^ To [link]^ objects 
around one with that feeling is the genesis of "introverted" behavior, 
bv:, hi. nui j\^^ identifying type [of child] is the extravert, who participates 
fully in the world of sense, while the classifying type is the introvert, who 
holds back from the world of sense. '^ ([These] types also [correspond] to 
Holt's iuliemc and ahience.) 

'^' [But while one may describe these types as already existing among 
children.] Jung nowhere [really] discusses their genesis. ^^ Indeed, the 
genesis of [personality] types is a difficult [problem.] ^^^ '^ Are they to 
be explained in terms of hereditary dispositions given once and for all 
at conception, or is there some genetic explanation, such as that given 
above, [involving] empirical conditioning? ^s [if the latter, should we 
seek its explanation, in turn,] in terms of Freudian mechanisms - or 
does the cultural configuration itself influence basic personality types? 
Jung gives no answer to these questions. 

■■' Is Jung's classification of personality types, then, genetic, post- 
genetic, or descriptive? '^'' "^^^ ""^ I believe his classification to be mainly 
descriptive, not genetic or dynamic. ^^ [Presumably,] personality is [in- 
fluenced by all these] factors - genetic,^ prenatal, and early condition- 
ing - ^^ but Jung's study, [even though it purports] to be a causal one 
[and not only] a personal one, is not strictly scientific. '^^^J ([Indeed, 
although his Psychological Types] is a fascinating and extraordinary 
book, it is never very closely reasoned.)^ [About his notions of "racial 
mind" and preformation we should be particularly cautious.] ^' It is not 
that the physical has nothing to do with psychology (and hence culture), 
but only that the definitions of physical phenomena are too naive and 
fallacious. 

'"' [Obviously, even a purely descriptive] classification of personality 
types has implications as to the formation of personaHty. [But personal- 
ity is not simply a direct reflection of Jung's types.] '■^' 'ii A process of 
compensation [intervenes]. ''• Society is not tolerant of extreme varia- 
tions of personality, ""^ and because a person is always concerned with 
other people's opinion of him, "^ with social pressure and potenfial 
praise or blame - ""^ [we might even say that] the potential judgement 
of society is the individual's main problem - '^'i' "^2, ri j^g ^j-jg^ ^^ compen- 



Two: The Psycholoiiy t>/ C uhiirc 561 

sale for tliosc \arialioiis regarded as social defects, towards some (more 
approved] general type or behavior pattern, '^'•^''.f' Hence, basic person- 
ality differences, if they exist, must be masked beneath the typical beha- 
vior. [Perhaps it is from one's own eyes that ones basic personality is 
most etTectively hidden.] ^"^ in our etTorts to conform to a common 
ideal, we lose imich with our earlier selves, 'f'' (The attempt to reach 
back to that nuclear constellation is the reason for] the psychiatric em- 
phasis on the importance o\' the early years in the formation o\' person- 
ality, '^' and for the attempt, in psychoanalysis, to determine personality 
types. 

[Thus the relation between our basic orientation and our compensa- 
tions does not easily rise into conscious awareness.) ''"' '*' We ha\e a 
persistent illusion of changing a great deal, but it seems likel\ that there 
really are perduring patterns in the individual's personality from early 
life. ' ' The basic pattern of the individual's behavior does not change 
- [even though] we like to feel we can change, probably for the belter. 
"^"^ [Now, when it concerns someone other than ourselves,] we are \er\ 
quick to see incidents about a single individual as consistent and inte- 
grated, though this is of course inconsistent with the just-mentioned 
illusion. ^^' '^' Various personal motives influence our belief about this 
question: '^'^- '^'- ^'^ we do not like to believe that we are oursehes not 
capable of great change in personality if we wish to change in an\ re- 
spect; "i^- '^'- '■'^- '^- and we also like to feel thai ue arc inlluential in 
effecting changes in other people, by giving advice to those who look 
to us for guidance. [In a sense we are right in both our beliefs that 
people are consistent and that people can change - insofar as the ps\- 
chiatrist's concepts of basic adjustment and compensation correspond 
to them. And we are also not witlunil support in our feeling that the 
influence people have on one another, in their ad\icc and in their judge- 
ment, is important.] " A sociological outlook and balancing are factiHs 
in personality, [because the identification with] sociological realit\ ver- 
sus any other reality is essentiall\ what c\tra\crMon and introversion 
are. The extravert [is the person] whose libido tlows into those concerns 
which are connected with other people and the outside. The intro\erl, 
on the other hand, abstracts, consciously or unconsciousK. his meanings 
from the outside world. 

"•'i- '' Jung claims that the diflerence between the extravert and the 
introvert is not merely a matter of interests, ^"^i C ompensation. ior exam- 
ple, may make one's interests quite deceptive with respect [o fundamen- 
tal tendencies. '' [Moreover, interests could easily be confused with] the 



552 f^f Culture 

degree lo which a personahty is willing to unmask himself ([or is masked 
in the first place; consider the kind of person described by] the French 
word "simple" - an unrevised personality). [Instead, the difference be- 
tween] '- ''' extra vert and introvert [concerns how one resolves the fun- 
damental] conflict, [faced by] the child, between infantile fantasies and 
the external world. '^ [It is the problem of helplessness] - your own 
weakness in attaining your infantile desires, [as compared with] the 
power about you, the institutions and traditions [you encounter]. *''''"^' 
'^ Man always knows he is a helpless being [in the face of his] environ- 
ment and fellow beings, but he can't afford to admit it. "^ You can't be 
healthy and [still] realize this. "^^ Ways of adjusting, then, are ways of 
overcoming helplessness. 

r:. ck Yhere are two ways of solving this problem of the conflict be- 
tween the self and a powerful environment: '^'' ^'^ you can blot out the 
one or the other - the external or the internal world. "^"^ Realizing one's 
weakness in the midst of strong forces, one can either negate those 
forces, recognizing only those that one wishes to admit, or else deny 
the reality of one's weakness (in the extreme by denying the reality of 
oneself and identifying oneself with the environment, and other people, 
at every point). ""- ''- ^'' "^ To blot out and deny all the external environ- 
ment over which one has control^ [is the solution of] the introvert, ^^' '^ 
the idealist who reinterprets the world in terms of something he has 
mentalized or verbalized.^ ^'^^ ^^^ '"' In its morbid extreme, this tendency 
becomes schizophrenia, dementia praecox; ^°^' ^^' ^^ less extremely, it is 
seen in such organized movements as Christian Science and in the medi- 
eval mystic, '^' who simplified the world around him through wishful 
thinking. '-• ■■'• ""^ This method is similar to the general problem o^ ab- 
straction, which is the ability to ignore facts. '"'' "^^ Only certain things 
have value for the introvert; [beyond them, he has the] ability to deny 
the reality value of the external world. "^-^ ([This propensity] is well exem- 
plified by classical Hindu culture.) 

'■'' The other method is to deny yourself, to deny the reality of your 
own weakness. '^-^^ The extra vert identifies with the environment, the 
world of activity; "" [in effect,] he denies that there is anything to adjust. 
'' The world is what has value, in the face of this denudation of the 
personality. ^^ Words don't interest him save as symbols of adjustment 
to the world. He consciously denies the self as an entity. Instead, any- 
thing that happens in the world is the self. ""^^ '^^ '^ When this becomes 
morbid you have hysteria. '^ In this case there is no introspection at all, 
and if the environment were taken away such a person would be lost. 



Two: The Psvcholoi^y of Culture 56!^ 

'*^ The extraxcrt is a nicchanisi; [ihc intiovcrl. aii| idealist. While ihe 
introvert [sees] - as in Descartes" thesis - an anlagDnisni between the 
self and the world, liie extravert identifies with the world and partici- 
pates in it sympathetically and sensationalistically. ''^" He finds the eiui- 
ronment friendly and swallows il iii in huge gob fulls. ^2. ri.qq. ck -pj^^. 
introNCit finds an iinanalyzed value m iiiicnsity of experience, theexlra- 
\ert in cxtensity or numbers of experiences. '- ([By anak>gy with this 
pattern, then,] Christian theology is introverted, while the Mediterra- 
nean world is extraverted.) "^ ''' The extravert is an empiricist: '^ [says 
he,] "'A fact [is a fact], w hat more l\o \ou want'.'"" The introvert, lacking 
the ability to \alue a thing as such, [instead] evaluates it subjectively: 
"A fact — what about it? So what? A fact ofuluit order and nwaniniiT 

'^' The extravert is not necessarily [more] objectise. [just] because [his] 
values lie in the immediate environment. '•'' '' indeed, it may be ques- 
tioned whether one is not here projecting oneself in order to identif\ 
[with the externalized projection,] and whether there is [actually] an\ 
more objectivity in extraversion than in intro\ersion. "'' ThorcnighK 
extraverted people are unobjective, because they are the most bound up 
in the environment. ^^ The introvert, [on the other hand.] is a verbal 
realist, or objective subjectivist: the word is substituted \'ov the world o\' 
internal reality. His sense of power comes from handling words and 
concepts in lieu of actual facts. ^^- '^ Facts are not \alued as such, but 
only in terms of personal evaluations.'" 

^^ These characterizations are polar extremes. [.Actual anal\ses o\' real 
individuals would not usually show such stark contrasts. In fact.] actual 
analysis is difficult since ^-- '^' there is a tendency for one type to coni{XMi- 
sate with the thinking of the opposite type. "'^- '~- '" For example. 
Nietzsche was an introvert and a masochistic [personalit>.] but he haled 
this in himself and so invented the superman. [The in\entor o\' the su- 
perman, then, was] not [exactly] a supennan himself. Dewe> was [per- 
sonally] an introvert, but as a philosopher he writes with .m extraxerted 
ring," "^^'^ expressing the philosophy o\' the extravert in education b\ 
reason of an elaborate compensation mechanism. '''" fhus iniroverMiMi 
may be disguised by a pseudo-extra\ersiiMi for reasons o\' pcrsonalilN 
adjustment. [We might also mentiiMi] Whitman in this respcvl. and note 
the paucity of hard images in his poetry. [Con\ersely.] a man may also 
be introverted in his intellectual life but e\tra\erted in [his] |XTsonal 
relations. As an example, [one nnghl compare] Coleridge's poetry with 
his relations with Wordswurth and his circle. 



554 ^^^ Culture 

(Just as the personality types are not merely a matter of interests, so 
ihcy do not directly link up with an individual's position in life. We can 
find examples o\' both types in all realms of activity.] '^ It is an illusion 
[to think] that businessmen, for instance, are necessarily extraverted, for 
external activity may belie [the nature of] the ego. A mere description 
o\' behavior does not indicate the nature of the personality. [Instead, 
we] must interpret the flow of activity in terms of the mechanics of 
acti\ hies and thinking. ^^- '' In business, perhaps Carnegie is an example 
of the extravert. Ford of the introvert - the former enjoying the activity 
for its own sake, while Ford was somewhat discontented [with it and 
placed more importance on] idealistic principles ([as when sponsoring 
his] peace ship). 

^'1 '^' In religion, the early Christian movement seems to be an intro- 
verted one: beginning at a time of great differences in wealth, its [intro- 
version] was perhaps a social characteristic growing out of the extreme 
poverty of the people, as a denial of their external circumstances. [Later 
on] Luther seems to be a sample extravert, interested in his immediate 
environment and identifying himself with the masses ("^"^ as, for example, 
in his colloquial translation of the Bible, and his realistic table talk), '^'i' 
'^ Calvin, with his interest in the "noble Bible" and so on as an ideal, 
seems rather more introverted: '^' [concerned with] rational respectabil- 
ity, he turned within himself, to emerge with a formula [for attaining 
it]. [Presumably] he would not have been sympathetic with evangelism. 

'^' [In politics,] Robespierre seems to have been an introvert, who 
swayed the masses by [the power of an] idea rather than for himself. 
President Wilson, too, was an introvert: [at the close of the war, when 
the new boundaries of nations were to be decided,] an ethnological staff 
([including] Dixon of Harvard)''^ was taken to Europe but not con- 
sulted; [Wilson's] interest was in ideological principles. The actual, pica- 
yune details of the distribution of peoples were of little interest to him. 

'^'^- *■' In literature, [while we may tend to think of literary activity 
as typically introverted,] Dickens and Kipling come to mind as ready 
examples of extraversion. '''• The essential thing, for example with the 
businessman, is not how busy a man keeps with external affairs but 
where he finds his maximum enjoyment. 

r2. ri. qq. ck jj^ summary: the extravert identifies himself in his orienta- 
tion with his environment, ""^ and feels no difference between himself 
and the thing out there. •"'' ''^' '^ [To him] the principle must always be 
sacrificed for the facts. '^' ■■•' ^^ The introvert identifies himself with his 
own self-consciousness and abstracts from the environment that which 



Two: The P.wcholoi^y of ( iilnnc ^0.> 

he needs for ihe principles. '''•■ '' riuis llie introvert overlooks the spe- 
cific tacts tor the sake o{ selected general principles and control; the 
exlraxerl attends to the specific e\ents in their sequence simply as 
events. '•'' '' '- Among scholarl\ pursuits, history tends toward the ex- 
tremely e\tra\ert side; mathematics aiKJ conceptual science, toward the 
introNcrt. '''' Thurstone's work in psychology seems e\tremel\ inlro- 
\erted. with its complete emphasis on methcxl, precise defmitu>n. and 
complete lack of interest in practical problems or everyday values. 

'^- [As we pointed out earlier, however,] Jung's classification is descrip- 
ti\e. [not explanatory.] It cannot be used to explain beha\ior, as too 
many other factors, for example the symbolism c^l the situation, are 
also concerned. [The process of compensation, too. complicates any 
attempt to explain behavior as the direct result of personality type.) *''• 
^^ [For these reasons a strong note ot] caution [must be sounded against 
overenthusiastic applications of Jung's classification.] ''' "" Introversion 
and extraversion are to be evaluated not in terms of overt behavior, but 
in terms of subjective orientation - ^^ the personal subjective e\alua- 
tions of meaning peculiar to the individual in question.'^ I'ailure to 
realize this leads to half-baked'"* attempts to measure introversion and 
extraversion by means of psychological tests which are far too nai\e to 
be of value. 

^^ Actually, the whole concept o'i adjustment, as used b\ modern 
psychologists, is usually badly misunderstood, through a failure to real- 
ize the importance of subjective evaluations. " ''' [Moreover, adjust- 
ment is not just a matter of one's nature; one's] sociological outlook 
and balancing are [just as important] factors in the personalit>. *'' [Tluis 
we encounter the] pseudo-extravert: one who b> circumstance is driven 
to extraverled behavior, though he should by nature be a \sell-adjustcd 
introvert. [Similarly,] asocial behavior is ncc<\ b\ some who strive for 
external adjustment. [In short,] either •"extravert" or ■iniroverl" [as a 
personality classification] is devoid o\' value, except in terms ot vvhal 
culture demands. Jung makes the mistake o\ identilvmg [his tvpos)'^ 
with thought tendencies [alone, without lelerence to cultural form]. 



Junius " iu)h iii'ihil hpcs 

'"^1 Jung also classifies [personality] according to "functional types." a 
term that is not actualK verv suitable for them. '^- '' [He propiiscs four 



S(i(i /// Culture 

of these types:] the thinking, teehng, intuiting, and sensational, [grouped 
into] rational vs. irrational, thus [(see Figure 1)]: 



I^^"^^"g I Rational 
Feeling > 

'"•"'""8 Irrational' 

Sensational > 

[FIG. 1] 



'-'' [Like introversion and extraversion,] this personality classification is 
applicable at an early age. 

■■'• '^ These classifications are based not on the realm [of one's interests 
or activities.] but in the authoritative [psychological] function [govern- 
ing their value]. "" Thought, feeling, sense, and intuition are concepts to 
indicate the type of [psychological] control, authority, or underpinning 
advanced for holding one's professed interests. ^§' ^^ For example, [one 
might compare] these four "authorities" as four different [reasons, or] 
desires, for learning a new language. ^^ One [person has a] love for play 
with words [(this is the sensational type)]; ^^ another desires to know 
about the life, material culture, and so on of the people [who speak the 
language]; •^' one [person] learns languages which are symbols of au- 
thority for belonging to certain groups; ^' [and another has] an intuitive 
sense of form as such, '^s or an intuition that the language may later 
become important [to him]. [Each person engages in the same activity, 
but under the sway of a different "authority."] ^^ Each "authority" de- 
rives its strength from compensated or sublimated libido impulses - 
[presumably] in a genetic fashion, [although we do not know exactly 
how this works.]'^ 

""^ Jung's classification into functional types has been criticized, and 
justly so. "■'■ ^^^ "^^ [Taken] at face value the classification is absurd, be- 
cause its criteria are not comparable. "^^ (It is like [comparing] a red 
house and a gabled barn.) hi, md g^^- ^g should be charitable of the 
types nevertheless, for they are very valuable in that they emphasize the 
authoritative stamp in one's wish for the reality of an experience. "''^ 
Thus they stamp the kind of thing that gives things reality to people. ■"' 
In which kind of experience does value predominantly reside? This is 
what Jung really asks. Where Freud, moralistically, explains a malad- 
justed person by what has happened to him, Jung wishes to know how 
a person works. 



Two: r/ic Pwiholoi^y of (iilinrc 567 

'' [II slunilJ he iiolcJ iVoiii ihc siart, however, that ihe classification) 
must be redetined and reiiileiiireled. '•'' '■'• '' Junii's disliiictioii between 
rational and irrational cerlanil\ has to be redefined, [and we shall come 
to this shorth]. '•'' Putting the feeling and the tlnnknig types together 
seems to be his most iini^oilanl conn ibulion; '^ the contrast between 
the sensational and the rational is also important, [with its corollary 
that] '- '' the rational (intellectual) and feeling concepts nuisi be con- 
trasted Willi the sensational concept. •"•^'^•M'^i. ri x|-,t. iniuitne concept. 
howexer. I beliexe is on a differeiU plane from ihe oilier three. '*'• and 
needs to be seen as cross-cutting the other three classes. ''• '~ It applies 
to the rate of acti\ity or adjustment rather than the kind of values. 

'"'■' [Even more than the intro\erl/e.\tra\ert t>pes.J these types are rar- 
ely found in their pristine purilv. [Still, lei us examine them more close- 

( 1 ) '- '' "^^"^ The sensory type is the person who places a great deal ol 
emphasis on sensory experiences, and whose preferred \alues spring 
from experiences of a sensual order, '- such as eating and the palatal 
tastes, or the use of colors. "^^^ The significances of sensation are \er\ 
real, especially to children. Later in life, of course, sensation becomes 
symbolized; but when sensation [itself] becomes significant you ha\e a 
peculiar type of person. ''-• '"'■^'^ From the Freudian standpoint the sen- 
sory type seems to be somewhat of an arrested i\pe i. e.. ihey do not 
show the normal sentiments. Freud would say that ihe sexual interests 
of these people are prematurely sublimated in sensors impressions, or 
on a sensory basis. '- [Thus the type is not based on learning;] a person 
from a very dull background might grow into a \ery sensation-[on- 
ented] person, when the libido [is sublimated in this wax] when emo- 
tion enters into the sensational value, and it grows (as is p(>ssible) into 
a fetish. .lung believes that the sensational value might take the place 
of thought, if the person is given to sensing.' not thinking. 

■"- When Jung says this type is irrational, he probably refers to dis- 
equilibrated action. '' ""^ 1 would say, rather, that it is disoriented - loo 
greatly isolated from the totality of the problems o\' life. '' One cannot 
adjust well to life on the basis oi these [sensory] values only. ^^ If you 
establish your values on a sensory basis you are dealing with a limited 
world. ^'^ The organization o( pure sensation is irrational because it dixrs 
not connect you with the world an emotional world disintegrates into 
the sensational. '' "'^ The reason why such a person can adiust and 
survive at all is that society has placed value on his \alues It \alues 
[the sensory] to such an extent that, if he is good in his limited field. 



568 /// Culture 

socictN uill pav him for his product. ^'^ If not he has a serious personal 
problem ([as we often see with the] artist or musician, for example). 

^^ C^ilture is selective as to [its emphasis on] sensory values. At some 
periods in some cultures, no value is given to them. ^^ [Usually, how- 
e\er,l some sensations have a social validation of [their] meaning, in 
terms of convention, tradition, or literature (e. g., the scent of the rose, 
^^ which [combines] sensation plus a culturally left-over "aura" in Per- 
sian poetry and in the Romantic period).'^ ^^ other sensations, how- 
ever, have only a private meaning, and the individual swayed by their 
authority is the [real examplar of] the [sensory] type. The artist is typi- 
cal. ''' ''' Thus there is a social side to sensations, ^^ a "social history" to 
them, while the callous person who yields to the authority of a collec- 
tion of private sensations is self-indulgent, lacking social integration or 
social sympathy. ^^ Insofar as sensations are [only] privately validated, 
and because of the inherent disjunction of the various sense qualities, 
the sensational world is inherently an irrational or unordered one. 

■■'•'- As Jung says, this type can be intelligent. Its irrationahty - '-'' 
and the sensory type always has some quality of fragmentariness and 
irrationality - '' [lies only in its preference for] sensory values instead 
of sentiments. "^^ These people follow their sensory values, which are not 
the same as the sentimental values. "'^-''^ (Most human sentiments are 
really cultural artifacts, compulsions of a secondary nature.) [Yet, it 
might be worth remembering that what we often call] '"^' ''^' ^^ intelligence 
is really an after-the-event concept, a descriptive term applied after an 
individual has achieved a certain success. 

(2) '■^- ■■-• ■■'• ^' [In contrast to the sensory type, we have tho] feeling 
type, which I believe to be the normal ^* and most common ^^^ ^^^ ■■' type 
of adjustment. Jung calls this type "rational;" ''2' ■■• however, [these peo- 
ple] are actually in the grip of sentiment and feeling. '■^' "^^ They are 
"rational" only in that their thinking is tightly organized in the system 
of sentiments they have built up. "^ [Their] whole world of experience is 
organized according to feeling, ^s- '^'- ^^ derived ultimately from love and 
hate, husbanded and organized. ■■' Everything is fitted into [this system 
ofj evaluation - ""^ the person's feeling is completely implicative. "^^ 
Those who feel their way through experience, attaching a segment of 
love or hate to everything, cover the universe. There is nothing fragmen- 
tary about their attack. ^^^ ^i Where there is a high degree of organiza- 
tion, as for example in [the case of] Bismarck, this is probably traceable 
to a stable and satisfying emotional adjustment worked out in infancy. 



Two: The Psycholuiiy <V ( ulturc 569 

r2. ck. ri jY^Q normal chiki Ii\cs in very much this kind of world, where 
everything has an aura dI" emotional \alue. |liut most pei>ple do not 
retain this system in its entirety in adulthot)d.|-'" '' In language, for 
example, every word has emoiional \alucs according to its associations, 
•' ^"^ but children must di\est themselves of emotion towards words as 
they grow up. " Indeed, the whole o\^ culture is pervaded by feeling 
[associations in this way.] '^^'' Not all indi\iduals are able to break up 
this organization - this "highly organized feeling" that grous up in the 
mind o^ the individual. Thus, for cxami-tlc. if a person is bri>ught up 
and is li\ ing in a certain cultural environment, his attitude toward other 
cultures and environments must necessarily be prejudiced and moulded 
by the general ideas prevailing in his own culture. Hence the i>rigm and 
use of such terms as "tricky Oriental," "heathen Chinee."' He thmks 
he could not have got this without direct, sober experience, but as a 
matter of tact it is quite illogical. 

^^ [Actually, one's attitude toward other cultures might e\en make a 
suitable] test [distinguishing the feeling type o\' personalit> from the 
thinking type.] In response to a [request]-- to grade a list of nationalities 
in terms of likes, the feeling type usually does this easily, probably in 
terms of the emotional experiences of infancy and childhood, lor exam- 
ple, the Hindu is disliked because of an association with unpleasant 
infantile experiences, and so on. The thinking type, howe\er. seeing no 
reason for one preference rather than another, tliuls this [task] ditTi- 
cult.)--' 

r2. ri.ck jyiig'v^ [tvm "rational" [for this l\pc]. therefore, means scaled 
according to emotions. '- These people have a complete attitude 
towards the world, but little to say about it. as they feel. [In fact, what 
they say may derive only from a superficial rationalization and not 
represent their fundamental attitude at all.]-"^ ''' The declared opinions 
of intellectual people are not [to be] taken too seriously, except in a feu 
rare cases. Sometimes such people are apparenil\ quite radical, whereas 
in fact, they are conservative. ^'^ The realitx of the ratuMial "feeling" life 
(as Jung expresses it) may be exemplified b\ [the case ol] a friend o\' 
mine - a man who, for example, talks loud and long against prnate 
schools, yet he sends his son to one. [The other da>] he spoke \er\ 
vehemently against the proposal ol dropping Latin as a graduation 
requirement, but when asked for the reason for his stand, said he did 
not know wh\ he felt so. ''^ Dr. Samuel .lohnson is [another] goiKJ excun- 
ple. Though his philosophy was [acluall\ nonsense. j-"^ ne\erlheless b\ 
his d\naniic personalil\ he managed \o magnetize his circle (>f admirers. 



570 /// Ciilnnv 

[In its purer forms this kind o\ adjustment is not untroubled.] ' ' [A 
complete) loyalty to feeling judgements [can be a] strain. '- '' The desire 
for tra\el and other escape mechanisms, for example, is due to the fa- 
tigue that comes with too great a load of feeling. 

"(3) '-• ^i^- •' The thud type is the intellectual type, whose genesis is in 
the desire to soKe problems. ^^- '^' He finds unity and interest in verbal- 
ization m conquering the world and winning admiration through the 
displa> of \erbal facility, rationalizations, and command of the thought 
processes. *'' [He tries to] understand the world in [purely] rational 
terms,-" ^^' thinking the whole world will be righted if [its] illogical errors 
are onl\ pointed out. ''' He is the man who is calm in the face of disas- 
ter, [for the situation's] emotional charge is defused: he takes his father's 
funeral, for instance, as an opportunity to do scientific work.^^ '^^ •■' In 
his contacts with people, he divests the situation of its emotion, and 
thinks onl\ o{ the actual situation. ■■-• ■■' For example, he treats a shop- 
keeper only as a machine for solving a certain [problem, or carrying 
out a certain] function. '-'^ If you go through life thinking of people only 
in this instrumental sense, you have no free flow of feeling — ^^^ '"^ only 
intellectual attitudes toward functions. ^"^ The de-emotionalization of 
the objects in our environment is an intellectual act. You build up a rich 
world of observation and fact, with little investiture of feeling. But you 
cannot go about your daily business as though you were handling engi- 
neering problems. 

'^- '' In fact, a good deal of feeling is probably attached to these 
intellectual attitudes by a secondary process of rationalization. '^^ Per- 
haps [the whole intellectualizing process, and hence the personahty 
type.] is secondary. Yet, many [people,] and not [only] intellectual giants, 
are of this type, divesting situations of [their] emotional [associations] 
and thinking of people in an instrumental [way].-^ Often what passes 
as feeling, [for them,] is only an intellectual attachment to known sym- 
bols of feeling. They have only an intellectual attitude toward functions, 
never [actual] feelings. 

'' Rigorously thinking out [a problem,] and systematizing according 
to feeling, have the same organizing quality. ''^ [Perhaps we should say 
that] Jung's contribution [is to describe personality as] organization, '"'' 
'- [for the discussion of] these three types has stressed the organizational 
aspect. Each of them builds up a tight, complete attitude toward beha- 
vior and the universe. [In a sense] they try to be consistently reasonable. 
Actually, of course, type 2 and type 3 are interrelated. '^ A child starts 
out with a feeling attitude toward life, and gradually takes over much 



Two: riif rsviholnvv nl Ciilnii,' ^""1 

of the inlellectual allitiidc. '' Irom a J\iKimK siandpoint, these two 
types stand togellier. 

hi. ih. he. nui [j,^ ., v,^.,!^^. loo.] the iiilelliLieiKe o\ ihe ihiiikmy i\pc is 
dei"i\ali\e c^f fcai". In essence, this inteihgenee is nothing more than the 
alert response to a danger stinuihis or. better put. it is a highly clabiv 
rated, exaggerated, sublimated response to an\iet\ situations, such as 
the anxiety to eontrol the emironment. ''^ Consider, lor example, the 
person who sleeps little and wakes early, so as not to be "caught nap- 
ping": fear is the basis [of his beha\it>ial pattern]. Consider also the fact 
that among the members of a secure social class like the I:nglish gentry, 
where there is no anxiety about position or future, there is to be found 
great stupidity. Intelligence, therefore, is a method of controlling one's 
environment, due to fear or anxiet\ motixations. 

'■"'^ [It is not just that there is a "thinking type," then, but that] effective 
adjustment takes the form of thought. ^^- ' ' There are two appriKiches 
to the intellectual type: its rational adjustment, on the one hand (the 
well-adjusted aspect of this type), and the denudation o\' emotional 
content, on the other. '^^'^ Really they are both the same things. |but 
looking at the type in terms of emotional denudation shows us that >ou 
cannot be well adjusted if you carry this attitude to an extreme], feelmg 
and thinking go together; [for the best adjustment, you] must get an 
equilibrium between them. '^' Thus the feeling and thinking types are 
normally conjoined. Criminals, who are often found no\ to possess 
much feeling, are emotionally underdeveloped. 

'■"'^ Generally one thinks and feels at the same time. '' \\m are uncon- 
scious of when you are doing the one and when the other, and >ou 
often do both together. '-^- '^' But as thought has more prestige value 
than feeling, we call a lot of things thought that are realh feeling. ^- 
Thinking is often used to rationalize emotions, also. It is therefore the 
feeling type that tries to be most reasonable. '^' That is, those who [most 
strongly] insist they are reasonable are often most bound by feelmg. On 
the other hand, intellectuals often act casual because the> are afraid o{ 
being too reasonable. 

[Actually, our conception oi' fcc/liii^ is perhaps itself ambiguous.) '''• 
ri. r2. qq |^ i^,^'^ feeling that people differ in. but emotion, ''• '- which is 
merely the use and expression o\' feeling in behaMor.-"' '' Our capacity 
for emotion is physiologically the same, just as a man sitting on a chair 
all day has muscles though he does nol use them. However, what a 
person does with enunic^n is a different thing An emotional stale is ihc 
mental correlate of [physical] acti\it\; Jtluis he ma\ make use of his 



572 III Culture 

capacity for emotion or not]. "■'• '~ Many people tend to stifle emotion 
although they have a great amount of feeling. '^ Yet, there are also those 
who may seem insincere because their [expression of] emotion seems 
excessive. [Paradoxically,] the point [at which we interpret an emotional 
state as] indifference is not far from [the point of greatest] expressive- 
ness. 

'^'' Actually there may be more emotion stored up in the unresponsive 
individual, because the expression of feeling probably releases emotion. 
'' Those who are wont to show feeling in the ordinary [course of their 
daily life] do not store up emotional energy. An ordinarily stolid person 
may suddenly "blow up," '*'• while those who express feeling a great 
deal may actually often be quite callous. "■' We should not confuse emo- 
tion and feeling, therefore. "^"^ Jung seems to make this distinction, but 
perhaps it is not very clear. 

[Before continuing with Jung's fourth type, which I believe in any 
case is not on the same plane as the other three, let us reconsider his 
division of types into "Rational" and "Irrational." As I have suggested,] 
ch. ii. hi. bg. lb ^hat he calls "rational" and "irrational" personalities could 
better be explained as "organized" and "unorganized," ^^ a more useful 
terminology which avoids the paradox detracting from Jung's. [Jung's 
terms are too easily confused with rationalization and reasoning, labels 
that apply primarily to his third type, yet] ""^ his "feeling type" being 
classified as "rational" is an important contribution that he has to 
make. 

'- [Jung's] rational vs. irrational, [then, is not a question of intellectu- 
alism but] a question of organization and implications. ^§ Organization 
means harmony, the integration of a well-systematized universe, where 
taste and experience are blended through the intricacy and closeness of 
association. '^' We [all] read order into experience, [and select certain 
events as our] points of reference [for that order, but the points of 
reference differ, as does the ultimate coherence and accessibility of the 
system built upon them.] For the mystic who craves a divine order, the 
buzzing of a bee mirrors the rhythm^^^ of the Universe; [but other people 
will not evaluate the bee sound in the same way.] ^- People, things, and 
events have implications, but not for everyone, ^i if the sequences of 
events by which you establish order have only private meanings, '^ and 
if you work on these implications instead of reahties, you will be boring 
and you will hurt everyone's feelings. This is the "irrational" person, to 
Jung's way of thinking. He is often led by motives unknown to [the rest 
of] us, havmg a kind of necessity that leads him to do it. It has nothing 



Two: ihc J'.svchulo^y oj Culture 573 

to do with being right or wrong, it is [just] his preferred method of 
proceeding. 

•"- The thinking tiial insists on organization is ratunial. [whether or 
not it has anything to {\o with intellectual matters. Indeed, the success 
of our adaptation to society itself requires some measure o{ this kind 
of thinking.] The demands that society makes are highly cugam/ed. and 
it is hard for some people to keep track of this organization, although 
it is easy for others. Take the example of giving parties and inviting 
people: [knowing just what sort of party to give, and whom to in\ite. 
has actually quite a complicated social basis, and some people are much 
more attuned to these social intricacies than others are.] 

^'^ What Jung calls the "irrational" type, [then, as we have seen.) is 
not irrational [in the sense of] emotional [(as contrasted uiih reason- 
ing)]. What Jung means is a kind of irrationality that comes in the life 
of sensation and intuition. [It has to do with the completeness and 
coherence of the world one builds up.] One cannot build up an [unfrag- 
mented] world out of sensation, and hence [the sensational] type is irra- 
tional. [But Jung's assumption that he is dealing with basic tvpes o^ 
thought tendencies presents some difficulties -] '^' perhaps he has made 
too much of this thought business. "" ""^^ [First of all,] it should be remem- 
bered that Jung's primary classification is on the conscious le\el. [M*t. 
much of our discussion of feeling, rationalizing, and so forth has con- 
cerned an unconscious level as well - and the possibility of a dilTerence 
in the "authorities" governing the two. Moreover, Jung does not attend 
to the influence of the cultural configuration, and the sociological real- 
ity, to which the individual adapts.]^- '^ In spite of his terminology and 
the great number of his categories, [this question of] social and cultural 
[adjustment] gives us some left-over unclassituibles. [To cite examples 
we gave earlier, there is a great difference between] the Persian poet, or 
poet of the [European] Romantic period, [whose valuing of sensations) 
is socially integrated [and has a] social history, and the callous, self- 
indulgent, [or more truly rebellious] person who yields to the auihi>niy 
[only of his] collection of private sensations. '*' If the individual rests 
upon [private] sensational points o\' reference, he is a law unto himself, 
escaping socializing forces. -^^ "^'^ Such people are irrational because ihe> 
are injecting fresh valuations that are not accepted bv the majority. 
[But Jung's classification does not leave room for considering social 
acceptability, or the ways] sensation becomes ssmbolized. '' 

[Similar questions of acceptability arise elsewhere in the classifica- 
tion.] ^' Reasoning is not far from and nnght [e\en] be the same as 



574 /// Cuhure 

- rationalization, the ditVerence [lying only] in [our] acceptance of [their 
product: that is,] the acceptance of "reasoning'' and non-acceptance 
o{ -raiionali/ation;' '- Reasoning people rationalize everything.''-'^ We 
rationalize about ihc superiority of man over animals; a premise such 
as this is so universal that it is accepted by all, and as soon as someone 
questions it we rationalize it. [The contrast between the feeling type and 
the tlunking type is therefore much less obvious, in practical terms, than 
Jung supposes.] 

(4) '-■ ^''- '^ [Jung's] fourth type is the intuitive type, '^ not quite "irra- 
tional" and unordered as Jung would have it, but a new dimension - 
*"*= a difference o^ mode and rate of apprehension, as compared with 
ordinary comprehension; '^ or, alert thinking, as opposed to laborious 
thinking. '''• "'"^ When we say a person is a "good thinker," we [may] 
mean two contradictory things: one is alertness and rapid apprehension; 
the other is the rational configuration, the slow, plodding [process] of 
integrative thought. The fast [kind] is what Jung [calls] intuiting. ^^ Ac- 
cording to Jung, it means a direct apprehension - without thought - 
o\' total relations, due to the operation within the individual of a pri- 
mordial sense of integration. Animals are good examples: they often act 
intelligently without being intelligent. 

'-• '' The intuitive person is imaginative: he has a chronic inability to 
see things as they really are - "^"^ [that is,] to see something and see 
nothing more; he sees ahead to potentiahties.^^ ""^^ ""^ '^'' '^^ As an illustra- 
tion, [suppose you] see two lines, [as in Figure 2:] 



[FIG. 2] 

If you imagine the point at which the two lines meet, you are using 
mtuition. ^' The mathematician [is an extreme of this type: when he 
suggests that] parallel lines meet in infinity, he sees the point rather than 
the lines - by mathematical intuition, ^i. ib [Qr we might say that] the 
mtuitive mind is an historical mind, aware of all the relations that are 
locked up m the given configuration.^^ n, n intuitive people look ahead, 
and foresee their acfions, while non-intuifive people are afraid of impli- 
cations, and stay with their sensations. Intuitives are symbolic, '' for 



Two: The Psviholoiiv dl Culture -"'-' 

they cannot sec onl\ the facts prcscnlcJ as such. " \o\- ihc miuilivc 
type the awareness is o\' relations and not of entities so much. 

qq. ck, ri j\^^ (Jnitcd Statcs may be considered as having an miuilivc 
culture. ■' [at least] in the technical sense-**^ - "«'' always pro)eclmg a 
lillie more than can reall\ be managed, taking a chance, risking a lot 
in an attempt to realize some ideal. ' ' Vou take chances in order lo "gel 
in on the ground Hoor.'' ''''• '' A good politician must be intuitise: he is 
not interested in the status quo [for its own sake, but onl\ in) using ii 
as a starting point for changes hereafter. ''"• ''•^'^ The successful business- 
man and the successful playwright must both be intuitive, seeing and 
displaying the implications [of a situation]. ^^ ''^i A great playwright has 
to be intuitive because he has such a short time to put o\er his ideas. 
A good actor, too, must be aware of the implications or he can spoil 
the playwright's play. "^"^ Hence some great poets write poor plays, be- 
cause they are too much intoxicated by the sensory elements \o^ the 
situation]. '^^' "■'■ ^'' Some poets are intuitive, like Shelley and Blake - 
an intuitive person would like Shelley as a poet - while others are not. 
like the unintuitive Keats, who takes a sensory delight in words and 
confines himself to their sensory richness. 

ck, qq. ri. t2 j]^^ intuitive person therefore must be defined not b\ the 
nature of his values, but by his degree of awareness o'( a situation's 
implications, and his rate of response [to them]. '^' '-• ^'^ There is no 
content to intuition — it is, rather, a way of responding to a situation. 
^s Whatever its genesis, intuition is the direct awareness o\' relations. 

^^ Here, however, [we must propose] a modification of Jung's \iew. ^^ 
"^^ While Jung believes the intuitive type must be defined as a [separate) 
intellectual faculty, '^ a more primordial kind of apperception, to me it 
is a phenomenon of rate of apprehension - "shorthand thinking." in 
which minor elements merely don't appear explicilK in the conscunis- 
ness. "' The intuitive mechanism [is rather like the intellectual equivalenl 
of] getting on the night train at Washington and awaking to find \our- 
self in New Haven, [without being conscious of the points in between.) 
bg. md J believe that intuition is better to be conceived as a matter o\' 
general awareness of implications and relations, w hich extends into ail 
spheres of mental activity. ^^ It is a third dimension in individuals' cog- 
nitive-feeling life, [or perhaps] more a quantitative ciMicepi than a term 
to be applied to a special sphere of experience. ^"^ ^'ou can ha\e iniuiiives 
of all sorts, so this is [really] a criterion of a dilTerenl kind. 

'-• " Because intuition is [in large measure] merely a matter o^ rale, 
and the degree to which implications o\' lorm are made. I would not 



576 f^i Culture 

[consider] it as a special [personality] type. I would prefer Thinking 
Intuitive, Keeling Intuitive, Sensational Intuitive, etc., ^^ for one can 
well speak o( uuuilion in sensation, in thought, or in feeling. "^^^ ^2, ri, ck 
Even within sensory experience there may be intuitive acts: ^^ an exam- 
ple o^ an intuitive sensationalist would be an expert cook who can pro- 
ject the result o'i combining [taste ingredients to create a new dish,] ^^' 
ri. ck. hj: ^^p .J musical composer imaginatively reconstructing or planning 
ideal sensory experiences, '^ like Beethoven's almost obsessive search 
for the perfect theme. (Much of life, however, is spent in inhibiting [this 
kind ol] intuition.) 

qq. ri. lb |p j^^j [^Q ^^me way there is emotional intuition, and intellec- 
tual intuition, [the latter sometimes in conflict with non-intuitive think- 
ing.] ^^ ■' The history of science is a [continual] battle between these 
two points of view, [which we may call] the observationist and the Ein- 
steinian type (^' for Einstein is collossally intuitive, intellectually): '^'- ""^ 
[the type that] is interested in the unimaginative observation of facts, 
and [the type that] is interested in generalizations. The generalizations 
are derived from facts, but once a generalization is reached, the facts 
are disregarded and dismissed. ^^- '''^' ^^^ "^^ The most obvious instance of 
intuitive study is in mathematics, which gives one structures in which 
to fit facts until finally one can practically neglect the facts altogether. 
'^ Like great physicists who know the "critical" tests [to make before 
making them,] great mathematicians know the answers before they are 
proven, [by a process of] projection. ^' The geologist in the field [is 
another example of someone with an] awareness of total relations with- 
out all the data at his disposal. 

r2. ri.ck, lb Intuition, therefore, means an ability to respond to implica- 
tions rather than to experiences, '^ without [even] attending to all ele- 
ments of the situation. ^'^ [But its resuhs are not always pleasant or apt.] 
*''^- '^ [The extreme intuitive,] Ibsen's Brand for example, has the cruelty 
and ruthlessness of the idealist, [always] substituting total implications 
for immediate experience. And because intuition is an inexplicit, unver- 
balized, immediate sense of relations, [it may also give rise to] idiotisms. 
[The intuitive's thought may show] a sort of dissociation, a schizoid 
quality. 

[The question of social acceptability, too, is no less relevant to the 
mtuitive than to other types in the classification.] ^i [To people whose 
primary] loyalty is to experience, [intuitives] are disloyal Lloyd 
Georgers. [On the other hand, since society requires assumptions that 
are often counter to particular realities,] '^ loyalty to reality can be anti- 



Two: The Psychology ojC'ulturc 577 

social, as opposed to a loyalty to the "rationar' social [principles]. ''••'^ 
Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh [is an example of anti-social dis- 
loyalty, in its] protest against the bromide that parents are kind to ehil- 
dren. 



^i'' App/icanons of the Types 

^'1- '' [Let us consider (as Jung does)] some applications of the i\pes 
in [philosophy and in] literary work. ""^ According to Jung, all philo- 
sophers try to interpret God and the universe according to the thoughts 
and ideals of their early training and view of life. Thus Bergsonism is 
the philosophy of the sensational, while Dewey and James are very 
"thin" philosophers who try to be "hard-boiled." [The same process o\' 
personal interpretation applies in literature as well.] "•'• In [the work 
ot] Anatole France, for example, the intellectual quality appears most 
conspicuously at the outset; the contemporary rele\ance of his emo- 
tional adjustment, his revolt, makes it more and more difficult to enjoy 
his works. '• There is too much emphasis on the intellectual machinery. 
qq, ck, r2 yj^g samc is truc of Shaw, who is primarily an intellectual artist, 
expressing no feeling; ^'i- ^"•^' ' ' only Shaw is still more pri\ate, and one 
cannot identify with his characters except as ideas, because Shaw him- 
self does not identify with them - he simply invents them as ideas. '' 
His plays are a little hollow, "^^ for there is no emotional in\esimeni/" 
no participation in universal feelings. ([A work that does so participate 
can therefore transcend its time and place:] Oedipus is still of great 
interest, because he deals with human feeling.) 

qq, ck, r2 Conrad, on the other hand, shows the opposite extreme ot 
emphasis on the immediate reality of emotional experience. '- He is all 
feeling - he exhibits no intellect. '^^'^- '" He doesn't understand his own 
characters [in an intellectual sense,] but rather he is [just] aciuali/ing 
himself, for he has not transcended his own personal problems. He 
over-feels his characters: he is obsessed with Lord Jim. because he can 
never get away from his own anxiety. [Perhaps] Conrad is mmcing. lor 
he triturates your feelings too much. Henry James, on the other hand, 
would like to feel a little more authentically than he reall> does 

qq, ck, i2, ri jj^ Kcats wc scc a scusoiy poet, but one whose world ot 
sensory experience is heavily laden with feeling. Coleridge, in contrast. 
'^'^ though his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' is classical for its cvtKalivc 
value, 'i^- '-'''• '■-' '^ has less feeling attached to his sensory emphasis. ^*< 



578 iii Culture 

And here is indicated the independence of this valuational classification 
tYom the extravert-introvert classification, ^'i- '- ^''- ""^ For Kipling has 
perhaps equally a sensory emphasis, but it is quite extravert and objec- 
ti\e. whereas Coleridge is an introvert, his images singularly devoid of 
realistic content or context, even though they are quite clear. ""^ Herein, 
perhaps, lies the dilTerence between Coleridge and Kipling, or between 
Coleridge and Defoe, Stevenson, etc. as sensationalists. Let us take 
D'Annunzio and Coleridge: they are the arch-examples of extravert and 
introvert sensationalists respectively. In Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" 
there is not an image that is not entirely vivid, and yet it is [somehow 
not quite real.]"^' His sensations did not have to be real to be valid for 
him. but only the image of his sensations. D'Annunzio, on the other 
hand (or all extravert sensationalists), takes sensation as it is and identi- 
fies himself with it. Kipling would come under this class too."*- 

So it is possible to be maximally sensationalistic and yet introverted 
- in contradiction of Jung's early contention. As Lowes showed, Cole- 
ridge's images came almost entirely from his reading, not from his own 
imagination or his own sensory experiences. From the reading which 
satisfied his desire for exotic experience, he subjectively reassembled the 
imagery; but it remains literary, not re-evoking one's own sensations. 
Unlike Keats, Coleridge did not have a great wealth in his own experi- 
ence of sensations that were interesting to him. 

[Now. if we can apply Jung's classification to philosophers and liter- 
ary figures, might we not also apply it to other writers, including Jung 
himself? Perhaps a] ^^ comparison of Jung and Freud, [on the basis of 
Jung's typology, might shed light on some of the comments that have 
been made about their work. Thus] ""^ Jung, being of an intuitive and 
not of the intellectual type, and also having difficulty in finding words, 
has a rather poor machinery [for presenting his ideas]. (Language, [we 
might say, supplies the] "engines" in the theory of human intercourse.) 
But he has at his back a large mass of rich clinical material and experi- 
ence. The types are, [for him, a kind of] preservation of the ego; he 
places the personality in a world of values, each type being valuable in 
its own world. 

Freud, [in comparison,] has a clearer idea of mechanisms. More sche- 
matic in feeling, he disregards the self-preservative organism in an indi- 
vidual personality - and so he kills the personality in dealing with it. 
Freud is a better theorist and scientist, Jung a better clinician. A criti- 
cism of Freud may be that he thinks of adjustment as a simple unilinear 
process, when in reality it is not so."^^ 



Two: riic /'.sviholoi^v of Culture 579 

^^ [As regards thcl opposition lo Jung [within psycholog\. then 
whether it conies trom the l-'reudian school or elsewhere - ) there is 
much to be said for some o( his opponents' conclusions, such as Jung's 
inability to link up his theories with modern psycholoiiical lermmolo- 
gies. But he is. allcr all. a clinical physician untrained m the subtleties 
of academic psychology. ^^ In any case, the present task is to build up 
a powerful dynamic psychology that will function as an instrument o( 
analysis, lliat will come from a blending o\' psychoanal\sis with more 
formal psychological concepts. 



/ Siinmnirv / 

1923J xhose who have read Dr. Jung's "Collected Papers on Analytical 
Psychology" may remember that in an earlier tentative classification of 
types he was disposed to identify the introverted with the thinking, the 
extraverted with the feeling type. These \ery dubious identifications 
have now been abandoned [in his more recent work. Psyiholoi^lcal 
Types]. Dr. Jung is perfectly clear, and the reader will be with him. 
about the independence of a classification based on general attitude 
(extravert and introvert types) and one based on the specific functicMiing 
of the psyche. Whether Dr. Jung's theory of the existence o( four distinct 
functional types of personality is correct it would be ditllcult to sa>. It 
may be be that a given personality tends to find its way in the world 
chietly by aid of the intellect, of emotion, of intuiti\e processes, or o\' 
sensation; [1 would prefer to revise this scheme somewhat. But even if 
you accept it] •'^--^'- *-• ' ' it would be dangerous to erect the eight neatl\ 
sundered types that result from a crossing of the two points o\' view 
into a psychological dogma. ''^--' We may be quite certain that such a 
classification is too scholastic to prove entirely scuind and workable. 

''' [In their general outline, and without assuming they are exhausii\c. 
Jung's distinctions among personality types organized on the basis ol] 
sensation, thought, or feeling - [cross-cut by the dimension ol] intuition 
- are all probable, it seems to me. "'' [Just as with the mtro\ert-e\tra\ert 
classitlcation, however,] most of this [typology] is descriptive, not d\- 
namic. [Were we to try to explore the genesis o\' the lyjX's. we would 
have some difficult questions to answer, including the relation between 
the two classifications.] ''^- '' Since there is no causal relation between 
Jung's functional types and the introvert-extravert tspes (value (types)), 
[do they have an entircl\ dilTcreni genesis'.'] 



580 ^iJ Culture 

'- Probably there is some biological, inherited basis for [at least some] 
o\' these types. They are not entirely caused by environment. The prob- 
lem is what \ allies are to be attached to different kinds of phenomena, 
[and how does that association arise]? These values may be experiential, 
or thc\ mav be a product of one's nervous set-up. '''' The introvert- 
extravert [distinction] answers the question as to what sort of world 
you live in. based on [your] unconscious selection from the world of 
experience. '' [Perhaps this is] due to environmental determination, 
while the other types (feeling, thinking, etc.) compare more with the old 
idea of innate ability. These functional types [concern] preferred regions 
o\' experience, [based on] unconscious selections, [as opposed to the] 
value types."*"* 

'^' As an example of [differences in] value types, [consider two possible 
approaches to the study of language. The first is interested in] language 
as an abstract [system of] meaning; [the second goes] beyond language 
[to what we experience directly, namely] speech. The emphasis on one 
or the other [is a difference] in content, not orientation as in the func- 
tional types. The field of speech [includes such matters as] speech mel- 
ody ([i. e., is the melody someone uses] in a sentence when talking to 
you characteristic, [and if so, of what]?), and style ([i. e.,] to what [char- 
acteristics] are your [choices of) sentences or words attributed? to facil- 
ity, immaturity, to what [you have] studied, or imitated? [what about 
your] separation of words?) [What is of interest here is the totality of] 
the implications and significance of speech and gestures, and the enor- 
mous implicative power of individual experience. 

[Although the two analyses seem to be distinct, the study of language 
cannot ultimately rely on just one of them.] ^^^vh ^jf| personahty is 
largely retlected in the choice of words [(for example),] here too we 
must distinguish carefully the social vocabulary norm from the more 
significantly personal choice of words. Individual variation exists, but 
it can be properly appraised only with reference to the social norm. 
i927h ^g human beings do not exist out of society; on the other hand, 
we can never have experience of social patterns as such, however greatly 
we may be interested in them, ''^^vh Society speaks through the indivi- 
dual. [One or another approach may appeal to us depending on our 
own personality type, but neither has an absolute claim to the truth.] 

[Insofar as we look for cultural patterns and attend to individual 
experience only to abstract from it,] ""^ we [anthropologists] are obtuse 
about the implications of personality data. '^^ '^ [But are the psycholo- 
gists really any better off? For all their attention to it,] the psychologists 



Two: The Psvcholoi^v of Culture 581 

miss the vital pi\>blcm o\' pcrst)nalil\ the total \aluc set-up of the 
individual - since they persist in stiid\ing iVagnientary ps\ehoiogical 
processes [and ignore the cultural forms in terms of which the personal- 
ity meets the environment.]'*'' ''''^**'' Perhaps we social scientists who are 
always asking psychologists to aid us can be o\' assistance ti> them m 
suggesting reformations o\'^ psychological problems. I don't think il is 
too supercilious to suggest that the borrowing ncc(.\ not be all on one 
side. 



Editorial Note 

Sapir devoted a considerable amount oi' lecture lime to the material 
in this chapter, most of which consists of a review and critique of Jung's 
classification of personality types. In 1937 he spent at least three lectures 
on this subject: February 1, March 1, and March S. It liH^ks likels that 
there was another lecture, sometime later in March, in which he ct>n- 
cluded the discussion of Jung and moved on to culture and personalits, 
although indications in the student notes are somewhat confusing (at 
this point some of the notes appear to be out of order and they lack 
dates). In 1934 the relevant lectures are those of March 20 (second half). 
April 10, and April 17. The Taylor notes from 1936 are undated. I ha\e 
also drawn upon the Rockefeller Seminar lecture o\'^ February 16, 1933. 
on the "Theory oi' Personality Variations (Jung and I'reud).*' notes 
taken by T. P. Chitambar (CH). 

The reader is also referred to Sapir's review of .lung's Psyclwhjiical 
Types (1923J), and to the 1926 Hanover Conterence paper, "'Notes on 
Psychological Orientation in a Given Society" (199Sa). 



Notes 

1. Note that C'H has: "Jung's study is a personal and cau.sal one but not a strictly MTicniiric 
one." 

2. BG has "set ups." 

3. Note that Sapir does not necessarily mean 'hcreditarN" when he speaks oi the "geneti- 
cally determined." 

4. HI has: "apperception - varies in learning -". BG has: "Varying scnsitiviiy lo ohjccls 
in en\irtMinient." 

5. HI has "identify" (the object, not the self) 

6. Here meaning "hereditary"? 

7. The review of Jung actually reads: "Not until the last page is turned hack docs one full) 
realize how extraordinary a work one has been reading. Il is oflen dry. it is somelimcs 



582 ill Culture 

impossible to follow, and it is never very closely reasoned, for Dr. Jung accepts intuitively 
as given, as elementary, concepts and psychological functions which others can get at 
onl> by the most painful oi syntheses, if indeed they can find a way to some of them at 
all. But it is a fascinating book.'" 

8. Rl has: "The introvert blots out the environment except for what he chooses and turns 
on himself." 

9. Rl adds: "Feeling of growth with denudation." This note about the introvert is juxta- 
posed with: "extravert; identification with the world of activity (Value in face of denuda- 
tion of personality)". 1 surmise that Sapir meant that the introvert experiences a feeling 
of growth of the personality with denudation of the environment; the extravert, the 
reverse. 

10. LB adds: "Formulae; extravert capitalist, laissez-faire: introvert socialist, small sacrifice 
to release mean of expression and personality freedom." 

11. Rl adds: "Ibsens "Brand" - introvert" 

12. Roland B. Dixon (1875-1934). 

13. In his 1926 presentation to the SSRC Hanover Conference, "Notes on Psychological 
Orientation in a Given Society" (1998a), Sapir made a similar point: "It [(compensation)] 
means, then, you can't tell whether a person is extraverted or introverted by a simple 
study of overt behavior. That is where many make drastic mistakes. If your whole culture 
is extraverted, it has a bias. Any individual has to be very extraverted in order to count 
as extraverted. Kinds of compensations that are habitual will need to be of different 
types in different individuals. I have sometimes arrived at conclusions that are different 
than those overtly suggested. I am thinking of a certain individual who would generally 
be considered introvert. I am convinced he is an extravert. He is playing up to an intro- 
verted society, to an introverted orientation familiar to him in childhood. His compensa- 
tions are of a kind that need a certain kind of cultural knowledge to understand. If you 
carry these ideas to a logical conclusion, you will see, alarmingly enough, that psychol- 
ogy, psychiatry, all practical things we are interested in as to personality, are very much 
more involved with the problems of social science than we had thought." 

14. This word actually looks like "half-pie." 

15. HI has "int." (introvert, etc.?) 

16. BG has: " - in genetic fashion?" Again, Sapir probably means "developmental." 

17. T2 has "feeling." 

18. LB has: "Irrational (unordered) in spite of terminology and great number of categories 
give us socially culturally left-over unclassifiables for some: odor of rose - sensation, 
plus 'aura' (Persian poetry. Romantic Period)." 

19. LB has "nativists." 

20. The bracketed material is derived from a later statement in R2: "A child starts out with 
a feeling attitude towards life, and gradually takes over much of the intellectual attitude." 
See below. 

21. Here Sapir referred his audience to the writings of Bret Harte 

22. BG has "plea." 

23. BG adds: "Type typography. Perhaps possible to diagram this by getting responses in 
terms of definite individuals on gamut (1) bowing situations - friendly thru' to formal; 
on gamut (2) luncheon situations, inviting individuals to lunch, formal or informal - 
and linking up points on gamut scale." 

24. The bracketed insertion is based on the following material from CH and a later statement 
in R2: "Thinking is often used to rationalize emotions... It is therefore the feeling type 
that tries to be most reasonable." BG, too, has: "Feeling type: feelmgs primary, reasoning 
used to rationalize feelings." 

25. BG has "his philosophy punk," i. e. bunk'' 

26. HI adds: "(A R Brown)." 



Two: The T.sycho/oi^y of ( uliurc 583 

27. It is not actually clear which type - if only one - this passage in HI rcfcns lo It read* 
as follows; "3 Warm personality - man who is calm in lace of disaster - lake fs funeral 
as opp. to do scientific work instead (emotionality in control) of escape from work - 
emotional chge defused - all thought animated - continually emotional!) charged 
fcclinfi type vs. - emotional type: (feeling t\pe| niM nee. emotional -" 

28. Rl has: "Divestment of situations of emotional equipment Iliinking of people in instru- 
mental strain." 

29. It is clear that at this point Sapir distinguished between internal emotion and its expres- 
sion, but the notes contradict each other as to which of these he called "emotion" and 
which "feeling." Thus R2 has: "People diflcr in emotion rather than in feeling limotion 
is mciel\ the expression of feeling...", while C"K has: "It isn't emotii>n that people differ 
in but feeling, the use and expression of emotion in behavior." QQ has: "If leeling is the 
free use of emotion, then it is in feeling that people differ significantly." Rl has both 
R2's "People differ in emotions rather than in feeling. Emotion is merely the exprc-ssion 
of feeling," and, later, after the discussion of indilTerence and expressiveness, "DilVerencx 
not in emotion but in feeling." 1 believe the first (R2's) is the general ptiint and the 
second applies only to the indilTerence vs. expressiveness point. 

The 1933 notes emphasize control rather than expression. BG has: "Feeling should 
not be confused with emotion, rather it is controlled emotionalit). (anecdote of man 
who called to bedside of dying father, put in time working at an article) emotion doing 
the work of thought." LB has: "feeling is emotion in control, no reservoir of undiffused 
inoperative emotion". See also HI notes quoted in a preceding footnote. 

30. HI actually has "rhyme". 

31. HI (who has the expression "thought tendencies" in an earlier passage) adds: "are there 
spooks?" 

32. The second bracketed sentence comes from BG's discussion (drawn upon earlier in the 
chapter) of the genesis of personality types: "...does the cultural configuration itself 
infiuence basic personality types? Jung gives no answer to these questions;" Tl's discus- 
sion of "sociological reality" ("Sociological outlook and balancing are factors in person- 
ality. Sociological reality versus any other reality is essentiall) what intro\ersion and 
extraversion are"; and T2's discussion (just above) of the individual's ability lo keep 
track of the organization of society's demands. 

33. HI adds; " attitude to smiles - 'cheeses'." 

34. The full passage in CH reads: "... One cannot build up a world out o'i ^ md 
hence it is irrational. (It should be remembered that Jungs pnmar> classii - on 
the conscious level.) The significances of sensation are very real, especially lo children: 
later in life, of course, sensation becomes symbolized - and when sens;iiion becomes 
significant you have a peculiar type of person. These sensations may be either of ihe 
feeling, sound, or visual type - such people are irrational because the> arc iniecling 
fresh valuations that are not accepted by the majorit> Bcrgsonism is the philosophs of 
the sensational." 

35. T2 actually has: "Rational people are reasoning people, they rationali/e e\cr>thiiij; 

36. Rl adds: "Intuition - to Sapir a definite concept". 

37. LB adds: "(Spengler's dionysian? Lewis' 'time' man')" 

38. Rl has: "(in tech. sense)". 

39. At this point Sapir referred the 1933 class to his work on phonetic s>mbi>lism ("A 
Study in Phonetic Symbolism," 1929m). HI has: "Sapir on phonetic symbtMisms - also 
Newman! " LB has: "mi. la = stream, symbolism bogus thinking with inner consisiency." 

40. CK has "feeling investment". 

41. CH actually has "sensational" here, but the passage diKs not make sense with ihal word. 

42. CH adds: "(See Machen. A.: The Hill oj Dreams)" . 



584 lit Cull lire 

43. CH continues. " According: to Jung, feeling is not emotion, but it is an effective manifesta- 
tion o\' experience of the individual. For Jung, there is not much significant difference 
between the total emotional experience of different people." It is not clear whether this 
passage still represents a comparison with Freud. 

44. At this point. Sapir evidently gave an illustration from the study of language. What 
follows is an attempt to reconstruct this, but the result is quite doubtful, since the passage 
is represented onl\ by a few sketchy notes in Rl. After "Value types," Rl has: 
"Language - abstract - meaning 

Speech - beyond language 

emphasis on one or other - in content (not 

orientation as in functional types) 
Field of speech 

Speech melody (charact..? is it) in a sentence 
when talking to. 

Style 
[two lines of illegible shorthand, perhaps reading:] 

To what are your sentences or words — 

[attributed??] facility immaturity 

studied imitated - separation of 

words 
Implications & significance of speech 

gestures 

Enormous implicative power of individual experience 

45. The bracketed material comes from the immediately following material in R2 and CK, 
which continues on the anthropological side of the contrast between psychologists and 
anthropologists, and between the study of personality and the study of culture. (See the 
beginning of the next chapter.) I have decided to divide the chapters at this point, but it 
does not coincide with the end of a lecture. Some lecture, probably an undated one from 
late March 1937, begins with this last section ("Summary...") and continues into the 
relation of personality and culture. 

46. Next to the terms Rational and Irrational, LB actually has "(organized)" and "(unorga- 
nized)", respectively. Since those parenthetical labels are Sapir's rather than Jung's, I 
omit them from this initial passage where Sapir is presenting Jung's own terms. 



Chapter 9. Psychological Aspects of C'liluirc 

[The Difficulty of Delimiting!, a BoumUny Hciwcen 
Personality and Culture f 

'-• '' [If the psychologists' study of personahty is deficient because] 
they persist in studying only fragmentary psychological processes, 
[omitting the cultural dimension,] the same is true in culture: [there too] 
we study fragmentary data. ""^ [As I have said,] we [anthropologists] are 
obtuse about the implications of data [that pertain to] personality. [The 
trouble is that both psychologists and anthropologists generally draw a 
sharp line between their disciplines and fail to recognize the o\erlap. 
even identity, of the problems they study.] 

1934c j^Q failure of social science as a whole to relate the pattern^ o( 
culture to germinal personality patterns is intelligible in \iew of the 
complexity of social phenomena and the recency of serious speculation 
on the relation of the individual to society. But there is growing recogni- 
tion of the fact that the intimate study of personality is o\' fundamental 
concern to the social scientist. ''^'''*'' [Indeed,] there is no reason w h\ the 
culturalist should be afraid of the concept o\' personalii), uhich iiuinI 
not, however, be thought of, as one inevitably does at the beginning of 
his thinking, as a mysterious entity resisting the historically given cul- 
ture but rather as a distinctive configuration of experience uhicli tends 
always to form a psychologically significant unit." 

[Thus the psychiatric view of personality as a configuration in Nshich 
experience is organized in a system of psychological significance might 
also be applied to the problem of culture. So, for example, \shen ue 
propose that] '' distinctions in nuclear attitudes are due to a ditTerence 
in [one's] concept of a thing, [we might be speaking about personality 
or we might be speaking about cultiiie.] ^^ [The attitude comprised in 
the individual's nuclear personality has an analogue in a cultural atti- 
tude, or what we might call] cultural loyalties loyalties imbibed from 
your own culture which make you a little insensitive to the meanings in 
different cultures. You are obtuse to meanings that are not welcome. 
that do not fit into the old scheme oi things.^ 



586 liJ Culture 

ck. r:. ri \:yo\w the personalistic point of view, the whole field of culture 
can be regarded"^ as a complex series of tests for personality - '^' '^ tests 
o\' ways in w hich the personality meets the environment. ""^^ '^ All cul- 
tures ha\c the potentiality o'( psychological significance in personal 
terms." That is, '' '"^ the totality of culture offers endless opportunities 
for the construction and development of personality through the selec- 
tion and reinterpretation of experience. '^-'^ [Conversely, too,] the total- 
ity of ciihurc therefore is interpreted differently according to the kind 
oi personality that the individual has. ''- "^ [Consider what happens 
to a person upon] entering a new cultural environment: the essential 
in\ariance <>{ personality makes one alive and sensitive to some things 
and obtuse to others - [depending upon how the] new environment 
[matches up with] pivotal points from the old. "^^ [Your] awareness of 
certain things in a new cultural [setting] is a test of the old one, [a test 
of what the old one's pivotal points in fact were.] 

ck. r2. ri jj^g study of ctiqucttc is [another] good way to [approach the 
relationship] between personality and culture, for it is a field that unites 
the field of culture and the field of personality. •■' Its conventional forms 
[are clearly] goods of a highly cultural kind, [yet these forms are manip- 
ulated by individuals for the most personal purposes.] •"- How should 
we delimit the boundary between personality and culture [here] - be- 
tween the cultural form and the individual attitude? *■' [When the same 
forms evince both] the permanence of cultural dogma, on the one hand, 
and the expressiveness of the individual, on the other, '^^ it is difficult 
to know just what you are dealing with. ^^ [The study of] family rela- 
tions, or of clothing, [would be other good examples of fields with sim- 
ilar problems.] """^ There is nothing vainer than to classify [such cultural] 
organizations unless you know their psychological correlates. Some or- 
ganizations may divide up into quite different segments. 

'-• ■■' The relation between personality and culture - [that is, on the 
level of observable behavior, between] behavior [expressing the personal 
concerns of the] individual and behavior [expressing] cultural [forms - 
has become] my obsession.^ 



I Attitudes, Values, and Symbolic Structures as Cultural Patterns]' 

''• ""^ [In order to approach the problem of culture and personality, 
then, let us begin with a] characterization of culture in psychological 
terms - '^ [or, to put it another way, with an exploration of the] psycho- 



Two: r/w Psycholoi^y of (uliniv 587 

logical aspects of culture. [Even the anthropologist who thinks of cul- 
ture as an assemblage o\^ traits niighl t1nd something o\' the sort on his 
list, for] " certain attitudes are defmite trails o\' a culture. '-• ^^- '' A 
distinguishing characteristic of American culture is our businesslike alti- 
tude: an insistence on clear business objectives and an eUlcient eco- 
nomic organization, ^"^ and our consciousness of the blueprint and of the 
organization of time. " [The concept ot] "self-help." and [the associated) 
tendency to action, [are similarly part of the] American [attitude.) 

" Can one go a little further in defming a culture from a quasi-psy- 
chological point of view? [Perhaps] a culture can be looked at as having 
a psychological imprint. [Just as] we can say that the member o( a 
society belongs to a certain race, and the biological elements tend to 
express themselves in that way, we can also say thai ceriam cultures 
have an ideal program that the participants tend t(^ realize. They ha\e 
a role, culturally imposed. [When 1 mention the expression oi racial 
elements, however, I do not mean to suggest that a culture's "psycholog- 
ical imprint" has a biological basis, only a certain analogy between the 
two processes of program and expression. Whether] there can also be 
interaction between the two [kinds ofj elements [is a problem to be 
investigated with careful study, not assumed from the start.) [for in- 
stance,] is the [relative] humorlessness oi" the Indian [ at least from 
our point of view -] a racial characteristic or is it a cultural laci.' [.At 
this stage] I do not [think we can] know.]^ 

" [Many aspects of individual experience thai uc are aecusUMiicu lo 
thinking of as entirely personal must turn out, if this point o\' \ lew is 
consistently adopted, to have a cultural basis. Even) dream formations 
are a cultural fact. We are ashamed to admit the t>bsessi\c \alue of a 
dream; primitive peoples are not. [For them] dreams are prognostic. 
[We need not take that evaluation of dreams literalK in order to recog- 
nize that the content of dreams and the evaluation of their significance 
are culturally shaped. Similarly,] the moii\c ot" rc\enge is a cultural fad: 
in certain cultures you are expected to [take] rexcnge. more than in 
others. [We might even ask,] to what extent, [m a given culture.) is 
inhibition or sublimation possible? [This exleni) will be dilTerent in dif- 
ferent cultures. [For example, characteristics evaluated as) • renimine'* 
are so resented in the male, in America, that the artist, who is [(in terms 
of such characteristics)] hermaphrodite, is blinked and has difllcults in 
developing himself 

"" [We must acknowledge, therefore, that main ot the] •"motives"" and 
dynamic unconscious "wishes'"' o\' the indi\idual [derive from) cultural 



5SS lU Culture 

palicrns [and reactions to them. How this works may be quite complex. 
Consider, for example.] the reactionary "Humanists'" hatred for Rous- 
seau - an opposition between pattern and protest. Thus we have the 
traditional man who is aesthetically comfortable in his vested psycho- 
logical and cultural interests versus the trauma-driven innovator who 
meets life immediately, extra-culturally, and afresh. [But innovation is 
not always extra-cultural, however much the traditional man may see 
ii that way.] Romantic [revolt becomes a pattern in its own right,] in 
opposition to the classical [scheme.]'^ 

^■^ This characterization of a culture [- in terms of patterned atti- 
tudes, motives, and values -] helps you to understand the lives of in- 
dividuals and their relation to each other. ^^^ '^^' ""^ For example, take a 
personal situation like two people [entering] a subway: each wants to 
pay his own way, his own carfare. '^^ Culture manifests itself in this 
situation, '^' for there is a principle of economic independence and [of 
what constitutes a] debt relation [that is demonstrable] ^-^ in the balance 
of how individuals spend money.'' ^^ In the countries of continental 
[Europe there would be] a different attitude.'- "^^ This is a system of 
value; and there are peculiar systems in each culture. "^ In Italy, [for 
instance, we find a systematic value in] expressiveness; in Japan, in the 
evaluation of sensation; in China, in [the relatively] httle solicitude to- 
ward salvation. 

'- These are the patterns of culture, and they are at a different level 
than ordinary psychological behavior. [It is not that personality has no 
bearing upon them:] ""^ the solution of conflict, for example, is also 
affected by personality, [not only by cultural form. But it would be 
impossible in any case to assess personality utterly independently of 
culture.] Knowledge of the culture gives you a point of reference. You 
know what is the expected behavior; [only in relation to this can you 
interpret what the individual actually does.] "^ [Consider, for example, 
a clinical case of "neurosis": a girl patient engages in a ritual in which 
she throws shoes at a door.'^ Now, if you are going to say that] the girl 
who threw shoes at the door [was "neurotic," you] have to know that 
throwing shoes wasn't the culturally-patterned reaction to the situation 
- [that it involved, instead,] a refusal to accept culture, [and a creation 
of a] personal [system of] tabu and rituals. Neurosis is definable only in 
terms of a culture, which is implicitly present and acknowledged by the 
clinician. It is not explicit, [but it is crucial nonetheless.] 

""^ Anthropology has a great deal to teach psychiatry, therefore. ""^^ '^ 
The psychiatrists make the mistake of ignoring social factors, [espe- 



Two: The P.sychi)/i)i^y of ( ultinc 589 

cially] the different balances of values in different cultures. '■'' In fact. 
they are usually unaware of what the cultural \alues are. ''•'■^ It is a 
fallacy [to conduct] a personality analysis without a sociological and 
cultural analysis first, for only after the cultural analysis can you realK 
understand the personality. '' But psychiatrists set up a universal norm 
[of behavior] without considering this point. 

[Of course, we can turn this argument arcnmd as well, for] '•" there is 
never a simple dichotomy between individual personality and culture. 
[From the individual point of view.] aclLiall\. ciiluirc elements are mer- 
ely symbols which enter into the total personality. ^'^ Culture only lakes 
account of the symbolism of behavior in the social sense; [there are 
other symbolisms, and (especially) attitudes toward symbolisms, which 
are personal.] Personality conflicts go beyond the plane of culture, [and 
we shall have a good deal more to say about this. For the time being, 
however, the point is that on the individual level] there never can be a 
mere expression of the cultural pattern. Personality always enters in. ^' 
"^•^ The dichotomy between culture and personality is not real, because 
they reinforce each other at all points. 

ri, r2, ck jj^ understanding culture [and its connection with the person- 
ality, however, it is not sufficient to consider only the particular symbols 
themselves.] The placenicnt^'^ of symbols is the important point of \iew. 
■"' For example, [think of] a good singer [who performs] an operatic ana 
at an evening at the opera. •"'• "^^ [Now, the idea] that opera is a high 
form of culture is one of the values accepted by all. But if the singer, 
unasked, bursts into song at a tea party, the situation is dilTercnt. '' 
[The aria] is the same cultural form, but in a ditTerent placement. .At the 
tea, music exists only as something to be referred to. [not as beha\ ior to 
be engaged in; and this distinction is often oxerlooked] '•'' If you had 
asked any member of the party which they thought more important, a 
well sung aria or a tea, the answer would be the aria. But this is not 
taking cognizance of the placement of symbols. The question cannot be 
answered in the abstract, but must take into consideration time and 
place. The singer at a tea is not a singer [here and now]; she is a symbol 
of an important value outside, and is part of the ritual of the tea party. 
The singer as such is a point of reference in ihc formalits ot the lea 
ritual. 

'•■'' Absolutists, [attempting to deternnne the signihcaiKc i-i .1 i>cha\- 
ioral form like the operatic aria,] confu.se contexts; the\ i.\o nol place 
symbols. Most of us are absolutists if caught olT guard. But in that 
situation music did not exist, except as a symbol to be referred to. In 



59U m Culture 

that context it was [not appropriate as behavior, only as] a point of 
reference. 

^'^ '' Most of our references are highly symbolic, [and the placement 
o\' these symbols in relation to one another is complex. This] structure 
of symbols makes it difficult for us to see the facts of our society and 
our cultural environment straight. •■' [Just as] the configuration of ele- 
ments in a spatial structure [may obscure our perception of any one of 
those elements individually, so] ""^ are we far from seeing our cultural 
environment [directly, except through this lens. In a sense it is a configu- 
ration of illusions:] '-'' it is the mapping of symbols that makes it possible 
for us to be mean to each other when we want to be nice - [that makes 
it possible tor our behavior to be interpreted in some way other than 
what we intended - and creates a pyramid of misunderstandings that 
we hold about one another.]'^ In a crisis, like the European war, such 
illusions are shattered and the pyramid of symbolisms falls. ^^ 

'■'' [We are confronted by many contacts in ordinary life^^ in which 
commonplace misunderstandings provide] examples of the placement 
of symbols. Suppose that A owes B, the head of a great business, 
twenty-five cents. A might want to pay B, but B says, "No, we will send 
you a bill." To him, taking the twenty-five cents would be misplacing 
symbols, because B at that moment was not B the [representative of 
the] business but Bill, a friend; and the idea of receiving the twenty-five 
cents out of context was upsetting. [In this incident A and B differ in 
their interpretation of the placement of the symbol, the twenty-five 
cents.] '^'- ^^ Not all people always interpret the placement of symbols in 
the same way. 

[Perhaps it is not too fanciful to derive from our little tale of A and 
B some moral for those who like to think of] ""^ the "necessary history" 
of man [and his conflicts.] The needs of the biological organism are few, 
compared with the complications [introduced by] culture. But if culture 
complicates the satisfaction of biological needs too much, there comes 
resentment and anger, and the pyramid of cultural symbols crashes - 
[making way for] new cultural understandings, new complications, an- 
other crash, and so on. [Conflicts and crises, then, may go beyond the 
plane of culture'^ but they cannot be fully understood except in terms 
of the relations of individuals to one another through the medium of a 
structure of complicating, and sometimes misleading, cultural symbols. 
This is not, incidentally, the view taken by the authors of most ethno- 
graphic monographs.] The robots in ethnographic monographs don't 



Two: The Fsvcholoiiy ol C'ultun' 591 

care; they jusl di> what lhc\ do, while cull inc. (by some myslenous 
means.] ''resolves'" the conllicts. 

[It would be equally mistaken, howeser, to suppose thai cultural s>m- 
bols, even a lack of agreement on the placement of symbols, must neces- 
sarily lead to conllict any more than to its resolution.) '' "'^ Although 
people do not agree in their placement of symbols, two dillerent people 
may live in harmony without really meaning the same things. The\ may 
even do the same things but have them mean entircls ditTerent ihmgs. 
What is necessary for them to share is only a minmial understanding, 
concerning the mechanics o^ the situation. ' ' [They may thus appear to 
agree quite profoundly, yet] their agreement is. [in a sense.] spurious, 
for it is without any analysis of the situation. 

r2. ri. ck Yqu get, therefore, two kinds of sliding scales: 

(1) The sliding scale of the placement of symbolism within a cultural 
pattern — for the symbol may be of high value or low \alue, depending 
on its situation; and symbols are placed in different positions in dif- 
ferent cultures. 

(2) The sliding scale of the placement of symbolism according to per- 
sonal (individual) values. '' [As we have said,] not all people interpret 
the placement of symbols in the same way. People make use of s\mbols 
in order to satisfy their own personal needs, [which may. o\' course, 
differ. Even] the same person can have different reactions to culture, 
according to [his or her] personal reactions to the placement of symbols. 
ck. ri [-^iij there are also differences in] the degree of personal participa- 
tion, in an emotional sense, in the cultural situation. 

'' Thus the placement of symbols in context [points up] the fallacy o{ 
[claiming to] observe the psychology of a culture, [as such] fhe ps\chol- 
ogy of culture only arises in the relations o\' indi\ iduals; the psychology 
of ^/ culture means nothing at all. 

[If we take these discussions seriously we must conclude that) '' the 
implication of much o^ the social-psychological literature ni>w being 
produced is a bit mischievous. [It confuses the two kinds of scales.) and 
'^ their different strata of "givens." '^' '- '"^ This is what Mead and Bene- 
dict do - they confuse the indi\ idual psychologs o\' all members o{ a 
society with the "as-if psychology of a few. I use the term "as-if 
psychology" to describe the process o\' projection o{ personal \alucs by 
the individual to evaluate cultural patterns, [so that a cultural standard 
of conduct is seen as if it represented the expressuMi o\ a personality. 
This is a metaphorical identification,]'" "' not to be interpreted literally. 
''^■'*^'' The presumptive or "as if psychological character of a culture is 



592 lit Culture 

highly determinative, no doubt, of much in the externalized system of 
attitudes and habits which forms the visible "personality" of an indivi- 
dual.-"' It does not follow, however, that strictly social determinants, 
icndmg, as they do, to give visible form and meaning, in a cultural 
sense, to each of the thousands of modalities of experience which sum 
up the personality, can define the fundamental structure of such a per- 
sonalitv.-' 



22 



Culture as "As-If Psychology 

[Now, before we continue with our discussion of psychological as- 
pects of culture, a note of caution must be sounded.] ^^' '^^ The term 
"cultural psychology" is ambiguous, ^^' ^^ and there has been much 
confusion between two types of psychological analysis of social beha- 
\ior. '^'^- '" The one is a statement of the general tendencies or traits 
characterizing a culture, '^' such as the pattern of self-help in our culture; 
[as we have pointed out,] different cultures do have certain delineating 
factors, '■'• •■- [including attitudes and] psychological standards about 
emotional expression. "^"^ The other is a statement of certain kinds of 
actual behavior, [by actual individuals,] related to these cultural pat- 
terns. ''•'''' [In other words it is a statement of] the individual's psychol- 
ogy, and the problem of individual adjustment [to a cultural setting.] ^^- 
'' (This confusion is to be found, for instance, in the seven articles by 
psychiatrists about to be published in the American Journal of Sociol- 
ogy?^ Alexander and Sullivan keep level-headed in their attempts to 
relate psychiatry and the social sciences, but some of the others are 
rather confused.) ^''^ These two kinds of psychology are not the same 
thing, but are in intimate relation with each other. '^ [Moreover, the 
second kind has a further ambiguity, which perhaps we can see if we 
consider the notion of the individual's] "integration." What do we mean 
by [this term?] An adjustment to society, on the one hand - or the 
[coherence of the] thought, ideas, etc. of a man as seen by him, on the 
other hand? The same things can integrate or dis-integrate two different 
men. 

[If the idea of a "cultural psychology" is so tangled, ought we to 
speak of such a thing at all? In a sense perhaps we ought not. Strictly 
speaking,] ^'^ '^2. ck culture, in itself, has no psychology; only individuals 
[have a psychology. On the cultural plane] there is only [what I call] the 
"as-if psychology": >■'' '^ that is to say, there is a psychological stan- 



Two: The Ps\ch(ilt>\iv ol Culture 59^ 

dard"'* in each culture as to how much emotion is to be expressed, and 
so on. '- This is the "as-if psycholou\ " whicli belongs to the culture 
itself, not with the individual personality. "'' (If we call this a "psychol- 
ogy" we are speaking] as //this scheme of life were the actual expression 
of individuality. ''^-*'^'' The danger o\~ [too literal an interpretation of 
this process] in the social formulations of the anthropologist and the 
sociologist is by no means an imaginary one. Certain recent attempts, 
in part brilliant and stimulating, to impose upon the actual psychologies 
of actual people, in continuous and tangible relations to each other, a 
generalized psychology based on the real t>r supposed psychological 
implications of cultural forms, show clearly what confusions in our 
thinking are likely to result when social science turns psychiatric with- 
out, in the process, allowing its own historically determined concepts to 
dissolve into those larger ones which have meaning for psychology and 
psychiatry. 

qq. r2. ri. ck Ryij-, Bcncdict's book. Pultcms of Cu/iurc. is a brilliant 
exposition of as-if psychology, but with confusion about the distinction 
made here - ^- she is not clear on the distinctic^n between the as-if 
psychology she is discussing and the psychology of the individual.-^ ** 
A culture cannot be paranoid; [to call it so suggests] the failure to distin- 
guish between the as-if psychology and the actual psychology o\' the 
people participating in the culture.-^' The difficulty with Pur ferns of Cul- 
ture is that certain objective facts of culture which arc low toned are 
given huge significance. [I suspect that individual] Dobu and KwakiutI 
are very like ourselves; they just are manipulating a dilVerent set o\' 
patterns. [We have no right to assume that a given pattern or ritual 
necessarily implies a certain emotional significance or personalit\ ad- 
justment in its practitioners, without demonstration at the level o\' the 
individual. Perhaps] the Navajo ritual can be considered as just their 
way of chewing gum. You have to know the individual before you know 
what the baggage of his culture means to him. 

"^ In itselt\ culture has no psychology - it is [just] a low-toned scries 
of rituals, a rubber stamping waiting to be gi\en meaning b\ \ou. Tlic 
importance of cultural differences for individual adjustment (may well 
be] exaggerated, [therefore, for we may equally well suppose thai culture 
means nothing until the individual, with his personality configuralion. 
gives it meaning.] ' ' [In other words,] the apparent psychological dilTer- 
ences of cultures are superficial - although the> must be understood, 
of course, to know how to gauge the individual's expressions of his 
reactions. 



5i;4 iii Culture 

lyso [Whcii I want] to bring out clearly [here is] the extreme method- 
ological importance of distinguishing between actual psychological pro- 
cesses which are of individual location and presumptive or "as if psy- 
chological pictures which may be abstracted from cultural phenomena 
and which may give significant direction to individual development. To 
speak o\^ a whole culture as having a personality configuration is, of 
course, a pleasing image, but I am afraid that it belongs more to the 
order o( aesthetic or poetic constructs than of scientific ones.^^ [It is a 
useful metaphor for cultural patterning, but it loses its usefulness if it 
is taken literally.]-*^ 

^i^. qq [For this very reason - that one is dealing with aesthetic con- 
structs -] it is easier to apply a thing like Jung's [classification of] psy- 
chological types to cultures than to individuals. If you take the way of 
life of a community as "a psychology," it is easy to classify your cul- 
tures. '<''• '-■ '' On this basis, [one might speak of extraverted and intro- 
verted cultures: thus] American culture-^ of today on the whole is extra- 
verted, '""1 recognizing no efficacy in unexpressed or only subtly ex- 
pressed tendencies; we are willing to court private ill-will so long as it 
does not gain public expression. ^^^ '■'- ^^^ ^^ The Chinese and Japanese 
cultures seem definitely more introverted, [emphasizing] internal feeling 
(note, [for example, the Japanese custom of] hari-kiri, and the Chinese 
[type of) suicide [committed] so as to haunt one's enemy). "^^ But this 
[characterization of the culture] does not mean that the individual is 
extravert or introvert. 

°' [If we consider] the possibility of constructing a typology of culture 
on the basis of a psychology of individual types, [therefore, we must 
not lose sight of the fact that] the social psychologies of such cultural 
types are not to be interpreted literally, but as "as-if ' psychologies. '"'^ 
Culture types are fictitious; but they are useful - [at least] until we have 
a more powerful knowledge of personality types - °' as a point of view 
as regards the relation of the individual to society. ^^ In the culture 
typology, culture is personalized, so that an individual acts extravert- 
edly in adjusting to \i?^ "" Moreover, the "typology" is important for 
understanding cultural [integration.]^^ i934a ^he more fully one tries to 
understand a culture, the more it seems to take on the characteristics 
of a personality organization. 

"^ In other words, we can look upon socialized behavior as sym- 
bolic oj psychological processes not [necessarily] illustrated by the in- 
dividuals themselves.-'^^ .. ^^ ^^ ^^^ characterize whole cultures psycho- 
logically without predicating those particular psychological reactions of 



7'uv;. The Psycholojiy olC'ithurc 595 

the individuals who cany on the ciihuic. That is sonicuhat uiicanny. 
but 1 think it is a reasonably correct \ie\v to take ol" society. 

[In this light let us consider some examples o\' what we might call 
strongly introverted cultures.] '"'' [in this sense of the term] some of the 
Amerind tribes seem introverted, as Benedict shows. "'^'- ^t? For instance, 
the Yuman culture o{ the lower Colorado, with its emphasis on dream 
experiences, is certainly an introverted type of culture. "' ^^^ [To ihemj 
it is possible to annihilate time and space by dreams and get back to 
the beginnings of things and to the st)urce o{ all potencies. If this kind 
of mechanism - ^^ the actualizing of power through wishes and dream 
creation - '^ which is like the shrinking child's wish-phantasies, be- 
comes habit, values may grow up around it and accumulate, [tending 
toward] that introverted cast of society (an extraverled societ> would 
kill the introverted meaning and recast it; or it may be loaded in another 
direction at a critical point). When the Yuman says, "I know that this 
is true because I saw it in a dream," he is in immediate touch with truth, 
and the symbolic triumph [gives him a] great ''kick." This societ\ puts 
premiums on "as-if introversion; there is a masking o^ true extra verts, 
then, ^^ for the extraverts are using the mechanisms provided by society, 
[including] a narcissistic libido expression - no color or glamour. '•'' The 
extreme romanticism of the early nineteenth centur\ would probabK he 
quite impossible in many of these societies. 

^"^^ ""^ Some of the [other] Amerind religions too, like the Mohave, 
seem almost neurotically introverted. "^'^ In some Amerind religimis this 
goes so far as a real denial of the evidential value o\' the external world 
in an annihilation of time, with the shaman going back to the creation 
and actually seeing standardized events there. This is an intro\erledly 
evangelical religion, then. ''- Mohave culture has a strange dreamlike 
character, '-''' an introverted [cast,] while the external culture is quite 
colorless. It is important to recognize that this is generalls the case. 
Usually if the outer life is colorless one is apt to assume (a correspond- 
ingly] poor development of the inner life, when [actually] just the oppo- 
site is true. ■■'• ■■- Introverted cultures are generally correlated with sober 
and drab material cultures, [because they place] less emphasis on exter- 
nal values. 

"^"^ It makes good sense, then, to talk about extraversion and introver- 
sion in culture as a helpful guard against under\aluation of the de\elop- 
ment of other peoples who have different \alues from those of our own 
culture. The Australians, for example, are probably much less primitive 
than they seem, because o\' their extreme iiiiro\ersion. '' 1 wonder it 



596 iii Culture 

some injustice has not been made in styling them as primitive, since 
they have [such] a compHcated mental life. '^^^ *-''• '^' '^ The Eskimo, on 
the other hand, seem to us more highly developed and further advanced 
in culture than they really are, because their culture is extraverted, tech- 
nological and non-fantastic. ""^ [Even] their mythology is more novelistic 
than dreamy. ^>^ Thus many things in our [own] culture are better devel- 
opments of things the Eskimo is already interested in, and acculturation 
would be expected to be easy so far as the purely cultural determinants 
are concerned. '^ [The Eskimo] adapt easily to our mechanical appli- 
ances, for example. 

It. bg. md Hindu culture too seems to be essentially introverted, for it 
is the most classically timeless. We seldom find dates in Hindu history, 
and the feeling that past and present meet - that things are not distrib- 
uted in an evident sequence of years, and that there is not a before and 
after - is a typical sign of introversion. '^ [The few] dates [we do have 
for Hindu history] are given by outside archaeologists and numisma- 
tists. In Hindu society there is an almost absurd annihilation of the 
external world (in contrast to Chinese culture, which is relatively [more] 
extraverted in its interest in dates). '^ In India, self-contained feeling is 
as valuable as action; [thus] the custom of self-imposed torture for 
handling the world is very important. Whereas in Europe asceticism [is 
considered] a private problem, in India there is the feeling that this 
asceticism is extremely potent. [This idea of the] vanity of the life of 
sensations is typical [of introversion, as is the associated Hindu notion 
that] the pleasures of the senses are sufferings. All forms of life are one; 
in the course of [existence] you can take different places ([i. e. become 
different forms of life]), ^^- ^^ for the self-existent entity is not a temporal 
one, [but something more like] a concept of a master idea, [or Platonic 
ideal. Thus] Sanskrit, [in the Hindu view, embodies] an absolute, mystic 
perfection of sounds and letters. It is a Platonically patternable lan- 
guage, '^ a perfect pattern [against which to compare] the imperfections 
of reality. These mystic ad hoc realities, which for us are merely part of 
the stream of possibility, [illustrate introversion's characteristic] regres- 
sion phantasy and annihilation of the difficuhies of existence." '^ [And 
just as] introverts are persuaded more by verbal formulations [than by 
sensory experience,] Hindu culture is full of verbal fetishism. 

"^ [In contrast, as I have suggested above,] American culture is essen- 
tially extraverted: in American culture action is more important than 
thought. Success [is measured by] fulfillment in the material world, for 



Two: The Psychology ofCulrurc 597 

all values are measured with external standards. Thus a scientist gets 
mad because his salary does not look to him as an adequate return 
for his archaeological work. ^^ Gandhi's passi\e resistance would be 
impossible in New Haven. 

"^^ '^ [In addition to the introvert/extra\eri contrast.) Jung's func- 
tional classification can also be applied to culture [in the same manner, 
and certain contrasts between cultural configurations can thereby be 
brought out.] ''^'- ■■-• *■'• '^'^ For example, there are cultures which as a 
whole seem to have an intellectual cast, such as the Athenian ''"< '' (and 
hence our relative ease in feeling ourselves into it, since its type of con- 
sciousness - with its intellectual values - is so much akin to ours; it is 
the temper of the culture, rather than the content, that we primarily 
appreciate). '■''^- ''-• ■"'■ "^^^ The culture of the Plains Indians, on the other 
hand, as contrasted [with the Greeks and also, closer at hand.] with 
Pueblo and Navaho culture, is characterized by a greater emphasis on 
the urgency of immediate /kVm^tf. "^"^ The Pueblos' nostalgia [(for feelings 
previously experienced)] seems absent from the Plains because of the 
urgency there of immediate experience and the ease o( having a vision, 
or enjoying ecstacy, at any time. The Plains [culture] being also extra- 
verted, there is no privacy of feeling, and there is public boasting about 
visions and bravery, confessions of adultery, etc. '-■ ^' (as among the 
Eskimo also). ^- There is a tremendous ri\alry regarding prestige [in 
these matters.] 

^^ One who was a psychological sensitive could tell in advance uhai 
types of things, games, myths, [and so on] would "take" in a culture, 
and what would not - and why. '^' [However, it is worth repealing 
yet again that these] culture characterizations are not dellniiive. [only 
suggestive.] 

^^ [With this caveat we may continue with our i\pology and notice 
that] cultures also vary in intuitivism, although here the ditTerences are 
not as great as between individuals. [Recall that on the le\el o\' the 
individual, the] '"') intuitive [shows] enormous differences in the rale o\' 
movement of thought or phantasy, and in the wealth o\ implication. 
[What I mean by saying that] '~ certain cultures are more iniuitiNC than 
others, therefore, is that '' the wealth o\' implication differs from one 
culture to another. ^^' ' ' American behavior has a remarkable wealth o( 
implication, '*'* ^'^i but as to inward life it seems rather lacking in this 
respect as compared, for example, with the English; the Hnglish socm 
to assume many things without staling tlicni and ahnosl regard it as 



598 ill Culture 

indelicalc to make ihcm explicit, whereas Americans would be more 
likely to lake a praciicaL engineering attitude. ^''- '"' [But] English intu- 
itu eness IS in regard to internal rather than external things; '- '^ their 
culture is less intuitive than the American in physical matters.^^ ""^^ '^ 
An iniro\eried mold, [a pattern of] whimsical fancy is characteristic of 
Hnglish writers, while in French culture - more intellectual [(in Jung's 
terms)] - epigram, not whimsy, is characteristic. 

ck. r: j^^ life Qf sensation also varies in different cultures. ""^^ '^ In 
France, China, and Japan there is a tremendous emphasis on sensation 
values; yet there is also a selectiveness to the sensation values, and a 
balance o{ sensory enjoyment. ""^^ ''- '■^' '^'^ Although an insistence on 
sensation for its own sake is conspicuous in French culture, the French 
do not "go out" for sensation in the way we do, because it does not 
have the hectic quality that it does for us. ^'^ The French have educated 
their sensations; '^'^ they are discreet and reasonable even in their licence, 
and do not go the limit and become debauched as do Americans and 
Fnglish.^^ '^'- ^- While Americans go to the extreme [when they indulge 
the] sensations because they feel [sensations] to be so bad they cannot 
be treated nicely, the French go into them restrainedly, for ^^ they do 
not have the good/evil dichotomy which makes us feel we may as well 
go the whole hog if we are going to break rules at all. 

'''I- ""^ It begins to look, then, as if these various cultures had techni- 
cally limited psychological possibilities. '^2- '^^ [In other words,] culture 
limits the opportunity for the personahty to express itself in the way it 
is best suited. ^^•'-■'' Now, how does this affect the individual? ""^ [Perhaps 
we must conclude that the world is full of| "mute inglorious Miltons." 
Culture is sometimes not rich enough to give an individual an opportu- 
nity for expression. 



Editorial Note 

On the several occasions on which he gave the course after 1928, 
Sapir apparently changed his mind as to the organization of topics re- 
maining after his discussion of Jung's classification of personahty types. 
Whereas the Outline moves immediately from Jung's typology to an 
analogous typology of culture, in 1934 Sapir inserted his discussion of 
the adjustment of the individual after Jung and before embarking on 
cultural types ("as-if psychologies). He concluded the course with a 



Two: The Fsycholoj^y <>/ ( ultun' 599 

lecture on symbolism, as the mechanism metlialing between indi\idual 
and culture, in 1936, the Taylor notes suggest relali\el> little empliasis 
on a t\pology of culture, the discussion o\' "as-if psycholDgies being 
Iranied instead in terms of the social adjustment of the indi\idual and 
the psychology of personal action. The course apparently concluded 
with a lecture on "primitive mentality*"; if there was a lecture on s\mbol- 
ism. there are almost no notes on its content. In \*')}1, Sapir expanded 
the material and began to incorporate into il a discussion of situational 
analysis and the contextual interpretation o[' symbols - topics onl\ 
brietly alluded to in earlier years. These discussions ha\e a rather ex- 
ploratory air to them. They enter in both before and after the .April 12 
(1937) lecture on cultural types, and one gets the impression that Sapir 
was very much interested in these ideas but had not yet integrated them 
into a tightly coherent argument. Sapir's comments on "primitive men- 
tality" and art are appended to the April 19 (1937) lecture, with little 
indication in the notes as to how (if at all) he might have used them to 
draw the whole course to a conclusion. 

The 1937 notes present some internal problems for interpretation. 
Apparently, three and a half lectures are in\ol\ed: the seciMid half o\' 
an undated lecture of late March; April 5; April 12; and April 19. C"K 
seems to have typed the April 19 lecture before the .April .■^; Rl has 
some duplications that suggest she may ha\e taken notes on someiMie 
else's notes as well as her own; and QQ has nothing until .April 12. 

Since Sapir was evidently rethinking the connections among these 
topics and what he wanted to say about symbolism. I have followed the 
1937 notes for order of presentation and for the discussion o( s\mbol- 
ism, even where the notes are sparse (making reconstruction dilTicull 
and choppy) and loosely organized. The present chapter is based, there- 
fore, on the lectures from late March, April 5, and .April 12. 1937. Mate- 
rial from 1934, 1936, and the Rockefeller Seminar (introductory lecture, 
undated notes by Leo Ferraro. LF) are drawn upon onl\ for topics 
where Sapir's ideas are consistent throughout the decade (principalK. 
for the discussions of cultural attitudes and "as-if psychology). I have 
also drawn upon Sapir's letter to Philip Sel/mck (Oct. 25, 193S). as well 
as Sapir's published works, though with these it has again been impor- 
tant to make sure a quoted passage is fully consistent with .Sapir's 1937 
statement of his position. 

The lecture of April 19, 1937, on individual ad|usiiiK-ni. \mI1 be taken 
up in the next chapter, along with the material on this topic \'ion\ other 
years. The discussion of "prinnli\e mentalit>" is relegated to a .separate 
chapter (ch. 11). as is the 1934 lecture on symbolism (ch. 12). 



5UU til Culture 

Notes 

1 Material from a lecture o( late March, 1937. The chapter actually begins in the middle 
of this lecture, \shich Sapir had begun by concluding his remarks about Jung. 

2. This sentence continues, in the 1934 publication, as follows: "...and which, as it accretes 
more and more symbols to itself, creates finally that cultural microcosm of which official 
'culture' is little more than a metaphorically and mechanically expanded copy. The appli- 
cation o'i the point o'i view which is natural in the study of the genesis of personality to 
the problem of culture cannot but force a revaluation of the materials of culture itself." 
Though the idea that both personality and culture can be viewed as symbolic systems 
lending a distinctive configuration to experience is quite consistent with Sapir's 1937 
statements, the notion that culture might be just a mechanically expanded copy of per- 
sonality seems not to be. 

3. Reconstruction of this introductory passage is difficult: the three note-takers' brief state- 
ments here do not go together in any obvious way. 

4 R2 has: "It would be possible to define culture as..." 

5. R2 has "All culture has potentiality..."; CK has "In all cultures there is potentiality..." 

6. R2 has: "Sapir's obsession is the relation between personality (individual behavior) and 
culture (cultural behavior)." I have altered the wording to reflect the strictures expressed 
in an earlier chapter on the contradictory notion of "cultural behavior." Rl does not 
ha\e this phrase. 

7. This section is based on the lecture of April 5, 1937. 

8. LF actually has: 

"...A culture can be looked at as having a psychological imprint. 

"We can say: the member of a society belongs to a certain race, and the biological 
elements tend to express themselves in that way. 

"We can also say: certain cultures have an ideal program that the participants tend 
to realize; they have a role, culturally imposed. 

"There can also be interaction between the two elements. Is the impossibility of under- 
standing humor an Indian racial characteristic or is it a cultural fact? I don't know." 

I have altered the choppy syntax, paragraphing, and some wording that strikes me as 
not quite Sapirian. to what 1 hope is a style closer to Sapir's. In so doing, however, it 
seemed to me that I had implied a closer link between the biological and the cultural 
than the LF notes do, a link that would be quite inconsistent with Sapir's position as 
expressed elsewhere. The bracketed material is inserted to clarify this point. 

9. Here LB refers to the psychologist [Edwin B.] Holt. 

10. The bracketed material derives in part from other LB notes on European Romanticism. 

1 1 . R2 actually has: "In personal situations, there is a balance of spending money on individ- 
uals." 

12. CK adds, perhaps as amplification of the European attitude: "Bourgeois society appears 
10 be extravagant, but is really careful." 

13. LB's notes include this case, along with some other material, under the heading "Sapir 
on Culture and Neurosis." The material assembled under this heading does not seem to 
correspond to any one lecture or section of a lecture as recorded by other note-takers, so 
I have taken the liberty of scattering it through this chapter where topically appropriate. 

14. I.e., contextualization. See chapter 5 on the "placement" of a cultural element in a 
cultural configuration. Sapir's discussions of contextuality and systemic relations seem 
often to draw upon a geometrical model; see his 1925 letter to Benedict on gestalt 
psychology and a "geometry of experience," published in Mead 1959:177. 

15. The pyramid image occurs at several points in the notes on Sapir's lectures, and in his 
published writings as well. See, for example, the encyclopedia article on "Symbolism" 



Two: The Tsyvholo^v of Culture (>{)\ 

(1934e): "Thus indi\idiial and society, in a ncMi eiKimL' mictpi.i) .•! s)mh. ci. 

build up ihc pyramided structure called ci\ili/ation In this structure vci • .k» 

touch the ground." 

16. CK continues, "returns to Mother I arth Uiulnjj) 

17. This wordnig ctMiies Ironi Sapir's \*^)M) presentation io the SSR( Hanover Conference 
(1998b). 

18. Earlier in the same lecture ( K has "Personality conllicts go beyond the plane of culiurc." 

19. Wording in the bracketed passage derives in part from (K's "A-s-if ps>ch<' if 
this scheme of life were the actual expression of individuaht>." Hiis scntcn m 
CK's notes from April 5, but I have placed the quote itself with the April \2 matenal. 
See also "The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior in Society" 
(Sapir 1937a) on the "dangerous" metaphorical identification of society with a pcrstmal- 
ity, or of culture with actual behavior. 

20. In the actual le.xt of "The Contribution..." (Sapir 1937a) this sentence continues: " and. 
until his special social frame of reference is clearly established, analv/ed. and applied lo 
his behavior, we are necessarily at a loss to assign him a place in a more general scheme 
of human behavior." Several passages in this paper are reminiscent of material in Sapir's 
lectures of April 1937. 

21. Sapir evidently concluded the lecture oi April 5. 1937 with a critique of works by Bene- 
dict and Mead; he took up the critique again in the lecture o\ .April 12. repeating some 
of the same points. For smoothness of written presentation 1 ha\e moved some of ihc- 
April 5 comments to the April 12 section. 

22. The organization of this section is based on the lecture of April 12. 1937, supplememcu 
by material from April 24. 1933 and the Rockefeller Seminar (Ferraro notes) where 
pertinent. 

23. American Journal of Sociologw 42 (6), May 1937. an issue consisting of papers from a 
symposium of psychiatrists and social scientists on "social disorganization." The p^kNchia- 
trist contributors are Alfred Adler, Franz Alexander. Trigant Burrow. Elton Mavo. Paul 
Schilder. David Slight, and Harry Stack Sullivan (see bibliography for full references). 
Sapir's paper, "The Contribution of Psychiatry to an I'nderstandmg of BehaMor in 
Society." comes immediately after the psychiatrists' and ci>mmenis upon them I"hc issue 
continues with articles by sociologists Herbert iilumer. Willi, mi I Ogburn and .Abe JafTe, 
and Mark May (see bibliography). 

24. Later writers on culture and personality used the term "norm" for a similar concept 

25. Sapir seems also to have suggested that Mead and Benedict projected their own values 
onto the cultural patterns they describe in psvchological terms. Rl adds "Benedict (as- 
sesses] Zuni from emot. evaluation | sensory type would ev. Zuni from sensory pi of 
view - [emphasizing] forms - color - ritual -..." Sapir's distinction bclwc-en cm""'>"d 
and sensory personality types derives from Jung; see ch. 8. 

26. CK adds: "(this is Mead)." 

27. The passage 1 draw upon, in this letter of October 25. 1938. begins thus "I judge from 
a number of passages in your essay that you share m\ feeling that there is danger of the 
growth of a certain scientific mythology in anthropological circles with regard lo ihe 
psychological interpretation of culture. I believe this comes oul mosl ckarly in Rulh 
Benedict's book. "Patterns of Culture." I'niess I misunderstand the direction of her 
thinking and of the thinking of others who are under her inlluenco. there is an alloeclher 
too great readiness lo translate psvchological analogies into p ' do 
not like the glib way in which man> talk of such and such .i >»r 
what you will. It would be my intention to bring out clearl). in a book that I ha\< still 
to write, the extreme methodological importance of distinguishing ..." 

28. The bracketed material is ba.sed upon statements in OL and MD'$ notes. I include it 
here to avoid suggesting a contradiction betwtx-n this siatemcnl in the Scl/nick klter 



(^[)2 /// Cull lire 

and the class notes. Thai Sapir had not abandoned the idea of "as if psychological 
picturcN in the last years of his life is clear from his lengthy exposition of them in the 
1937 lecture notes 

29. QQ has ••sociel>"" throughout this passage. 

30. For one ofSapir's clearest statements about "as-if psychology, see "Notes on Psycholog- 
ical Orientation in a Given Society." 1926 (1998a), especially the following passage (from 
which I have extracted a portion, below): "We can say of all individuals who go through 
the forms of religious conduct that they are acting as //they were inspired by the feelings 
o\' those who roallv feel religiously, whether they really are or not... In other words, we 
can loi>k upon socialized behavior as symbolic of psychological processes not illustrated 
b> the individuals themselves... [(after a discussion of French culture)] The point is, the 
psychological slant given at some time or other in the general configurations we call 
F-rcnch culture by particular individuals became dissociated, acted as a sort of symbol 
or pattern so that all following have to act as though they were inspired by the original 
motivation, as though they were acting in such or such a psychological sense, whether 
the\ temperamentally were or not... So we can characterize whole cultures psychologi- 
cally without predicating those particular psychological reactions of the individuals who 
carry on the culture." 

.^1. LF has "But the 'typology' is important to understand culture," as the concluding sen- 
tence in the paragraph beginning, "What do we mean by 'integration?'" 
.^2. Italics original. 

33. LB also mentions, "Chicago Hindu arguing about the real 'b' and 'p'." See "Notes on 
Psychological Orientation in a Given Society" (1998a), in which this anecdote is related 
in detail. 

34. Sapir was probably referring to Anglo-America rather than Native America here, even 
though QQ has: "Amerind [?] behavior has remarkable wealth of implication,...". Rl 
has: "Much implication - action - American culture." 

35. That Sapir gave some anecdotal illustration of this contrast is suggested in Rl: "ques. 
asked about food on ship bet. Kobi & China - Stewart Richards ob. [?] all right. Of 
course, only imitation food. - whimsical fancy. - American would attack such a ques. 
with engineering attitude of attacking fancied problem: then joke. - Typical English 
attitude." 

36. CK adds, "who have not educated their sensations." 



Chapter 10. The Adjuslmenl of ihc Indi\idual 

in Soeiely 

[The Proh/cni of Iiuliv'ulucil AdjustDicni: The Gcncrnl I /i»i / 

ri. oi. ak jL^.| ^^ mij-, ,^^^^^ jj^^j jj-,^. problem of iiuiiMclual [aJaplalion] 
lo the requirements of society: the tacit adjustmeiu between the psychic 
system of the individual and the official lineaments o\' the [social and 
cultural environment.] "^"■' The discussion o\' personality types that ue 
have [engaged in] heretotbre, [with reference to Jung's psychiatric ap- 
proach, on the one hand, and with reference to its metaphorical exten- 
sions on the plane of culture, on the other.] is imporiani not so much 
[for the types] in themselves as from the point o\' \ ieu o\ personalii> 
adjustment within and to a culture. 

[You will recall our suggestion that] " the psychology i^f culture has 
[two quite distinct dimensions:] (a) the as-if psychology, or the meaning 
given by culture [to one's behavior,] and (b) the actual, and much more 
intricate, psychology of personal action. [What ue must now ask is, 
what is the influence of the one on the other".'] '' What is the elTeci of 
these cultural "casts" on the individual, whose a\enues o\' expression 
are provided by society? 

[If personality were but the consequence of one's racial inheritance, 
or if there were no variability o\'^ temperament among the members o\ 
a society, our interesting problem would not arise. There would be liillc 
reason to distinguish between the two dimensions o\' the psychology of 
culture in the first place.]' " ''■ '" 1 belie\e. howe\er. that the dilTcrenccs 
in personality are fundamental and that the variation [i>f |x*rsonaliiicsI 
is about as great in one culture as another, the variation onl\ taking 
different forms in different cultures. |l find m\ self somewhat skeptical, 
therefore, about certain recent works on euliure and temperament, such 
as Margaret Mead's writings on Samoa.] *'^^ Mead's work is pioneering 
in the sense that she realizes that dilTerent cultures result m ditTereni 
personality transformations. She is entirely obli\unis. howe\er. to the 
play of personality dilTerences within a primitive culture, and treats 
primitive personalities as being all alike on liie same dead level of sim- 



(^()4 /// Culture 

ilarity. For example, it is likely that in actual fact there are personality 
mistlis among Samoan adolescents brought up under the old free Sa- 
moan pattern; yet Mead has nothing to say of this and assumes all 
personalities developed according to one type. 

^^ Probably we have in all cultures [individuals of| the same basic 
personalitv types to deal with, such types, for example, as Jung depicts 
in his [book.] The problem, then, is to show the way those basic types 
are transformed or re-emphasized or re-aligned according to the master 
idea[s]- of each diverse culture. This is an immense problem, [for whose 
solution the usual methods of anthropological work are scarcely ade- 
quate; it presents us, therefore, with] the difficulty of acquiring new 
techniques. The broad program would involve; 

( 1 ) a thorough study and knowledge of the cultural patterns of a 
griHip; 

(2) an attempt to study personality types of selected individuals 
against or in terms of this background, perhaps by keeping a day-to- 
day diary, or [through a] case study of selected personalities in their 
relation to each other and in reaction to key cultural situations. But the 
culture must be analysed beforehand with special reference to its master 
ideas. Only then can one begin the task of understanding personality 
transformations that occur through the impact of culture contact on 
native personality configurations.^ 

'•'' Defining the process of adaptation to a culture thus involves a 
definition both of the personality type and of the demands of the cul- 
ture. '^ [Moreover, in order to define the personality type and under- 
stand its adjustments we must remember that] there is a difference be- 
tween the psychological constitution of an individual - his real charac- 
teristics - and that of his group behavior or appearance in the society 
as a whole. 

"•^ [For example,] the group may admire male aggressiveness toward 
women, and demand of its male members such clearly masculine char- 
acteristics. These are socially suggested and approved in that given cul- 
ture, and the different individuals reflect this pattern in a variety of 
forms and degrees. Of course, the prior outlines of the [person's] indi- 
viduality have the utmost significance. These must be taken into con- 
sideration, [but] in order to find the true personality of the individual 
we have to [go through] an enormous amount of elimination of certain 
aspects of traits. (The more we know about the culture, the more ade- 
quately we shall be able to [speak] about the individual's real personal- 
ity.) [Thus this culturally-patterned] aggressiveness appears differently 



Two: The P.sychold^y of ( uliurc 605 

in different individuals. [This is not only because individuals' nuclear 
personalities differ, but also because] it is in relation to others' aggres- 
siveness in the milieu that one has to organize one's social behavior. 

■^^ [In so organizing their behavior] people act symbolically and not 
individually. The intellectual general in the army who is an engineer or 
perhaps a physician is not primarily concerned with, or interested in. 
aggressiveness and the war affairs of his group. He is perhaps looking 
for new symbols for his own satisfaction, but he cannot break the social 
patterns that are required o\' him. This behavicn- [(the behavior that 
conforms with his group's aggressiveness and interest in warfare)] is an 
indirect expression of group loyalty. He beha\es so, not in harmons 
with his [own] desires, but accommodating himself to "as-if preferred 
cultural patterns of his society. Thus, [in a case like his] there is a con- 
flict with the preferred psychological patterning of the society, and the 
psychological patterns of society are unreal to the personality"^ in such 
circumstances. 

^' [For this reason,] no adjustment [defined simply] on the basis of an 
as-if psychology can be acceptable to the psychology o\' personal feel- 
ings. '^' The problem of individual adjustment in society [may insolve 
a variety of] methods of adjustment, successful and unsuccessful. *^ 
[Moreover,] the energy spent in the process of adjustment to the pre- 
ferred social patterns differs very much among individuals. The indivi- 
dual, to the extent of the difficulty he encounters, is abnormal in assimi- 
lating the psychological aspect of his culture. 

[Now, suppose that a person has especially great difl'iculties of adjust- 
ment. The aggressiveness we were just speaking about may also arise as 
a consequence of this.] '''^ [His difficulty would display itself as] unusual 
aggressiveness, which is [really] cowardice. [For example, consider] an 
individual who, with a [wish for a] childish [form ol] intimacy, wants a 
considerable hearing; but he cannot [have it] with every single mdiNidual 
member of the group. '^ So, he hates the group and becomes excessivcK 
aggressive. He is not, therefore. *'normall\" aggressne. [only deriva- 
tively so as a result of his difficulties of adjustment. The particular na- 
ture of his aggressiveness reveals itself in his unusual acts: for instance.] 
he may enter the presence of a dignified and respectable elderly profes- 
sor in a Napoleonic manner, making lationali/alions o\' his own. He 
continues to be effectively aggressive [only] as long as his behavior is 
not repudiated by the group, [which it may well be. His case is ditVerenl 
from] real aggressiveness, which bcK>ngs to the real personalits. and 
receives some recognition among ilic members ot the society. 



6U6 III Culture 

" [But it may be the case that the personality's adjustment to a social 
environment takes a ditTerent form, such as subHmation. For example,] 
to lie [to someone] lor [reasons ot] good manners is [a form of] sublima- 
tion o\' an original anxiety of circumstances. [One might say that be- 
cause cultural patterns dictate what "good manners" are and when a 
lie is appropriate.] culture gives the key to the problem of sublimation. 
But indiNiduals do not arrive at [this] end-point by the same means. 
[Moreover, some sublimations will go unnoticed because cultural pat- 
terns are available to handle them; but this is not the the sum total of 
the sublimations efTected by all the individuals in a society. We label 
as] perversions [those sublimations] without a cultural background into 
whose patterns the sublimation may be made, for those are [the subli- 
mations] that stand out, while culturally handled perversions are ab- 
sorbed. Culture gives the terrain of normal sublimation effected by the 
indi\iduals [in the society, and as cultures differ so do the forms of 
sublimation "normal" to them. The introduction of] peyote and the 
Ghost Dance could "take" in the Plains but not in Pueblo [culture, 
therefore, since these forms of sublimation were consistent with "nor- 
mal" cultural patterns in the one case and not the other.] 

"• '- [The psychology of culture thus includes two distinct questions:] 
What are the general psychological roots of any culture pattern and 
o\^ the as-if psychology? ^^ What is the personal psychology of [those] 
individuals who tend to follow the first [(i. e., the patterned as-if 
psychology)] and [what is the personal psychology which,] when diver- 
gent [from the cultural prescription,] will be envisaged as a morbid, 
obvious tendency? 

md. bg ^g Yx\ovj that certain cultures act selectively with regard to 
certain personality types. ^^ The culture pattern, [we might say, shows a 
kind of| receptivity for a type. A shaman in Chukchi or Eskimo society, 
[for example, behaves like] an hysteric, [while] shamans are homosexual 
on the Northwest Coast.^ ^s [Other religions, such as] Christian Science, 
[also provide avenues and roles for the hysteric and may even capitalize 
on their behavior], as Arab culture capitalizes on Muhammad's neuro- 
sis."^ "^^ Culture acts acceptingly and electrically in response to signifi- 
cant personalities. '^^ ^g -^q patterns of a culture make it hospitable to 
a [certain personality] type, but the patterns [too] are continually being 
tested through the adjustment of individuals to them. ^^ While a [certain 
type of] individual adjusts better in one culture than another, [a cultural] 
desire to accomodate aberrant personalities may result in new in- 
crements of social value.^ 



Two: The Psychology ol Culture 607 

[In some cases, ihcii. we see that it is possible U)) ''^ capitalize on the 
defects of one's personality. " [This possibility is not only a question of 
the match between an indi\ idiial and a type of society, but also of the 
individuaTs form ol]'' ctmipensation and over-ct>mpensation, vOnch 
is just the former to a greater degree than is necessary or customary. -'^ 
Such personalities [as compensate effectivels j are among the most pow- 
erful members of society, for it is when in necessity that persons de\elop 
their [native endowments, such as their] genetically-endowed intelli- 
gence. The better adjustment occurs in the compensating types o^ per- 
sonality, and less energy is consumed in the achiexemeni. " [In this 
process] those who associate themselves with the social order are the 
powerful interpreters of society - the Mussolinis. etc. The timorous 
man has not this identification with societal necessities, [although his 
compensations may be effective in other ways.] The tendency not to 
quite face a situation, but to translate one's lack [o^ ability to ci>nform 
to its behavioral demands] into some other form which will he ii> mie's 
own advantage, is a form of compensation. 

[Everyday life is full of examples of forms of conipensaiion. lor in- 
stance,] " an inability to make a tlowing hand involves the compensa- 
tion of [making, instead,] a very severe, fence-post handwriting. [In 
general, the more] rigid the law or the rules [about something, as with 
the handwriting] rules of this type, [the more likely the\ are to be] an 
example of an escape mechanism or compensation. [Now. to label some- 
thing a] compensation is not a criticism. [Compensations are necessary 
and, as we have seen, they are sometimes a positi\e advantage. Not 
every personality compensates equally easily, howeser.] If the indnidual 
identifies himself too well with a problem and does not rel> on s\mbol- 
ism [to find an advantageous form of behavior], then the job of compen- 
sation is harder. 

[Thus] '*'' the society may expect the person to participate, at least to 
a certain level and degree, in the aesthetic requirements, to be able ii^ 
play the piano for instance, and this urge may be imposed b\ the lather 
upon his son who does not possess so keen an interest in the subject. 
and whose natural equipment ma\ nt>t be so fa\iMable. I his malad- 
justed person may turn out to be a neurotic in the major role[sl ot the 
society. Yet another person may acquire symbols for adjustment or use, 
as an escape, humor which is accepted by the group, lie willmgK admits 
his defects and gets around the difTicuIty cleverly by reconcilement. This 
is overcompensation and o\er-adjusinient. 



608 Hi Culture 

" [Indeed.] humor is a good compensatory institution;^^ [and as it is 
an institution, perhaps there is a sense in which] a whole culture can be 
described in terms of compensation.'- In present[-day society our] more 
or less strict social mores concerning sex, saloons, stag parties, and so 
on are [patterned like] compensations, as is the gross humor of Puritan 
society. Humor makes good something that has been starved out. Gen- 
erallv humor is valuable only to the individual, [as in the kind of case 
we were discussing earlier. Serving as the personality's means of adjust- 
ment or escape,] it is a purely personal matter. [On the other hand, it is 
also dependent on cultural patterns; so a certain] cultural adjustment is 
necessary before certain kinds of humor can be appreciated. The 
mother-in-law joke [will hardly be appreciated in a culture where the 
mother-in-law is] taboo. 

[These considerations about compensation illustrate the complexity 
of the problem of individual adjustment to the demands of culture. And 
it is fundamental to bear in mind that] ^'^ the culture is not just an inert 
psychological value. [From one point of view, of course,] culture is mer- 
ely a pattern; it is in process only when the individual participates. 
These patterns, however, themselves are psychological problems and 
impinge upon the individual at a very early age. And the various types 
of adjustment [which the various types of personalities effect] give us a 
very large number of social-psychological processes. 

^'' [The variety of] methods of adjustment, successful and unsuccess- 
ful, [in turn affect the patterns of culture: as we have said,] '^ culture 
patterns [- though they are historically derived -] are continually being 
tested in the adjustment of individuals [to them. Which plays the greater 
role - the weight of anonymous tradition, or the act of the individual?] 
The anonymity of anthropological method [stands starkly opposed] to 
the Carlylism of historians [who see history in terms of the acts of great 
personalities. I should prefer to suggest, however, that] ^^ the stability 
of culture depends on the slow personal reinterpretations of the mean- 
ings of patterns, t'g' ^^ Adjustment consists of the linking of the personal 
world of meanings onto the patterned, social world of meanings. ^^ Thus 
one's "personal culture" is a pattern [seen] for what it means to the 
mdividual, [who places] personal emphasis on some values as opposed 
to others; [and this in turn affects] the viability of the values [over the 
long term.] [Cultural] vitality [is made] not of impersonal sequences of 
events, but a pooling of these many case-histories and statistical iron- 
ings-out. 



Two: The P.sycholoi;}- of Culture 609 

^^ [Perhaps we can say something more ahoiii] the personal world of 
meanings, [if we consider] ''^'*'*-' the field of child development. As soon 
as we set ourselves at the vantage-point of the culture-acquiring child, 
[with] the personality defmitions and potentials thai must never lor a 
moment be lost sight ot^ and which are destined from the very b>eginning 
to interpret, evaluate, and modify every culture pattern, sub-pattern, or 
assemblage of patterns that it will ever be influenced by. everythmg 
changes. Culture is then not something given but something to be grad- 
ually and gropingly discovered. We then see at once that elements of 
culture that come well within the horizon of awareness of one individual 
are entirely absent in another individual's landscape. 

^^ [If we are to understand the transmission of culture, or indeed 
the whole problem of culture tYom this developmental point of view,]'-* 
the time must come when the cosmos of the child of three will be known 
and defined, not merely referred to. '""-■ The organized intuiti\e organiza- 
tion of a three-year-old is tar more valid and real than the most ambi- 
tious psychological theory ever constructed. [Yet, our three-year-olds 
are not all the same.] Our children are fully developed personalities very 
early; [we do not quite know how this comes about, but it depends 
considerably on] "^^ the interactions between the child and his early envi- 
ronment up to the age of three. '"^ '"'^ [Even within the same family, each 
child's] world is a different kind of a thing because the fundamental 
emotional relationships were differently established [depending on his 
status] as first or second child. 

^s In the child's cosmos, patterns of beha\ ior are understood emo- 
tionally, [in terms of a particular constellation o^ relationships].'^ The 
genetic psychology'^ of the child will show specific emphases o\' mean- 
ings of patterns which are used to handle and control the people and 
events of the social world. '^^^ '-'' [Thus words and other symbols do not 
have exactly the same meaning for the child as they will for the aduli. 
for in the child's world] various words ha\e special \alues and emo- 
tional colorations, [taken on through their] absorption (in the child's] 
emotional and rational [concerns].'^ Later additions of meanings must 
be seen in the light of the nuclear family complex and its elTcci on 
personality development. ''^'''*'' It is obvious that the child will uncon- 
sciously accept the various elements of culture \silh enlirel> dillerenl 
meanings, according to the biographical conditions that attend their 
introduction to him. It may, and undoubtedly does, make a profound 
difference whether a religious ritual comes with the sternness o\ a fa- 
ther's authority or with the somewhat playful indulgence o\ the moth- 
er's brother.'^ [So it is only through patient studies of child dcNclop- 



610 /// Culture 

mcnt. concerned with a limited number of specific individuals, that we 
ma\ really begin to understand the connections between] '^ childhood 
constellations and religion, between infantile Apperzeptionsmasse [and 
the meaning of adult activities,'"^ [between the child's] hunting in closets 
and [the adult's] scientific interest in crystallography. 

■''^ As [has been] suggested by Dr. Sullivan, studying a limited number 
of personalities, for about ten years, by different representatives of the 
fields o'( social science will, no doubt, be of great help to understand 
more clearly the problem of personality. [The same is true for the prob- 
lem of culture.] '''^ This study will take the individual as early as possible 
in life and follow him through for quite a considerable period of time 
with utmost care and with cooperation and mutual aid of each system 
and method of approach involved. '^'"^'' Study the child minutely and 
carefully.-" with a view to seeing the order in which cultural patterns 
and parts of patterns appear in his psychic world; study the relevance 
of these patterns for the development of his personahty; and, at the end 
of the suggested period, see how much of the total official culture of 
the group can be said to have a significant existence for him. Moreover, 
what degree of systematization, conscious or unconscious, in the com- 
plicating patterns and symboHsms of culture will have been reached by 
this child? This is a difficult problem, to be sure, but it is not an impos- 
sible one. Sooner or later it will have to be attacked by the genetic 
psychologists. I venture to predict that the concept of culture which will 
then emerge, fragmentary and confused as it will undoubtedly be, will 
turn out to have a tougher, more vital importance for social thinking 
than the tidy tables of contents attached to this or that group which we 
have been in the habit of calling "cultures."^' 

i934ajf ^g take the purely genetic^^ point of view,... problems of sym- 
bolism, of superordination and subordination of patterns, of relative 
strength of emotional character, of transformability and transmissabil- 
ity, of the isolability of certain patterns into relatively closed systems, 
and numerous others of like dynamic nature, emerge at once. We cannot 
answer any of them in the abstract. All of them demand patient investi- 
gation and the answers are almost certain to be multiform. [For, a part 
of what we are investigating is the emergence of a personal cosmos and, 
in an important sense,] "^'^' ^^^ ^g a personal cosmos - a personal world 
of meanings - is a separate culture. '^- ^^ The totality of culture is more 
many-chambered and complex than we suspect.^^ We take meanings 
that apply to the majority of individuals in a group and thus create the 
illusion of an objective entity which we call "culture" or a collective 
body of meanings. "^^ But it is an imaginative abstraction. '^ Thus [- to 



Two: f/ic P.svcholoi^v of Culiuri' 611 

recall an argument we made in an earlier chapter ] it is so hard lo 
speak o\' the "causes" ol" historical e\ents. ''^' Culture history has laic 
[perhaps, even] necessity, but no causation. '^ The "reasons" |wc give to 
cultural forms are] only harmonizations o( our (own) ideas. '^- ^^ The 
true reasons [we draw the abstractions we do\ are ditficult [to recognize, 
and] many times would be embarrassing and dangerous [lor us were we 
to do so.]-"* 

''' [Investigating] the problem of individual adjustmeni in society [has 
thus led us inevitably to] the concept o\' pluralism of culture in a given 
society. [For the patterns of culture are subject lo] endless revaluation 
as we pass from individual to indi\idual and from one period lo an- 
other. [We have also seen something of the relationship between) indivi- 
dual and cultural configurations: how they [may] correspond, reinforce 
each other, overlap, intercross, or confiict. [in this process, culture is 
reinterpreted and its patterns respond to the individuals adjusting to 
them; personality does likewise. For] ^'^'^^^ while several factors ma\ be 
responsible for individual differences in personality the one of ct>nsider- 
able importance socially is to find what the general social patterns mean 
to individuals who participate in them. 

i99cSb j^jj^ sum,] the thesis is that the degree of agreement between ihe 
meaning which the individual comes to see in social patterns and the 
general meaning [which] is inherent (for others) in those patterns is 
significant for an understanding of the individual's process of adjust- 
ment, as revealing harmony or conflict. 



f Individual Adjustment to Chan^in^ Conditions j 

'' It is said that for one individual one type of society is best; [in fad, 
we have implied as much in earlier pages.] Bui this [staiemeni. if it is 
to be taken as anything more than the ackiu^uledgemeni ihai some 
personalities find adjustmeni to their social environment pariicularls 
difficult,] involves a need for correct analysis o{ two societies plus one 
individual - analyses which are not eas\ lo make. 

[Suppose however that we consider the case o\' some one indi\idual 
who happens to emigrate to a new social cinironmeni. Suppose thai he 
is a scalterbrain and, finding that his fellows in his name selling read 
unfavorably to his behavior, he moves lo Pans, where his life is easier. 
Is he now better-adjusted'.'] " A scalterbrain in Paris does nol adjust 
better there; his adjustmeni is the same as before. Bui the type of judge- 



612 Hi Culture 

iiKMii (tlio members of the surrounding society make] of his adjustment 
IS more lenient. Such a thing as a foreign accent will [actually] help [his] 
adiustment, [or rather it will] lessen his own problem of adjustment, by 
reducing the demands of others. [Their] judgement [is more lenient be- 
cause, hearing the accent, they recognize him as a foreigner and expect 
less oi him. In this case it is not the mode of adjustment that is at issue, 
only the society's tolerance of foreigners.] ^' Indeed, if one cannot adjust 
to the society in which one has been nurtured, how can one adjust better 
to one in which one has come at a late date, except in the way above 
of charitable misunderstanding on the part of the host society? 

[At tlrst glance all instances of immigration might appear to be the 
same as this one. But that is not so.] 'i'^' ^^ In contemporary America 
especially, a society where institutions are changing, important theoreti- 
cal advances may be made concerning the relation between culture and 
personality. '~- ^^ Where conditions are not very stable, as in the U. S., 
the relation between personality and culture becomes very important: 
contrary to Europe, the individual has a choice of several as-if psychol- 
ogies. "''^ There is a remarkable flux of status and function and a remark- 
able "selfness" of the individual, '"'-^'i [Now, while great] importance [is 
placed on] the individual, and we are meeting individual peculiarities 
much more hospitably than ever before, [what looks like hospitable 
accommodation by society to the individual personality in one sense is 
part of a particular cultural pattern, in another:] ""^^ I'l- '"- it is part of 
the extraverted, intuitive character of American life. "^^^ ^'^ [Ours is a] 
rapid pace, pretty much in the open; and this can be thought of as 
exhilarating or as shallow. 

'i^ What Europeans will accommodate themselves best [to American 
life? Perhaps they are] those who have the least to lose [by accommoda- 
tion] - sometimes those least adapted to the older system, ^'i- ^"^ There 
will be an attempt to recapture the old [cultural] symbols in the new 
context; where this is not possible, the old will quite degenerate, '^'i 
There is, then, a tendency for those who become successful to adapt 
themselves by really adopting the new culture. ""^^ "^^ In America, com- 
plete transvaluations ([i. e., cultural shifts, or] acculturation) are com- 
monplace, 'i^ This acculturative process must be strictly distinguished 
from the [case of our scatterbrain in Paris, or, analogously, the] process 
by which the American culture simply makes itself hospitable to, say, 
an Englishman who preserves or even accentuates his differences from 
his American fellows. 

There is no significant acculturation that is not painful, however. 
[As we have just said,] if the attempt to recapture old symbolisms in 



Two: The Fsycholoi^v (if Culturi' 6n 

new terms cannot be achieved, disintegration results. Indeed, all the 
processes ot^idjustment otMhe individual to society involve some sacri- 
fice. [There is always some] clash between the demands of a personality 
and those of a culture. '' The process of [actively] adjusting or passively 
conforming to the culture [can be the source o\' what appears to be 
merely a] personality problem. 

'' Thus the theory that unless one is a neurotic one can ad)usi lo 
any culture cannot be absolutely correct. ^^- '~ I belie\e people differ 
fundamentally in personality - '' though it is fashionable to believe 
otherwise - and that personality can be read \n terms o\' explicable 
factors. Cultures [also vary, so that some cultures.] because o\' certain 
values [central to them,] are not as suitable to some personalities as to 
others. ^'' No theory of neurosis is needed to account for the diUlculty 
of the individual in adjusting to the culture. ''- We are too quick to 
brand many of these personalities as abnormal; actually, every one of 
them might-'' be perfectly adapted to some one as-if cultural psychol- 
ogy, [had it but found itself in the right cultural environment]. 

■■' [If it is the process of adaptation, and not necessarily just the per- 
sonality itself, that may be the source of maladjustments, there may 
actually be] two ways maladjusted people can be helped: one [o\' these] 
is to change the personality; the other, to change the patterns or con- 
cepts [by means of which the personality interacts with its environment. 
But] perhaps just as some [people are constitutionalls ) loo delicate to 
survive physically [in the geographical environment in which the\ find 
themselves], in the cultural landscape the same may be true i^f personali- 
ties. "^^ A certain amount of [psychological] death rate in adjusting the 
personality to the cultural climate [must be expected, just) as in adjust- 
ing physique to [physical] climate. '' While the strategic placement o( 
the individual in [just the right type ot] society may be a possibility 
theoretically, it is hardly so in practice. 



[Can Their Be a "True Science of .\hifi".'/ 

[We have now spent some lime discussing] '' ihe tacit adjustment 
between the psychic system of the iiuli\idual and the olTicial lineaments 
of the [social and cultural] environment. [It is clear that the life o\' the 
individual in society can never be just a simple and direct expression of 
his own nuclear personality, for it must always take stx:ial pressures 
into account.] '^ The organization o\' [sixial] force [impinging on the 



514 Hi Culture 

individual [comprises] many [forms of coercion,] from the tyranny of 
one's little boy to governmental force. [From these pressures] we are 
too cowardly ever to be free. 

'' The factors of inner adjustment are difficult to know. '^^ ""^ The 
process of adjustment is not only the matter of finding a place in the 
cultural setting, [a problem each individual might face equally] regard- 
less of what the individual personality needs are. '^ [It is a problem ofj 
the adjustment of the personality [itself, and the form of one's participa- 
tion in society.]-^ Those who are well-adjusted because [their participa- 
tion subjects them to] less thwarting - [perhaps because their] profes- 
sional [situation,] etc., [satisfies their personahty needs] - are unaware 
of the concept of carrying around a psyche that is always fighting for 
psychic existence.-^ 

[So, how are we to approach these problems, from an analytical point 
of view? What scientific discipline, if any, might] ^'^^^'^ take on the char- 
acter of [a sufficiently] inclusive perception of human events and per- 
sonal relations? [Many of the disciplines constituted as special sciences 
of man's physical and cultural nature will disappoint us if we look to 
them for help. Tending to create a framework of tacit assumptions 
about the nature of man which enable their practitioners to work with 
maximum economy and generality, they present only fragmentary pic- 
tures of man, pictures which are not in intelhgible or relevant accord 
with each other and which tend to become more and more estranged 
from man himself.]-^ '^^^^ The classical example of this unavoidable 
tendency is the science of economics, which is too intent on working 
out a general theory of value, producfion, flow of commodities, de- 
mand, [and] price, to take time to inquire seriously into the nature and 
variability of those fundamental biological and psychological determi- 
nants of behavior which make these economic terms meaningful in the 
first place. The sum total of the tacit assumptions of a biological and 
psychological nature which economics makes get petrified into a stan- 
dardized conception of "economic man," who is endowed with just 
those motivations which make the known facts of economic behavior 
in our society seem natural and inevitable. In this way the economist 
gradually develops a peculiarly powerful insensitiveness to actual moti- 
vations, substituting life-like fictions for the troublesome contours of 
life itself. 

'^^^'^ The economist is not in the least exceptional in his unconscious 
procedure ■■• [that creates an] economic theory in which psychological 
factors are not recognized. '939c ^^ Hnguisfics, abstracted speech sounds, 



Two: The P.syi/ioloj^y oj C'ultitrc 615 

words and the arrangement o'i words have conic to have so authentic a 
vitaHly that one can speak of "regular sound changes" and "loss of 
genders" without knowing or caring who opened then- mouths, at what 
time, to communicate what to whom... The laws of syntax acquire a 
higher reality than the immediate reality of the stammerer who is trying 
to "get himself across"; ' ' [but his] speech errors cannot be described 
or explained, [let alone] escaped, only linguistically. There are psycho- 
logical reasons [for them too - reasons linguistics has excluded from 
its concerns.] '^- One can ^o far in a discipline without placing it \u the 
cosmos of man. 

''^''''"^^ [Perhaps] cultural anthropology and psychiatry (are beller 
placed to make formulations about man and his place in society which 
can prove accurate when tested by the experience o\' ihc individual. J'** 
Each of these disciplines has its special "universe of discourse" but at 
least this universe is so broadly conceived that, under favorable circum- 
stances, either of them can take on the character o\' a true science oi 
man. Through the sheer weight of cultural detail and. more than that, 
through the far-reaching personality-conditioning implications of varia- 
tions in the forms of socialized behavior, the cultural anthropologist 
may, if he chooses, advance tYom his relatively technical problems o^ 
cultural definition, distribution, organization, and histor\ to more inti- 
mate problems of cultural meaning, both for individuals and for signifi- 
cantly definable groups of individuals. And the psychiatrist ma\. if he 
chooses, advance from theories o'i personality disorganization to theo- 
ries of personality organization, which, in the long run. ha\e little mean- 
ing unless they are buttressed by a comprehension of the cultural selling 
in which the individual ceaselessly struggles to express himself. 'Hie 
anthropologist, in other words, needs only to trespass a little on the 
untilled acres of psychology, the psychiatrist to poach a few of the un- 
eaten apples of anthropology's Golden Bough. 

[Perhaps it will be possible to see where the nnddle ground beivseen 
our two disciplines might lie if we consider the problem o\' the relation- 
ship between] '' personality demands and symbols. ^^ [it takes no long 
acquaintance with psychiatry to discover that a human being's) personal 
strength is augmented by touching societ>"s [symbols] and the indisid- 
ual['s own] symbols at some points. (But what the psychiatrist may over- 
look is that there are] two orders o\' symbt^ls individual and sivial. 
[Let us remind him thai he needs to concern himself uiih both, and to 
recognize that the social plane o\' symbi^ls touches intimaleK on the 
individual's motives and experience, for those symbols are fundamen- 



516 til Culture 

tally involved in our everyday interactions with other members of our 
society.] '' [As individuals whose lives intertwine with others,] we use 
the same symbols as others do so that we can advance our own interests, 
[it is not because we have transcended those interests and moved into 
an exalted realm in which we] care about society's welfare - [a matter 
about which, in any case, we can have no impersonal judgement; we] 
onlv have [personal] preferences. ""^ [Indeed, the nature of your] indivi- 
dual adjustment colors your philosophy of society. It is the process of 
adjusting your personality, not your cultural role, [that is so influential 
in organizing the world of meanings which includes your conception of 
"society" itself, and in terms of which personal action is undertaken 
and interpreted]. 

[By the same token, the cultural anthropologist whose primary inter- 
est in symbols lies on their social plane needs to recognize that] ^''- ^"^ 
cultural considerations alone can never explain what happens from day 
to day - they are inadequate for predicting or interpreting any particu- 
lar act of an individual. [The reason for this, in a nutshell, is that in 
those particular acts] ^"^ the individual is not adjusting to "society," but 
to interpersonal relationships.-^^ 

[Faced, therefore, with] '^^ the difficulty of segregating the [psycholog- 
ical and the social] systems, [and convinced that] the gap between the 
sociological approach and the psychological approach must be filled 
and both systems must be used, [I find that] ^^^^^- '^^ I am particularly 
fond of Dr. Harry Stack Sullivan's pet phrase of "interpersonal rela- 
tions." ''^^''^ The phrase is not as innocent as it seems, for, while such 
entities as societies, individuals, cultural patterns, and insfitutions logi- 
cally imply interpersonal relations, they do little to isolate and define 
them. Too great agility has been gained over the years in jumping from 
the individual to the collectivity and from the collectivity via romantic 
anthropological paths back again to the culture-saturated individual. 
Refiection suggests that the lone individual was never alone, that he 
never marched in line with a collectivity, except on literal state occa- 
sions, and that he never signed up for a culture. There was always 
someone around to bother him; there were always a great many people 
whom his friends talked about and whom he never met; and there was 
always much that some people did that he never heard about. He was 
never formed out of the interaction of individual and society but started 
out being as comfortable as he could in a world in which other people 
existed, and continued this way as long as physical conditions allowed. 



Two: The P.sycholoi^v of Culiurc ^1" 

[The study of "interpersonal relations" isj ^'^ the problem ol the lu- 
ture. '•'• ■' It demands that we study [seriously and carefully jusl[ what 
happens when A meets B - '^' [given that] each is mu onl\ phy^iologI- 
cally defined, but each [also] has memories, feelings, [understandings.) 
and so on about the symbols [they can and iiuist use m then uiterac- 
tion]. '- '' It is also necessary to study variations ui uulividual behavior 
in different circumstances; •''' [for] the individual's whole behaMor is 
modified in a new situation, and even his facial expressions change. 
[And it is also necessary that we study the consequences o\' the fact that] 
"•"i the differences between individuals make diflerent things happen 
when A and B are ditTerent people, ''"'• '-'^ or when someone else, C\ is 
with them. ' ' Thus A may be very tYiendly to B when alone and yet not 
friendly when C is present. And what happens when C" substitutes for 
A? When all three meet? When one of the three is removed and another 
added? [In each case you have] a new situation. [In any situation] uhen 
two people are talking, they create a cultural structure. [Our task, as 
anthropologists, will be to determine] ^^- '' what are the potential 
contents of the culture that results from these interpersonal relaticMis m 
these situations.-^' 

^~ I think we should abandon [our present] abstract terminolog\ (tor 
a while] and study each situation as it occurs. In this way we will be 
able to study the values of behavior [in both] individual and cultural 
[dimensions - the first of] which anthropologists now carefully avoid 
[We would be recognizing that we do not have, as our immediate object 
of study, a culture adapting to a physical environment, but human be- 
ings adjusting to actual situations, by means o( structures o\' s>nibols. 
It is not usually the physical environment itself that we adjust to in any 
case, but what we see as environment.] '' Secondarv symbols of the 
environment are most important, [then, and these are] things we have 
invented. 

'- To do this thoroughly - [to sludv each situation and all its implica- 
fions -] is, of course, impossible. But the students of culture must not 
leave these [considerations] out c^f acctuint. '-■ '' The student must pro- 
ceed as follows: (I) study the individual behavior [arising in a particular 
situation, in] the relation between A and B. etc.; (2) abstract the cultural 
patterns from it; (3) make the generalizations [thai turn out to be fx-rti- 
nent at the level of the totality of culture]. \l present most anthropolo- 
gists work from (3) to (1). '" [But I think it is not unreasonable lo 
suggest that] every student of culture ought to have [some] feeling for 



618 lil Culture 

the relationships o\^ people - [and only] then abstract the forms [we call 

culture] 

'- (What 1 wish to propose is that we take seriously the proposition 
thai] cultural, linguistic, and historical patterns are derivative of inter- 
personal relations, though they are meaningful. '^ [Until we are sure of 
their] testability in behavioral terms, [we will never be sure of the] im- 
port o{ the cultural "phenomena" abstracted by anthropology. 



Editorial Note 

This chapter includes material from the end of the lecture of April 
12. 1937, and the lecture of April 19, 1937. The Taylor notes (1936) and 
notes from the lecture of April 24, 1934 (mainly from BG, MD, LB) 
are also included, as is Sapir's lecture on "The Adjustment of the Indivi- 
dual to the Requirements of Society" in the Rockefeller Seminar (notes 
by Ali Kemal, AK). I have also drawn on excerpts from the "Lecture 
to the Friday Night Club" (Oct. 13, 1933; FNC) and "The Emergence 
o{ the Concept of Personality in a Study of Cultures" (1934a), both of 
which contain discussions similar to the lecture of April 24, 1934. 

in 1937, Sapir concluded his discussion of adjustment with a discus- 
sion of "interpersonal relations" and what we would now call situa- 
tional analysis, a topic he had scarcely touched on in earlier years. To 
fill out the material from the 1937 lecture I have drawn on excerpts 
from "The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior 
in Society" (1937a) and "Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Busi- 
ness of Getting a Living" (1939c). 



Notes 

1. See Sapir 1998a on the "mentality of races," and the concluding lecture of the Rockefel- 
ler Seminar (RM notes): "To study the problem of the relations of "culture" and "per- 
sonality" means that one does not consider personality as the mere unfolding of a biolog- 
ical organism." 

2. I have pluralized this term because it occurs in plural form below, and this form seems 
more consistent with Sapir's overall argument. 

3. See also the various research proposals Sapir wrote or to which he contributed for the 
Social Science Council and the National Research Council, for example his "Original 
Memorandum to the Social Science Research Council from the Conference on Accultur- 
ation and Personality," Hanover, 2 September 1930 (appended to Sapir 1998b, this vol- 
ume). 



Tno: The Psyiholo^y oj Culture 619 

4. i. e., not native to it? 

5. AK actually has: "LInusual agrcssivcness is cowardice The childish miimac) of an mdivi- 
dual who wants a considerable hearing eaiuu)t dt> this with every single member of the 
group." 

6. It is not clear Irom the notes whether Sapir claimed the Chukchi shaman aetualK is an 
hysteric, who happens to enjoy an acceptable role, or uhelher the label "hNsieric" applies 
only to our own evaluation of the cultural pattern o\ Chukchi shamanisiic hcha\ior. 
Compare Sapir 1998a: "We find among the Kskimo the Shaman or medicine man acts 
as if he were a hysteric. He goes through all the motions of hysteria, and perhap^ he is. 
1 dont know. I am not a psychiatrist. Their pattern of medicine man activits demands 
h\sterical conduct. He autosuggests a hysteria complex. 1 am not in a position to disen- 
tangle what happens. The diagnosis of that hysteria is not the same as that o\ hssieria 
among ourselves, because the cultural background is notably dilTerenl in the two cases 
[example of homosexuality among medicine men] ... It isn't necessary to suppt)se that 
you are really dealing with types of personality that lead to that kind of behavior natural- 
ly" 

7. BG actually has: "Cultures act selectively in regard to certain t\pes of personality (Es- 
kimo - hysterics). Christian Science; from hysteric, arab culture capitalizes Mahomet's 
neurons." 

8. LB adds "(Plains Sun Dance)" and BG adds "(Christianity)". Sapir evidently provided 
further illustrations of his point, but the notes do not reveal what he said about them. 

9. The wording of the bracketed passage comes from a later section in Tl. just following 
the discussion of compensation: "It is said that for one individual one type of society is 
best, but..." (see below). 

10. AK actually has "overt-adjustment." 

11. In the Taylor notes, the discussion of humor as an uisiiiuiion actuall) comes .iiter inc 
statements, "Can whole culture be described in terms of compensation'.' In present more 
or less strict social mores on sex, saloons, stag parties, etc. are compensations, so is gross 
humor of Puritan society." 

12. Tl phrases this as a question. 

13. The bracketed material comes from nearby passages in Sapir I9.^4a 

14. AK's notes on the discussion period of this seminar show that "Mr Oai raised the 
question of the development of Personality types. Dr. Sapir answered in brief the three 
stages: 1. Heredity, the somatic implications may mould the character (not so important 
from our point of view) 2. The maturing period, we do not know quite about, but very 
important. 3. Interactions between the child and his early environment up to the age of 
three." 

15. BG actually has. "In the child's cosmos. Chinese patterns o\ beha\ior are ^\ 
emotionally." Sapir presumabl> contrasted the emotional outlook with the ^ .d 
here, as in "Emergence..." and in the Lecture to the I"rida> Night Club, which bceins. 
"I cannot be ethnological and be sincere in observing my little bo> pla> marbles I cannot 
watch a Chinese mandarin and be psychological " The child docs not understand ■ 
particular mode o[' behavior as representative o{' a culture. "Chinese" for instance, but 
in terms of its emotional significance for him or her. 

16. i. e., developmental psychology. 

17. BG actually has: "Special values for various words emotional and rational absorp- 
tion." CK has: "Words, for children, have definite value, emotional color. Wc acquire a 
rubber stamp attitude toward a word b\ gradually unloading emotional values from a 
word." CK's passage seems to be out of order, since it iKcurs at the \er> beginning of 
the notes. 

18. See Malinowski. .S'c.v und Rcpirssion in .S'-/i./i'c Socutv. 1927. 

19. LB adds: "(hobbies: Holt)". 



520 /// Culture 

20. Sapir 1934a adds here "from birth until, say. the age often". 

21. This quote and the one immediately following both come from Sapir 1934a ("Emergence 
..."), but in the reverse order. 

22. i. e.. developmental. 

23. MD has: "A personal cosmos - a personal world of meanings - is a separate culture." 
BG has: "Culture is a personal cosmos, a personal world of meaning. The totality of 
culture is more many chambered." LB has: "A personal cosmos is a culture, totality of 
culture more many-chambered and complex than we suspect..." 

24. What BCj actually has here is: "Culture history has fate, necessity, but no causation. 
True reasons are ditTicult, many times humiliating." What LB actually has is: "Thus so 
hard to speak of "causes" of historical events, [new paragraph] 'Biography' of Julius 
Caesar full of cliches of Roman culture, tell us nothing of the personality. History has 
'fate' inherent in it, pragmatically no 'cause' for it; for us only 'necessity.' [new para- 
graph) Interest in ethnology, a running away from the ethnologist's own personal prob- 
lems: escape from responsibility (Margaret Mead) 'reasons' only harmonize our ideas, 
real reasons are sometimes embarrassing and dangerous." Sapir seems to have been 
asserting that statements as different as Caesar's (auto)biography and Mead's ethnogra- 
phy are equally pervaded by ideology and their authors' personal agendas. It is scarcely 
conceivable, however, that Sapir would have included so rancourous a statement about 
Mead in any published text. 

25. R2 has "would be". 

26. Wording of the bracketed passage comes from AK's discussion of individual "participa- 
tion" and types of adjustment, incorporated earlier in the chapter. R 1 actually has here: 
"in adjustment sociological role not so impt. - but personality". Because of immediately 
following material in Rl and in CK, I believe Sapir meant to imply that to understand 
an individual's adjustment it is not sufficient to consider merely his/her sociological role, 
but more important to consider the personality and how that is adjusted to society in 
general (including one's role). I do not think Sapir means that one's sociological role is 
utterly irrelevant (see Rl passage on "professionals"). 

27. Compare passages toward the end of "Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business 
of Getting a Living," 1939c. 

28. Wording in the bracketed passage is derived from "Pitfalls..." (1939c), a paper whose 
concerns are relevant to this portion of Rl's notes. 

29. Wording of the bracketed passage comes from "Pitfalls" (1939c). 

30. Reconstruction of the preceding two paragraphs is somewhat difficult. Rl actually has: 
"Personality demands - and - symbols. We use same symbols as other so that we can 
adv. own interests. Do not care about society's welfare - only have preferences." CK 
has: "Personal strength is augmented by touching society's and individual symbols at 
some points. Two orders of symbols - individual and social. Individual adjustment 
colors your philosophy of society. The process of adjusting your personality, not your 
cultural role. Cultural considerations alone can never explain what happens from day to 
day." QQ has: "The inadequacy of cultural consideration for predicting or interpreting 
any particular act of an individual. The indiv. is not adjusting to society, but to interper- 
sonal relationships." 

31. Compare the concluding passage of "Contributions..." (1937a): "If we could only get a 
reasonably clear conception of how the lives of A and B intertwine into a mutually 
interpretable complex of experiences, we should see far more clearly than is at present 
the case the extreme importance and the irrevocable necessity of the concept of personal- 
ity. We should also be moving forward to a realistic instead of a metaphorical definition 
of what IS meant by culture and society. One suspects that the symbolic role of words 
has an importance for the solution of our problems that is far greater than we might be 
willing to admit. After all, if A calls B a 'liar,' he creates a reverberating cosmos of 
potential action and judgment. And if the fatal word can be passed on to C, the triangu- 
lation of society and culture is complete." 



Chapter 11. The Concept of 'Trimitive Mentality" 

''^^-'' [One of my aims in these pages has been to] try to cstahhsh a 
more intimate relation between the problems of cultural anthropology 
and those of psychiatry than is generally recognized. '''^^•' [In the study 
oi" "interpersonal relations,"] it looks as though psychiatry and the sci- 
ences devoted to man as constitutive of society were actually beginning 
to talk about the same events - to wit, the facts of human experience. 
[But before we allow ourselves so comfortable a conclusion, we should 
consider a problem with regard to which psychiatry and cultural 
anthropology have shown themselves to be much less compatible bed- 
fellows. This is the problem of the so-called] '••'■' '''• '"'• ^~- '■"^' '- "primitne 
mentality." [For in] ''' presupposing a special primitive mentality, [an 
archaic psychological regime supposedly explaining modes of behavior 
in the neurotic and among the primitives,]' '''''-'' psychoanalysts ha\c 
welcomed- the contributions of cultural anthropology, but it is exceed- 
ingly doubtful if many cultural anthropologists welcome the particular 
spirit in which the psychoanalysts appreciate their data. 

[Now, how did Dr. Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, arrive at 
his version of "primitive mentality," the common ground o\' his) ''*-'** 
inevitable triad of children, neurotics, and savages' ''''•' for a long lime 
psychiatry operated with a conception of the indi\ idual that w as mercK 
biological in nature. This is easy to understand if we remember that 
psychiatry was not, to begin with, a study o\^ human nature in actual 
situations, nor even a theoretical exploration into the structure o\' per- 
sonality, but simply and solely an attempt to interpret "diseased" modes 
of behavior in terms familiar to a tradition thai was operatmg with the 
concepts of normal and abnormal physiological functioning. "" It is 
necessary to keep in mind, then, that psychoanalysts are pathologists. 
They were medical men, not usually psychologists, [and the> have otienj 
not been willing to generalize their theories outside o\' pathology. [ Hiis 
colors their entire approach.] 

'^ [When we recall that] Freud was a clinical dvKioi ai In si. iv^c \m1I 
more easily see that] his [early] reports are not reall> pucho/oiinul [in 
any sense in which we might now understand ihal term) but [rcprcscnlj 
a jump from clinical notes to vaguer cullura! insiituluMis H\pnolism 



622 /// Culture 

was in vogue at that time [among the chnicians with whom Freud 
trained], but [at'ter some initial experimentation] Freud did not go [in] 
for that. [Instead,] his idea was that of an early awakening - of [the 
organism's] going back to early reactions in an attempt to start anew 
and adjust [to a situation of stress.] As a result of his clinical training 
he dealt with physical systems; hysteria was his field, [initially,] not so 
much neurotic obsession. [The concepts of regression and repression 
that are so fundamental to psychoanalysis emerged in this context of 
the clinical setting and] "^ the physiological approach to behavior, 
[rather than] the psychological approach, [although the further explora- 
tion oi' regression and repression led far beyond the organic level. ]-^ 

'- [Like Freud,] Adler and Jung were also medical students in Ger- 
many and Austria, [and just as the medical background can be traced 
in the work of all three, so can the cultural.] The German scholar is 
very factual, on the one hand, [yet he is often enough to be found] 
mystically "chasing the blue flower" on the other. [It is consistent with 
this propensity that] Freud never dismissed anything as trivial, but 
worked out a great deal of meaning in trivialities. [And it is also consis- 
tent with his own social environment that] many of his [ideas and argu- 
ments relate to] a background of European culture - the Oedipus com- 
plex, for example. This is purely European, [a reflection of the Euro- 
pean] patriarchal [family structure.]"^ [But if we can succeed in putting 
aside the particular cultural setting we can see how Freud] attaches a 
great deal of importance to the tangles of early life - the relationships 
of the child within the family. '^'^' Among the more readily defined and 
generally recognized insights that we owe, directly or indirectly, to 
Freud are the genetic analysis and the treatment of the neuroses...;^ the 
basic importance of the psychic sexual constitution, not merely in its 
proper functional sphere, but also in connections that seem unrelated; 
the far-reaching importance of infantile psychic experiences in adult life 
and the ever-present tendency to regression to them; and the general 
light thrown on the problem of mental determinism. 

''^^^^ It is the great and lasting merit of Freud that he freed psychiatry 
from Its too strictly medical presuppositions and introduced an inter- 
pretative psychology which, in spite of all its conceptual weaknesses, its 
disturbingly figurative modes of expression, and its blindness to numer- 
ous and important aspects of the field of behavior as a whole, remains 
a substantial contribufion to psychology in general and, by implication, 
to social psychology in particular. His use of social data was neither 
more nor less inadequate than the use made of them by psychology as 
a whole. It is hardly fair to accuse Freud of a naivete which is still the 



Two: The Psvcho/oi^v of Cnlfurc 623 

rule among the vast majority oi' piotcssii>nal psychologists. It is not 
surprising that his view o\' social phenomena betrays at manv pi>inis a 
readiness to confuse various specific patterns o\' behavior, \\hich the 
cuhurahsts can show to be derivative of specific historical backgrounds, 
with those more fundamental and necessary patterns of behavior \shich 
proceed from the nature o\^ man and ol" his slowly maturing organism. 
Nor is it surprising that he shared, not only with the majority of 
psychologists but even with the very founders of anthropological sci- 
ence, an interest in primitive man thai did not address itself to a realistic 
understanding of human relations in the less sophisticated societies but 
rather to the schematic task of finding in the patterns of beha\K>r re- 
ported by the anthropologist such confirmation as he could o\' his theo- 
ries of individually "archaic" attitudes and mechanisms. 

*- Hence it is important for the psychoanalyst, [according to Ireud 
and his tbilowers,] to study primitive mentality to see just what familial 
attitudes remain constant with the European, and so on. '''^-•' Neurotic 
and psychotic, through the symbolic mechanisms which control their 
thinking, are believed to regress to a more primiti\e state o\' mental 
adjustment than is normal in modern society and which is supposed to 
be preserved for our observation in the institutions of primitive pet>ples. 
In some undefined way which it seems quite impossible to express in 
intelligible biological or psychological terms the cultural experiences 
which have been accumulated by primitive man are believed ti^ be un- 
consciously handed on to his more civilized progeny. '- [Thus the idea 
of regression, central to psychoanalytic thinking, connects the neurotic 
with the child; and when the Freudian] uses [the same logic as) the old 
evolutionary anthropologists and places the primitive with the child, 
[the triad is complete.] 

1932a jj^g cultural anthropologist can make nothing o\' the hypothesis 
of the racial unconscious nor is he disposed to allow an immediate 
psychological analysis of the behavior iM" primitive people in an\ other 
sense than that in which such an analysis is allowable for our own 
culture...^' And he is disposed to think that if the resemblances between 
the neurotic and the primitive which have so often been pointed mil arc 
more than fortuitous, it is not because of a cultural atavism which the 
neurotic exemplifies but simply because all human beings, whether 
primitive or sophisticated in the cultural sense, are. at riKk bottom. 
psychologically primitive, and there is no reason why a significant un- 
conscious symbolism which gives substitutive satisfaction to the indivi- 
dual may not become socialized on any level o\' human activity. "^^ 
The cultural anthropologist's quarrel with psychoanalysis can perhaps 



524 ili Culture 

be pill most significantly by pointing out that the psychoanalyst has 
confused the archaic in the conceptual or theoretical psychologic sense 
with the archaic in the literal chronological sense. 

^'' [The same criticism we make of psychoanalysis can be made of 
other] theories that presuppose a special primitive mentality, [such as 
that] o\' Levy-Bruhl. '- The fact that a method is lacking in sophistica- 
tion does not make it primitive, [nor does it reveal an archaic mentality 
in its practitioner. We have only to consider] Aristotle trying to do 
multiplication, [to recognize the absurdity of assigning him a "primitive 
mentality" on such a basis.] °' The apparent differences of behavior 
[between primitives and ourselves] are due to differences in the content 
o\' the respective cultural patterns, not to differences in the method of 
mental functioning in the two supposedly distinct levels. 

"^"^ In passing through Chicago once, Levy-Bruhl said that he had 
never met a primitive man and hoped he would be able to stop off for 
a day or two to see some Indian tribe. ^^ Levy-Bruhl has never visited 
a primitive group; *■' he does not know "primitive man." ^- [So it is not 
from direct experience that he] was so very impressed by the "pre-logical 
mind." that "primitive mentality" about which he has speculated so 
much and has seen so little.^ •"' Anyone who has been in contact with 
natives knows, [unless he is so devoted to his prejudices as to pay no 
heed to his observations,]^ that the "pre-logical mind" does not exist in 
them. [At least, it does not exist in them more than in ourselves.] ""-^ 
Modern man is just as illogical as primitive man in many respects - 
politics, for example. ■"' The only difference [between primitive man and 
ourselves lies not in the processes of our thinking but in the fact that] 
we appeal to more sophisticated supernatural beings [and that we have 
accumulated a larger store of technical knowledge.] "^ It seems obvious 
that we must control the brute facts in our environment more than does 
primitive man; [and once we have acknowledged this, the supposed] 
naive feeling of [primitive] man as opposed to the sophisticated thinking 
of civilized man is perhaps not [any longer a tenable] distinction, ^'i- •^'' 
"" • '^ To say that a primitive man's experience of the world is consider- 
ably less potent than ours is all that needs to be said about "primitive 
mentality." '- [He simply] knows less about the world we Hve in. 

'■ Now, the less one knows of the potential factors of the environ- 
ment [that influence the outcome] of a situation, the more one must 
speculate - fill in [the gaps in one's knowledge] with symbols, 'i'^ [In 
this regard] scientific and magical statements are hardly distinguishable. 
"•^ Whether they be science or magic, [such statements reflect] the desire 



Two: The Psychology of (^ultun- 625 

to control the world, [on the basis of experience where possible but on 
the basis of a symbolic cosmology otherwise.) '' '- Is not the atomic 
theory, [and other theories about our environment in which we postu- 
late the existence of invisible entities and forces,) really mauic. (in its 
reliance on the speculative?]'^ [- But what about the scieniitlc method, 
you may ask, with its] '''' revision of formulations on the light of more 
experience? '■'■ Indeed, if a negative instance does not cause you to revise 
[your formulation] you are stupid. '''' ' ' But such revisions, such refor- 
mulations of the magical explanation of unknoun phenomena, are con- 
stantly occurring in primitive groups. [So they are just as **scientiric'" in 
this sense as we are, while] "^^'^ we are just as "magicaf as primitive man. 
'^' The primitive has had less experience with the potential factors \s Inch 
influence the situation, but when he lllls in what is no[ known uiih 
abbreviated, [speculative] processes the nati\e [proceeds] just as we do.'"' 
"'^ Both [they and we] use reason, and both [they and we] use magic. "•''• 
'' For if this wish-fulfilling interpolation is a "magical" thought-process, 
"^"^ then in being scientific you have to be magical [as well): that is. you 
have to act on what knowledge you have, [and fill in the rest as best 
you can.] 

'^' It has been pointed out to Levy-Bruhl thai the primitixe is \er\ 
logical in any technological process. ""^ Indeed, primiti\e man has the 
nicest feeling of the adaptation of means to ends, as Boas [showed us 
in his studies of the] technology of the Kwakiutl Indians. "'' The primi- 
tive is as logical as we are where he can be. [Thus we need not speak of 
him as if he were a distinct kind o\^ human being uiili respect to his 
psychical functioning, for it is no different from our own.] '<'< "'' We arc 
all logical where we ean he, and we all till in the rest with magic. '- .Ml 
we know is that certain things will happen gi\en certain circumstances. 
r2. ri y^Q ^j-g logical Only in regard to those particular [areas o\' life] in 
which we have experience and which we have analyzed. ()\er these 
things we have control; in all other cases, we work on faith. 

■' [Surely many of the supposed differences between) magic, science, 
and religion are really a matter of terminology and not of essence." it 
is vain to look for fundamental psychic ditferences in human beings; 
the difference [lies] only in knowledge, [not in the logic o\' thought pro- 
cesses.] '•'" The primitive [is as disposed to be logical as we are. but he) 
is not able to be logical in as many places. ^«^' ''•"'^ All human beings. 
"primitive" and "sophisticated," have a profound conviction o\' the 
causal and logical nexus of their experienced universe, a belief that 
comes from the continuum of nature and [our] natural wants. ^»^« Where 
we don't actually succeed in manipulating [the world] as we wish, we 



^26 it^ Culture 

express the wish in a formula, [and try to manipulate the world with its 

aid.] 

'' [Everywhere you look among human beings you will see the] inter- 
polation of quotidian faith in the daily procedure of our lives. [It is an 
interpolation based] little on the personal application of knowledge, 
[much more on] the patterns of culture. "' [In our own case, like any 
other,] our scientific thinking - [over which we have no monopoly -] 
does not explain our own culture [patterns.] 

'- [For all these reasons, then, Levy-Bruhl's speculations about primi- 
tive mentality] seem important to the psychoanalyst but not to the 
anthropologist. [Many anthropologists would prefer to dispense with 
the idea of a special "primitive mentahty" altogether. But before we can 
do so, we must consider one other version of it that has even attracted 
some following within anthropology itself: it is a version based on the 
idea that language plays a quite different role in the mental life of primi- 
tives than among ourselves. According to Malinowski, the primitive's 
exercise of magic comes about because the pragmatic and affective func- 
tions of language overwhelmingly predominate in determining the 
meaning of his speech. Primitive man is not taught the forms of gram- 
mar in school, so his speech, we are told, is more closely governed by 
his hopes and fears and his social purposes, than is our own.]'^ 

'- [It is true that] language has more far-reaching implications than 
are [generally] assigned to it [by philologists.] ^'^^■^^ Language is only in 
part a coherent system of symbolic reference. To a far greater extent 
than is generally realized language serves also affective and volitional 
purposes. [But even if] the function of language is not in practice a 
purely symbolic or referential one, is it not a highly significant fact, 
nonetheless, that its form is so essentially of symbolic pattern? '^^'^^ The 
outstanding fact about any language is its formal completeness. This is 
as true of a primitive language, like Eskimo or Hottentot, as of the 
carefully recorded and standardized languages of our great cultures.'-^ 
""' ^2 Malinowski is an anti-formalist, [however, and in this he is far 
from alone.] '^^'^'^ The normal man of intelligence has something of a 
contempt for linguistic studies, convinced as he is that nothing can well 
be more useless. ^^ Everybody hates grammar [who has had to endure 
in school the traditional mode of procedure which laboriously dissects 
sentences and arranges Greek aorists into patterns. In reaction to this 
apparently frigid and dehumanized process]'"^ ^^ everybody hates form 
- you're interested in the color of the word, its function, not whether 
It is a noun or a verb. We not only dislike it implicitly, but explicitly 
because we had to learn it in school. [But Malinowski] does not distin- 



Two: The P.wcholoi^y of ( ulturc 627 

guish between the graminai iluil is inlicicm iii our speech, cind grammar 
as it is taught. 

[The lacl tliat graniniar is laughl in schools onl\ lor the languages 
of the ''sophisticated' peoples o\' the classical world and luirope docs 
not mean thai other languages ha\e no fonn. or thai European lan- 
guages ha\e no function.] '"'■^' The psychological problem uhich most 
interests the linguist is the inner structure o'( language, \n terms o'i un- 
conscious psychic processes... To say in so many words that the nt>blesi 
task o[^ linguistics is to understand languages as form rather than as 
function or as historical process is not to say that it can be understood 
as form alone. The formal contlguration of speech at any particular 
time and place is the result of a long and complex historical deseU^p- 
ment, which, in turn, is unintelligible without constant reference to 
functional factors. ''^-■*'-' All languages are set to do all the symbolic and 
expressive work that language is good for, either actually or poteniiall>. 
[Whether it is spoken by an Eskimo or an Englishman.) the formal 
technique of this work is the secret of each language. 

[It is not in the study of language, then, that you will find support 
for] ''' theories presupposing a special primiti\e mentality. [.As we ha\e 
said,] the apparent difterences o'i behavior [between "primiti\es" and 
ourselves] are due to ditTerences in the content of the respective cultural 
patterns, not to differences in the method o\^ mental functioning in the 
two supposedly distinct levels. 

[Thus our exploration of mental functioning has led us back once 
again to the importance of cultural patterning and o\ cultural form.) 
1928J ivjq matter where we turn in the field of social behavior, men and 
women do what they do, and cannot help but do. not merel\ because 
they are built thus and so, or possess such and such dilVerences of per- 
sonality, or must needs adapt to their immedialc en\ironment in such 
and such a way in order to survive at all, but \er> largels because ihe> 
have found it easiest and aesthetically most satisfactor\ to pattern iheir 
conduct in accordance with more or less clearly organized fiums ol 
behavior which no one is responsible for. which are not clearly grasped 
in their true nature, and which one might almost say are as scl(-e\i- 
dently imputed to the nature o[' things as the three dimensions are im- 
puted to space. [To "explain" our culture or an> other it will help us 
but little to center our at lent ion on a person's biological makeup, or 
temperament, or conscious purposes in beha\ing m some particular 
way.] '"' [in a sense] culture is self-explaining; [its form cannot be attrib- 
uted to external causes. Instead, we might iSo just as well to consider 
cultural form in terms o\' the] '' springs for art in e\er> human being. 



628 til Culture 

^'' [For to an extent as yet insufficiently appreciated, aesthetic] imagina- 
tion is the unconscious form-giver of culture. '^ [Even such a thing as 
the] musical ability of the Negro, [so often explained as due to the physi- 
ology of the race, is far better interpreted as fundamental to his] cultural 
heritage. 

[What role can we envision for the individual, then, in the formation 
o{ these patterns of culture?] ''^^^'' It is an unfortunate thing that in 
arguments about the relative place of cultural conditioning versus bio- 
logical determinants and fundamental psychological conditioning too 
little account is taken of the extremely complicated middle ground. 
[From the standpoint of the personality, I believe that] °' The struggle 
for significant form in culture unconsciously animates all normal in- 
dividuals and gives meaning to their lives. ""^ [And just as the individual 
personality's] tendency to expression may, when sublimated, give rise to 
patterns [of behavior, so, among constellations of significantly interact- 
ing individuals, there is evidently] '^^^^ some kind of a cumulative pro- 
cess, some principle of selection, according to which certain tendencies 
to change human activities are allowed unconsciously by society, insofar 
as it patterns its conduct, and certain others are not allowed... I don't 
think any of us are powerful enough to quite understand what that 
means, but the actuality of these drifts, these cumulative processes, can- 
not be doubted by anyone who has studied history, language, or what- 
ever type of patterned activity he may take up.^^ ""^ [These are the] cul- 
tural patterns [whose emergence, whose locus in specific interactions of 
individuals, and whose import for the personality we are only just be- 
ginning to see.] 



Editorial Note 

Sapir's 1928 Outline indicates that at that time he planned to con- 
clude the set of chapters on "The Individual's Place in Culture" with a 
chapter on "Primitive Mentality." Notes from the Chicago period (NE, 
Dec. 8, 1927), from the final lecture of 1936 (T2), and from the final 
lecture of 1937 (April 19; QQ, Rl, R2, CK) show discussions of this 
topic. None of them, however, show how Sapir might have linked it 
with preceding discussions. 

Little can be found in Sapir's published works or in the 1933 notes 
that is directly relevant to the critique of Levy-Bruhl. Only a brief note 
in SI (dated April 25, 1933) suggests that Sapir talked about this matter 
at all that year. Discussion of Freud's "inevitable triad of children, neu- 



Two: The Psychology of ( ullitrc 629 

rotics, and savages" ("Psychoanalysis as Prophet," Sapir I928e), how- 
ever, can be found in Sapir's reviews o\^ Freud and Freudian psschialry. 
as well as in "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry" ( 1932a) and The 
Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding o{ Behavior \n Soci- 
ety" (1937a). Because the Taylor (T2) notes indicate a relatively sub- 
stantial discussion o^ Freud before the passage on Le\y-Bruhl. I have 
drawn on these published works at some length to fill out a text whose 
reconstruction would be too sketchy on the basis of a single set o{ ni>ies 
alone. 

The discussion of Malinowski is attested only in T2 and, somewhat 
cryptically, in undated notes in LB. I have drawn here on Sapir's review 
of Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, since Maiinouskt 
made use of that work. 

Finally, it is evident that Sapir concluded the lecture of April 19. 
1937 with a few remarks intended to draw the whole course to a close. 
(Although the class apparently met once more, that session was given 
over to a guest presentation by Verne Ray.) It is far from clear just what 
conclusion Sapir drew, since only one note-taker in 1937 (R 1 ) took any 
notes on it at all, and the end of the 1933-34 course was difTerently 
organized. I have interpreted the Rl notes as consistent with a much- 
abbreviated version of the Outline's final section (on "Society as Uncon- 
scious Artist"), and I have also drawn upon the concluding passages 
from the Chicago course (NE and SE). Much guesswork is involved in 
reconstructing this passage, however - e\en more than in the rest oi 
this chapter. 

Notes 

1. Wording of the bracketed passage derives from Sapir I^>32a. "Cultural Anthropolog) and 
Psychiatry." 

2. Sapir 1932a actually has: "psychoanalysts welcome the conlrihutions 

3. See also "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry." Sapir 1932a: "The locus of p<»>chi.ur> 
turns out not to be the human organism at all in any fruitful sense of the v^ord but the 
more intangible, and yet more intelligible, world o\' human relationships and ideas that 
such relationships bring forth." 

4. T2 actually has: "Many of his things react imi a background of Furopcan culture. Oedi- 
pus complex. This is purely Kuropoan, it is the patriarchal " 

5. The text of the review of Pfister (Sapir 191 7i) includes at this pouU "lo a much smaller 
extent also of the psychoses (forms of insanity); the frequency and radical mipi^rtanoc 
of symbol-formation in the unconscious mind, understanding of which is sure lo pro\c 
indispensable for an approach to the deeix-r pri>blems o\ religion and art. the anaUsis 
and interpretation of dreams". 

6. The text adds: "He believes that ii is as illegitimate to analyze tolemism or pnmHi\c 
laws of inheritance or set ntiiaN m terms of the peculiar symMisms discovered or 



630 tli Culture 

invented by ihe psychoanalyst as it would be to analyze the most complex forms of 
modern social behavior in these terms." 

7. T2 actually has: "Levy-Bruhl was very impressed by the pre-logical primitive man. He 
has speculated most about primitive mentality and has seen less." 

8. On the basis of other statements it is hard to believe Sapir would not have qualified this 
"anyone." 

9. Rl actually has: "The less one knows of potential factors of environment of a situation 
- the more one must speculate - fill in with symbols. Atomic theory - magic?" R2 
has: "The atomic theory, etc., is really magic." 

10. In a course on religion (Yale, notes by David Mandelbaum) Sapir made some of the 
same points as in the present discussion. From Feb. 6: "Belief as such never constitutes 
religion. Very few of our beliefs are tangibly contextual to our senses. Our beliefs become 
interwoven and become a smooth weave of existence. At no point does it pay us to deny 
our beliefs. Thus in the social world as well as in the physical world, when you get 
enough people to say so then you just don't deny. Thus electricity and god are exactly 
analogous beliefs. Most of the things I believe I know about history and science (is not 
dilTerent from my belief in God) - is built up on my dependability in secondary sources." 
From March 23: "Our formal processes of education very closely approaches religious 
ritual. Despite the pragmatism of our age, we do not as a rule test the validity of our 
education by watching its effects. There seems to be a universal impulse in men to 
create abbreviated patterns of conduct in a formalized manner and to abide by these 
stringently." 

1 1 . For a somewhat different discussion of science and religion, see "The Meaning of Reli- 
gion" (Sapir 1928a). 

12. TTie T2 notes move from a critique of Levy-Bruhl to a critique of Malinowski's view of 
language. Presumably Sapir first indicated what Malinowski's position was. The brack- 
eted material, inserted to connect the two discussions, presents a version of Malinowski's 
position based on the subsequent critique of it. The work Sapir probably had most in 
mind here was "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages," Malinowski's (1923) 
paper published as a supplementary essay in Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Mean- 
ing. Sapir had reviewed Ogden and Richards' book in "An Approach to Symbolism" 
(1923). I draw on that review (Sapir 19231) to fill out the reconstructed lecture text. 

13. From "The Grammarian and His Language," Sapir 1924c. Although the theme of this 
paper is relevant to Sapir's 1936-37 lectures, it seems less clear whether, by 1936, Sapir 
would still have spoken of a "primitive language" or of "great cultures." What he evi- 
dently means by those expressions here is a language spoken by "primitives," and the 
cultures of complex societies with Uterary traditions. 

14. The wording of the bracketed passage derives from "The Grammarian and His Lan- 
guage," Sapir 1924c. 

15. I insert this passage from Sapir 1998a because it seems to fiow well from Rl's notes and 
to be consistent with them. Inserting the passage implies, however, that Sapir referred 
to cultural or linguistic drift at this point in the lecture. There is no direct evidence that 
he did so. Rl actually has: 

"Tendency to expression when sublimated/ may become 

patterns 
Cultural patterns" 

* * * 

End of the 1936-37 Lectures 



Part III: Symbolic SlniclLires and Experience 

(1933-34) 

Chapter 12. Symbc^lism 

[1933] 

'"' Symholisni 

'^'' What is referred to by the word "s>mbor"? li is noi so cas\ to tell. 
[Suppose we start with an example: someone bangs on a table and an- 
other person calls this action a symbol ot violence. Nou. ifuc intcrprci 
the action in that way,] a bang on the table has for us no direct connec- 
tion either with the muscular movement [o( the banger] or with the 
sound waves [he produced. These do not really mailer to us; \shai we 
are thinking of is the meaning.] It is a direct meaning in an nidircci 
behavior, understandable by a certain convention. The banging o\' the 
table may be rather inadequate as expression, but it is a convcniional 
symbol for violent expression. 

[Still, it is not impossible to pay attention lo the physical aciiNily 
itself, should we wish to. There are two aspects or sides to the behaMor. 
and] it can be turned' to its "natural" side or turned- to its coiueniional 
side, since it may be looked upon [either] as non-ssmbolic ([that is.) 
natural) or as symbolic (conventional). How we consider it is a question 
of tendency. 

[So perhaps what we need to be concentrating upon is not. ai least 
in the first instance, the symbol itself but in what ua\ human K-haMor 
can be understood as symbolic, and when the luinian mind can be siid 
to be reacting symbolically.] ^^ [Let nic offer an iniiialj detlnilion. Tlic 
human mind is reacting symbolically when some compiMieni of experi- 
ence - [be it] an object of the external \\ork\. an idea, an event, [evenj 
a personality, or a behavior pattern elicits beliefs, ideas, emolions. 
sentiments or ways of behavior which refer to the nuunini; ol this ex- 
perience [rather than to its i^bjectixe characteristics.) Iliere is a symbolic 



532 tit Culture 

reference, [in other words - a leap from] the symbol to the meaning of 
the symbol. ^'' There are all kinds'^ [of behaviors that can be symbolic; 
what is] ''"' ^' constant in symbolism [is not the behavior itself but the 
fact that it] always substitutes for some closer intermediating kind of 
behavior. *"'' If a given behavior is substitutive to a more direct expres- 
sion, there is already a symbol. [Moreover, symbols take part in a whole 
structure o^ ideas. So] it may also be said, that if you rationalize [in any 
way about an action or event,] you have already declared your faith in 
symbols. 

^»^ [Because the object or behavior itself is not the issue in symbolism 
but the assignment of meaning to it, all kinds of apparently dissimilar 
things can be] examples [of symbolism]."^ Mathematical and algebraical 
signs and figures [are symbols]; colored lights and flags [are symbols, 
while] the green, red, or white [colors of those flags and lights may have 
symbolic meaning too in their own right.] There are purity symbols - 
flowers or dresses [of a certain kind]; and the numbers [we just alluded 
to as mathematical signs may also have other kinds of significance,] 
such as [the "bad luck" attaching to the number] thirteen. [The physical 
characteristics of these symbols, such as the scratches on paper repre- 
senting "thirteen," will not take us very far in explaining the significance 
attached to them, as we may easily see if we consider that] the hand- 
shake, the olive branch, and the palm branch [can all be said to symbol- 
ize peace even though their "natural" sides are quite dissimilar.] 

[Although some symbols may arouse little feeling in their users others 
are deeply attached to personal or social significances. For instance, 
symbols like] ^^ national flags and the Christian crucifix [bear a great 
emotional potency for the social groups with which they are associated. 
Among symbolisms of this kind we should probably also include the]^ 
trappings of royalty, such as the crown, sceptre, and so on, [trappings 
that can even "mean" or represent the state itself]; totemic animals, or 
college animals, [are symbols of an analogous kind in their representa- 
tion of social groups and the feelings one has as a member of the group. 
And while some people are fond of interpreting objects and events as] 
psychoanalytic sex symbols, [we must not lose sight of the possibility 
of interpreting] home and mother as symbols of respectability. 

^^ [Disparate as these examples may be, it is not impossible to attempt 
a] classification. [First of all, to the extent that the "natural" aspect of 
the symbol or symbolic behavior, that is its physical characteristics, has 
some connection with its meaning,] ^a, bg j^ j^ convenient to distinguish 
between ( 1 ) Primary symbols, and (2) Dissociated symbols. ^^ For ex- 



Two: The Psychology oj Cultun- (^\\ 

ample, we have a primary [symbol] when ihc symbol of a cow \^ a 
drawing of a cow; a dissociated [symbol,) when any sign may stand for 
a certain sound. ''' There is no complete break [between these l>pcs.) 
but a continuous line from the one to the other. [Actually, it might be 
more accurate to say that] there is a hierarchy of symbols ranging from 
the [most] direct expression to [the most] highly institutionalized, disso- 
ciated, reintegrated forms. [Among these last,] the symbolic meaning 
may depend upon [the symbol's] belonging to a certain plateau [m the 
symbolic structure.] 

^^ [Actually, primary and dissociated symbols can be thought of as 
taking part in a] classification [of another sort. We might call both of 
them] signatory symbols: [whether dissociated or not.] signatory sym- 
bols tend to be simple signs without significant [atTective] overtones. 
[Symbols of this kind contrast with] assimilative symbols, [by which I 
mean those where strong] overtones of feeling are assimilated to the 
sign. These symbols become foci of emotional grouping and fa\or the 
formation of sentiments. 

^'^ There is, however, a long way [from a single symbol] to a symbolic 
system, [which incorporates another degree of dissociation through con- 
figurative patterning.]^ The symbolic system is far renuned from and 
dissociated from the original function, but associated within itself. Take 
for instance the red and green traffic light: the simplest s\ mbolic system. 
It is highly dissociated, but highly complete in itself; it is not a mirror 
of reality, but a convenient scheme for orientation [to it]. It is important 
[to recognize] that the symbolic system as such is highl\ dissociated 
from the elements in which it is expressed, but it has its own logic. The 
most completely dissociated system is mathematics, but language too is 
a very complicated system of this kind, li nuisi noi be loo rigid, how- 
ever, if it is to allow the development of a rich treasure of symbols. 

[Formal patterns, that is to say symbolic systems, thus contain a cer- 
tain complexity: they are not merely assemblages of indi\idual ssmbols.J 
^"^ A second important quality of a strict symbolic system is the homo- 
geneity of its materials. [With the tratTic signals. \\n instance, the ele- 
ments of the system consist of] light, in both ca.ses [either] red or 
green. Language and mathematics [are perhaps the prime examples 
that] show this absolute homogeneity. [In contrast, ctMisider some exam- 
ples of systems that are] not homogeneous, [such as] Casella's music 
[with its inclusion ol] a real nightingale, and ilie use o\' real shell and 
real hair in connection with a usual oil painting. 



634 III Culture 

^^ [In sum, depending on the nature of their connection with a sym- 
bohc] structure, symbols ditTer in certain respects: 

(i) There may be a one-to-one correspondence [between the symbol 
and lis meaning,] as compared with over-determination, conditioning 
[by other dimensions of a symbolic structure,] or assimilation [of affec- 
tive overtones]. 

(ii) There may be poverty of content as compared with richness of 
content. 

(iii) Symbols may be more social than individual and vice versa. 

(iv) They may be more conscious than non-conscious and vice versa. 

(v) [Symbols that participate in a symbolic configuration] may be 
relatively homogeneous or the reverse, consistent or non-consistent 
[with one another in their physical components]. 



da. mi ^igfis ^j^d Symbols 

^^ My intention was to use the first lecture on symbols as a way to 
show what an interesting, but also very difficult and complicated, field 
this is; and, in a way, to clear the ground for the following hour. [Now 
we can consider some particular topics within this field, such as the 
distinction between] sign and symbol, and the many [problems] involved 
in these concepts.^ """^ [We have already indicated that] when the human 
mind is reacting symbolically, this means that] words, action, gestures 
coming either from us or from the people around us, [even] objects, in 
a word all the elements of the environment, stand not only for them- 
selves, but [also] for something else of which they are the sign. [They 
have not only a "natural" aspect but also a] semiotic character. At a 
certain point of dissociation of the sign from the physical experience, 
the symbol will appear. [To put this another way,] the sign becomes 
symbol when it no longer has a perceptible causal relation with what it 
refers to. 

"^ If the distinction is between an actual relafion (the sign) and an 
imputed one (the symbol), can there be any genetic relationship between 
sign and symbol?^ There is certainly a difference between the contextual 
sign and the full-grown symbol, but it is a logical difference, a difference 
of definition. [It does not mean that symbols cannot have their genesis 
in signs.] In fact, symbols have grown out of sign situadons by dissoci- 
ation. For example, [when you shake] the fist to threaten a person out 
of reach, the action is not completed; a part of it has been dissociated. 



Two: The Tsycholoiiy oj ( ulturc 635 

There is an interruption. [And eventually, shaking the fisi at an imagi- 
nary enemy becomes a symbol lor aniier itsell' when no enenu. real or 
imaginarv. is actually inleneled.]'' One must estahlisli .1 >.'n-.ii ilisiijic!i«>n 
between the logical aiul ihc genetic \iew'points. 

"" The threat of the fist, coiisideretl in its pi unary meanmg. is merely 
a sign of trouble. It becomes a symbol when the adversary is out of 
reach, when the situation takes a hypocritical character. (But) there arc 
many intermediate degrees and they represent the genesis of the symbol 
from the sign, if it often happens that the threatening does not lead lo 
action, it comes to be considered as a substitute for action. Tliai is 
[simply a product ot] the process of socialization. [But] the part of the 
situation which is dissociated from [the action] and substitutes for it is 
not necessarily the most important. For example, in a situation of anger 
the secretion of the endocrine glands, or other bodily phenomena, are 
more important [parts o\^ the experience] than the clenching o\' the tlsi. 
So sign and symbol must not be taken as an actual antinonn, but as 
two poles between which the concrete thing or e\ent moves. 

"" The sign devoid of its context is always ambiguous. The ambiguii> 
of the sign sometimes leads to a stiffening of the meaning [it bears, and) 
thus symbols may appear. 

'^^ [Clearly,] the field of signs and symbols presents man\ interesting 
questions. [Now] I shall read some of the statements made by members 
of the seminar and point out some of the problems invoked in the 
examples given. "^"^ These are cases of symbol genesis, [in which members 
of the seminar have] presented instances of a sign which b\ dissiKiation 
has become a symbol. 

"^'^ First, the example given by Mr. Marjolin:'" "Before the War" peo- 
ple in France used to have on Sundays a special kind o\' cake in the 
form of a crescent, just a little bit different from the ordmar> bread. It 
was a sign of good times. During the War food-stutT was scarce, and 
people could no longer afford to ha\c this special kind of cake on Sun- 
days. But after the War this crescent form oi cake was revived, and 
this was done with great enthusiasm, almost approximating a religious 
ceremony. People associated this crescent with the old golden days of 
peace and happiness. Thus ihc cake became a symbol. .Although the 
material out of which the revived crescent was now made, and the way 
it was made, may have been ditTerent from pre-\sar practices, the form 
remained [and it was this form that became the s\mbol.]'* 

"*-' This is a fair example shtuMiig lun\ a symbol may grow ou! of a 
sign. As a matter of fact, we cannot tell when the sign ends and when the 



636 /// Culture 

symbol begins; the transition is gradual. But there is always a historical 
connection somewhere, in which the sign is dissociated from its original 
meaning, although this historical connection is seldom clear. 

^" Now, the example given by Mr. Ferrero: "Before the War the three- 
colored Italian Hag was beautiful - it was associated in my mind with 
beautiful thoughts. But after the War the Italian flag belonged to a 
party of violence, and it is [now] associated in my mind with bloodshed, 
persecution, corruption and policemen. I saw the police beat people. 
The new tlag becomes to me, therefore, a symbol of violence." 

^'' This example [given by] Mr. Ferrero is more personal than the one 
given by Mr. Marjolin, although there may be many other people in 
Italy who share this feeling. "^"^ [However, the fact that an example in- 
volves personal feelings does not mean it cannot be a symbol, for] there 
are private symbols [as well as those that are accepted by a whole 
group.]'- [Even among signs that have become socialized and have be- 
come social symbols in the clearest sense,] most of the time the socializa- 
tion takes place for the material of the symbol, not for its reference. To 
be [sure.] everything in this realm of symbolism is partly social, partly 
individual. Social symbols can [even] give birth to private symbols: ''' ^^ 
in psychotics we see more spectacularly the process of personal affectual 
evaluation of a common symbol. But the world of the individual is 
never dissociated from the life of society; and the life of "society" is 
after all a figure of speech - it is a total of private worlds. All symbols 
therefore have both social and individual values, ''"' although there is 
always an antagonism between the social and the individual inter- 
pretations. 

'"' We don't know how far we can go in the use of private symbols. 
For example, there have been poets who have not been understood, 
because of the private symbolism which they used. '^''' [On the other 
hand,] even the private world of meaning of a psychotic patient has its 
roots in culture - the culture as manifested in his family relations, for 
example. Therefore we should not draw too hard and fast a line between 
the affectively-laden symbolism and social symbolism. Nor do we want 
to make too [sharp] a distinction between conscious and unconscious 
symbols, or even between signs and symbols. 

^'' [Let us turn now to] the example given by Dr. Maki: "I am greatly 
impressed by the way Americans use certain humming sounds in con- 
nection with their speech, such as m..., n..., etc. In Finland, this mixing 
of unvoiced sounds with clearly enunciated words would be considered 
impolite." 



Inn: I he l\\\iliohi^y uf Culture f"^"^ 

^■^ This is an example of the reinterprelalion of symbols. In America 
the use of such "unvoiced sounds" is considered an individual manner- 
ism, not so much as a sign ot impoliteness. Women in particular have 
such mannerisms. Sometimes they make a certain sound by inhaling, m 
order to show their attention to a man's talk. Fhis ma> be a kind of 
primary symbolism.'** 

iia, rni j^ct US now cousidcr] the case ot" symbol genesis presented by 
Dr. Beck:'-'' "Once I had a rather tiresome talk with a prisoner, and (in 
greeting him initially]'^ I quite involuntarily played with the prison's 
keys that I carried around. On noticing this, the prisoner remarked thai 
he realized that he was in prison but that one day he would be free, 
etc. This involuntary act on my part, therefore, was taken as a sign of 
institutional power." 

■^"^ Dr. Beck presents the instance of a sign which by dissociation has 
become a symbol. The greeting which he addressed to the prisoner in 
coming to his cell stands for its whole ordinary context, that is. the 
world in which the prisoner was living before going to jail. This greeting 
has a meaning so dissociated, so remote from its intrinsic value that it 
becomes a symbol. [But there is probably more to say about this exam- 
ple too.] '*'' The use of hands, in \arious connections, and gesture in 
particular, [deserve a considerable discussion.] They represent a kind of 
symbolism that has not been carefully studied.' ' 

■""^ [So although these cases were supposed to illustrate relationships 
between sign and symbol, now that we have looked at them) the mere 
opposition between sign and symbol appears too poor to express the 
reality. We must distinguish several points o\' \ieu: the relative degree 
of dissociation, the relative degree of socialization, and so on, [perhaps 
other dimensions as well.] We need a more elaborate nomenclature, [it 
seems, and even the examples that seemed at first glance to he the sim- 
plest may turn out to be quite complicated.] 

ha. rm jakc, for instance, the implication o( the word "door." It dtxrs 
not merely stand for the single object (of wood, that can be moved on 
hinges, etc.), but at the same time it also suggests something else - a 
hall, a corridor, or a room - from which or to which the door is lead- 
ing. [The word is a symbol for the door, but the ^.Uhh iisell] **•* may be 
a sign for "activities to be completed." [So how are we \o desenbe its 
scmiotic character?] "" [As we have just said.) the s>mbol will ap|XMr al 
a certain point of dissociation of the sign from the physical experience; 
but there is no limit to the transformation i>f the s\mboi. Thus the door 
can become the symbol o\' the corridor and have "exist" as its only 



638 ttt Culture 

meaning [(i. c, "a corridor exists")]. The implications [of the door take 
precedence and there is a dissociation from the physical thing. We react 
to the Miiplications rather than to the physical object. In the same way] 
a gesture, [no matter what sort of muscle movement it may involve - 
and even if it is very gracefully executed -] may be displeasing'^ be- 
cause o^ its remote implications. 

"" [Now, as soon as we find that we have to mention these remote 
implications,] that raises the problem of the immediacy of meaning. [If 
meaning does not lie in the gesture, object, or behavior itself, what is 
the set of implications in which it does lie?] What is the context of our 
experience, [from which we are to derive its meaning]? For, any experi- 
ence must be placed in a totality from which it takes all its significance. 
^'' And what contexts people see may be very different. ™ [If I speak 
about an object (such as a door) in the environment,] what ideas and 
feelings am I raising in the minds of others when I speak? ^'^ An element 
oi the same environment may not be the same for two persons experi- 
encing it [if they place it in different contexts. I think that if we really 
tried to study this problem thoroughly] ™ we should find, at last, that 
the environment is not the same for all the individuals [who experience 
it.] Any experience has a different meaning for each person, because 
each of them gives a private sense to a physical thing or event, the 
meaning of which would seem at first to be universal. That does not 
mean that there is no possible understanding between them, for the 
meaning of a part of this environment becomes socialized by convention 
- the most powerful instrument of which is language. 

™ This discovery of the private meanings of things and events leads 
[us to see the inevitable futility of any]'^ endeavor to understand any- 
thing [in human life] by a mere survey of the physical behavior [con- 
cerned in it]. It also leads to caution in our dealings with children, [for 
as an adult] one does not apprehend the true context in which their acts 
must be placed. [Not yet fully socialized, they do not share the socialized 
meanings we can attribute to behaviors.] Furthermore, the socialized 
meanings themselves are different from one culture to another - the 
meaning of intimacy, for example. 

■""^ [Surely] the study of symbolism will throw light upon the growth of 
culture, therefore. ^^ We must be aware of the semiotic nature of all ele- 
ments of experience: as signs they speak a language of implications, ''^' ™ 
and the real language is supported by this anonymous language of signs, 
with all the implications of meaning. ^'^ [Now as you think about this you 
may find it instructive to] try to suggest situations where the sign-implica- 



Two: I'lic f'.wcholoi^v of Culmrc 6!^9 

tioiis fortwopersonsmay be quilcditTcrcnl.-"""! This ma\ help you avoid 
the great] danger [in the study of syniboHsni. uhiehj is to o\ereniphasi/e 
its social character.'' The social [links in the meanings otssmboK]--' arc 
but fragmentary; w hal can be expressed and understood [m common) is 
relatively little. The illusion [thai meaning, and culture, are shared] comes 
from this marvelous tool which is language. 

''•' In the last analysis, the study of culture has to be the slud\ ot 
individual lives. What is generally thought of as culture may be said lo 
be an illusion of objectivity, [fostered by language].--^ '^•*^'* The complete, 
impersonalized "culture" of the anthropologist can reall> be little more 
than an assembly or mass of loosely overlapping idea and action ^\s- 
tems which, through verbal habit, can be made to assume the appear- 
ance of a closed system of behavior. ''-' [Attention to symbolism should 
reveal to us, then, that] even in a social situation we are reacting ii> 
personalities, [and reacting in terms of meanings and] ''^^'^'" cultural defi- 
nitions which do not apply to all the members of [our] group, \shich 
even, in specific instances, apply to [ourselves] alone. ''•' On the other 
hand, symbolism manifested by individuals, e\en in such tri\ial things 
as posture, often has a cultural background that is frequently o\er- 
looked. [There is no necessary contradiction between these iwo observa- 
tions.] '*^''-'' It is not the concept oi' culture which is subtly misleading 
but the metaphysical locus to which culture is generally assigned. 



u/> 



Speech us a Syniho/ic Sy.sicni 



^^ Reading poetry we frequently experience [ihe ua\ in uhich] the 
words as well as the whole evocative structure of the spoken poem have 
symbolic values. [Leaving the question of the poem's overall structure 
aside,] the symbolism of words is highly dissociated. highl\ abstracted. 
[Now, the symbolism in them thai is nu^st often and easily experienced 
is the] referential - referring, that is. to meanings which are not gi\en 
in the sounds themselves [and that are not "primary." to use the nomen- 
clature 1 proposed in an earlier lecture. ]^'"^ [The referential is often taken 
to be the essential form of symbolism in language, what we might even 
call "linguistic symbolism" par excellence] But in the person speaking. 
there appear symbolisms very dilTerent from the referential svmbolism 
of language, primary symbolisms which are over and above linguistic 
symbolisms, and which are frequently used consciously or subcon- 
sciously by poets and actors, [in iheir management ol] sounds, rhvlhni. 



640 III Cnl'ifc 

and intonation, [for example. The meanings conveyed with these sym- 
bolisms may turn out to be quite at odds with what the words express 
rctcrcntially. As they say,] "it is the actor's art to use any word to ex- 
press anything." 

*''* This observation leads to the question: Have sounds as such a 
potential quality aside from what they mean? In 1929 I started an exper- 
imental investigation in this point, a preliminary report on which is 
published under the title "A Study in Phonetic Symbolism. "^^ These 
studies are still going on, [thanks to] Dr. [Stanley] Newman, [who has 
taken over the work.] 

""*' [In the course of] that study it became obvious that there is [some- 
thing we might call] a ''natural phonetic alignment" - that is, that 
certain meanings which do not come from the situation [itself] are ap- 
plied to certain sounds. [We found that] there exists a ''phantasy vocab- 
ulary," that certain vowels "sound bigger" ([or smaller,] etc.) than oth- 
ers. '''-^''"^ For instance, the contrast between the vowel a and the vowel 
/ (the phonetic or continental values are intended) was illustrated in 
every one of sixty pairs of stimulus words, the subject being requested 
to indicate in each case which of the two in themselves meaningless 
words iiicanl (lie larger and which the smaller variety of an arbitrarily 
selected meaning. I'or example, the meaningless words m^//and /??// were 
pronounced in that order and given the arbitrary meaning 'table.' The 
subject decided whether nKtl seemed to symbolize a large or a small 
lahle as coiitrasled with the word /;///. ""'^ About 80% of the subjects' 
answers attached the imagined [connotation] of something large or big 
to the vowel a ([pronounced] as in "saw"), and the imagined [connota- 
tion] of something small to the vowel / (as in "it"). The more remote 
the sounds were from each other, within the scale from a to / - the 
larger the "contrast-step," that is - the more certain and distinct was 
the meaning attached. '''''^'" It is important to note that the words were 
so selected as to avoid associations with meaningful words.-'' 

"^'^ [These experiments were never intended to contradict the well- 
established philological fact that] languages are not built on such prin- 
ciples [as sound symbolisms.] There is no stable and distinct relation 
between sounds and the "real" linguistic meanings o\' words. [Instead, 
what ilie studies show is that] this vowel-symbolism occurs as an uncon- 
scious symbolism which may be conditioned either acoustically or ki- 
naesthelically. There are ofcour.se linguistic interferences, and indivi- 
dual dilVerences (probably conditioned by different degrees of sensitiv- 
ity), which should be and will be studied. Furthermore, the studies 
slKMild be exteiuleil lo very young children and to foreign languages.^'' 



T\s(r Till' Psycholofiy of Culture 641 

[Earlier in our discussion an example offered by Dr. Maki similarK 
brought to mind a type o'( "expressive" symbolism as contrasted wiih 
the merely referential symbolism we normally recogm/e.'*^ It was what 
Dr. Maki called "unvoiced sounds, " such as the) '*•* mannerisms of 
women who make a certain sound by inhalmg, in order to show ihcir 
attention to a man's talk. This may be a kind of primary symbolism 
[too, like the sound symbolism of vowels. Something rather like this 
behavior also occurs] in an Indian tribe in northern California, among 
whom, for example, men and women observe different phonetic rules. ^ 
Thus when a man says 'moon', he says wak'dra. while a woman says 
wak! — ^7r',^" the last sound being produced probably by inhaling. I 
really have no [definite] theory [explaining] this unvoiced speech of 
women. Such sounds may belong to a category other than ordinary 
language. Possibly they may represent a kind of primary symbolism, 
[perhaps] due, [if we are to believe the psychoanalysts.] to women's mas- 
ochistic tendency.^' 

[Of course the Yana man or woman who produces one or other of 
these forms is referring to the moon at the same time as symbolizing 
maleness or femaleness.] ''^-'^"^ h goes without saying that in actual 
speech referential and expressive symbolisms are pooled in a single ex- 
pressive stream. [We might even distinguish among levels of referential 
symbolism as partaking of this kind of expressiveness:] "" for instance, 
[suppose you have an acquaintance who has been your intimate friend; 
but you sense that he has changed toward you, and you deduce this 
from his] use of a vocabulary marking a greater social distance than 
previously. [Notice here that] the referential meaning[s] o\ language 
above the average level do not need a special situation to be understotnl 
There can be a direct implication, [so that you deduced the change o\ 
attitude directly from your friend's speech.] 

[It seems then as if there are in speech] '''-^ '' many levels on which 
expressive patterns are built... [And] quite aside from specific inferences 
which we may make from speech phenomena on any one of its It- 
there is a great deal of interesting work to be done with the psychou-^^ 
of speech woven out of its different levels 



"'■' Symbolism unil Socuil l\syciioiai^\ 

[The study of language is probably one of the most important avenues 
to take if we wish to explore the relationship ol] symbolism and social 



^2 Hf Culture 

psychology. (Bui let us speak about that relationship more broadly. 
First of ali. what is social psychology'.'] Social psychology deals with: 

(i) the distinctive elements in the human mind which determine man's 
social relations; 

(II) interpersonal relations; 

(iii) the reaction upon the mind of social relations and the recognized 
and established usages of social life (institutions, that is). 

The study o^ symbolism is one means of understanding (ii) and (iii), 
or. in other words, the relations between the individual and society. This 
may be done by studying the locus of the symbolic complex. The latter 
may belong to the field o^ institutions, to unconscious social patterns, 
or to individual patterns, conscious or unconscious; its relative position 
depends upon analysis. But in any case, neither the individual nor the 
social is an isolated entity and the locus is never found entirely and 
ultimately in the individual mind, nor again in an institution. The dis- 
tinction between these two is [a distinction between a] relatively minor 
or [relatively] major extent of the locus. The individual hooks onto soci- 
ety through [his or her] participation, to a greater or lesser degree, in 
the social symbol. 

[A study of symbolism must therefore not take too seriously a classifi- 
cation of symbols into the social and the personal, (say) the psychoana- 
lytic. Although the latter type may appear to concern only the indivi- 
dual personality,] symbolism of a psychoanalytic character is a dynamic 
cultural fact nevertheless, a fact which is for the time being relatively 
private and obsessive though it may easily become socially accepted. 

On the other hand, the [extent or even] universality of response to a 
symbol is a measure of the homogeneity of a culture; though here again 
[it must be pointed out that] relatively few people in a given society 
fully participate in all the major symbolic patterns of the society (for 
example its patterns of religious, political, aesthetic, and legal [activity], 
and so on). This means that there is a drawing together into smaller 
groups of all those who share to a required degree in one or more of 
these major symbolisms. 

''^''-^ No problem of social psychology that is at all realistic can be 
phrased by starting with the conventional contrast of the individual and 
his society. Nearly every problem of social psychology needs to consider 
the exact nature and implication of an idea complex, which we may 
look upon as the psychological correlate of the anthropologist's cultural 
pattern, to work out its relation to other idea complexes and what mod- 
ifications it necessarily undergoes as it accomodates itself to these, and. 



Two: The Psviliolo^y of Culture 643 

above all. lo ascertain the precise Kklis of Mich a complex. This Ukus 
is rarel\ identifiable uith societN as a uhole. except in a purely philo- 
sophical or conceptual sense, nor is it often lodged in the psyche of a 
single individual. In extreme cases such an idea complex or cultural 
pattern may be the dissociated segment of a single individual's mind or 
il nia\ amount lo no more than a polenlial re\i\irication of ideas in 
the mind of a single individual through the aid of some such symbolic 
depositary as a book or museum. Ordinarily the locus will be a substan- 
tial portion of the members of a community, each of them feeling that 
he is touching common interests so far as this particular culture pattern 
is concerned. ''- 

^^ Thus the study of symbolism provides one c>\' the most \aluable 
and [fruitful] methods of approach to the basic problems o\' social 
psychology. 



[1934] 

1934c j]^Q itrm symbolism covers a great variety of apparent!) dissim- 
ilar modes of behavior. ''^ '''*'-• '''"■ '^- •^' In its original sense il was restricted 
to objects or marks intended to recall represent, or direct special atten- 
tion to some larger and more complex phenomena (some] person, 
object, idea, event or projected activity associated c^nl\ \aguel\ or not 
at all with the symbol in any natural sense. By gradual extensions o\' 
meaning the terms symbol and symbolism ha\e come to include not 
merely such trivial objects and marks as '^' the letter 't'. [to indicate a 
particular sound in speech], ''^•^'*'-'- '^' black balls, to indicate a negative 
attitude in voting, and ''^-^'**^ stars and daggers, to leniind the reader that 
supplementary information is to be found at the bottom o)^ the page. 
1934c, lb. 1,1 ^^j^ ,^|j,^^ more elaborate objects and de\ices. such as tlags and 
signal lights, which are not ordinaril\ regarded as important in them- 
selves but which point to ideas and actions o\' great ct>nsequence lo 
society. ^'^^'^''- ''"' "' ''' Such complex systems o^ reference as speech, wrii- 
ing and mathematical notation should also be included under the term 
symbolism, for the sounds and marks used therein ob\iousl\ ha\e no 
meaning in themselves and can have significance only for those who 
know how to interpret them in lerms of that lo which they reler.^-^ •''•^• 
hi, ih ^ certain kind o\' poetry is called s\nibi>lic ov s>mbi>listic because 
its apparent content is only a suggestion for wider meanings. In jxt- 
sonal relations too there is much beha\ ior that may be called symbolic. 



(>44 fll Cultwc 

as when a ceremonious bow is directed not so much to an actual person 
as to a status which that person happens to fill. The psychoanalysts 
ha\e come to apply the term symbolic to almost any emotionally 
charged pattern of behavior which has the function of unconscious ful- 
I'lhneni o{ a repressed tendency,'*'* as when a person assumes a raised 
voice o( protest to a perfectly indifferent stranger who unconsciously 
recalls his father and awakens the repressed attitude of hostility toward 
the father. 

1934c. dm /^mij the wide variety of senses in which the word is used 
there seem to emerge two constant characteristics. '^^'*^' '^"'' '''- ^' One of 
these, (which we have already mentioned,] is that the symbol is always 
a substitute for some more closely intermediating type of behavior, 
whence it follows that all symbolism implies meanings which cannot be 
derived directly from the contexts of experience. -^^ The second charac- 
teristic of the symbol is that it expresses a condensation of energy, its 
actual significance being out of all proportion to the apparent triviality 
o\ meaning suggested by its mere form.^^ '^■^'^^ This can be seen at once 
when the mildly decorative function of a few scratches on paper is com- 
pared with the alarming significance of apparently equally random 
scratches w hich are interpreted by a particular society as meaning "mur- 
der" or "God." ''^''"*'-"- '^'- "^ This disconcerting transcendence of form 
comes out equally well in the contrast between the involuntary blink of 
the eye and the crudely similar wink which means "He does not know 
what an ass he is, but you and I do."'*^ 

iy34c. dm. SI. hi. lb 1^ seems useful to distinguish two main types of sym- 
bolism. The first of these, which may be called referential symbolism, 
embraces such forms as oral speech, writing, the telegraph code, na- 
tional flags, flag signaling and other organizations of symbols which 
are agreed upon as economical devices for purposes of reference. The 
second type of symbolism is equally economical and may be termed 
condensation symbolism, for it is a highly condensed form of substitu- 
tive behavior for direct expression, allowing for the ready release of 
emotional tension in conscious or unconscious form. Telegraph ticking 
IS virtually a pure example of referential symbolism; the apparently 
meaningless washing ritual of an obsessive neurotic, as interpreted by 
the psychoanalysts, would be a pure example of condensation symbol- 
ism. '''34c. hi. lb. si jj^ ^^^^^j i^ehavior both types are generally blended. 
Thus specific forms of writing, conventionalized spelling, peculiar pro- 
nunciations and verbal slogans, while ostensibly referential, easily take 
on the character of emotionalized rituals and become highly important 



Two: The /'wiholo^y of C'uliurv 645 

lo bolli iiKli\ idiial and socicl\ as suhsliiuli\c forms i)t' emotional expres- 
sion.^^ ^'^■^'^'^ Were writing merely relcrential symbolism, spellmg reforms 
would not be so dinicult [o bring about. 

'''''■^"■' ''" "' Symbols of the referential type uiKk)ubtedly de\eloped later 
as a elass than eondensalion symbols, it is likely that most referential 
symbolisms go baek to unconsciously evolved symbolisms saturated 
with emotional quality, which gradually took on a purely referential 
character as the linked emotion dropped out o\' the beha\ior in ques- 
tion.^'' ^'^^'^'■'- ''' "' riuis shaking the fist at an imaginary enem\ becomes 
a dissociated and fmally a referential symbol for anger when no enenn. 
real or imaginary, is actually intended. ^'^^'^'■'- ''' When this emotional 
denudation takes place, the symbol becomes a comment, as it were, on 
anger itself and a preparation for something like language."^" '''^■*^" What 
is ordinarily called language may have had its ultimate root in just such 
dissociated and emotionally denuded cries, which tMiginally released 
emotional tension. Once referential symbolism had been established by 
a by-product of behavior, more conscious symbols of reference could 
be evolved by the copying in abbreviated or simplified form o\' the thing 
referred to, as in the case of pictographic writing. On siill more sophisti- 
cated levels referential symbolism may be attained by mere social agree- 
ment, as when a numbered check is arbitrarily assigned to a man's hat. 
The less primary and associational the symbolism, the more dissociated 
from its original context, and the less emotionalized it becomes, the 
more it takes on the character of true reference. 

1934c. dm. hi ^ further condition for the rich development of referential 
symbolism must not be overlooked - the increased complexit) and 
homogeneity of the symbolic material. This is strikingK the case in 
language, ^'^^'^'■' in which all meanings are consistently expressed by for- 
mal patterns arising out of the apparently arbitrary sequences of umtar\ 
sounds. When the material of a symbolic system becomes sutTicientls 
varied [{i. e., complex)] and yet homogeneous in kind, (therefore.) the 
symbolism becomes more and more richl\ patterned, creative and 
meaningful in its own terms, and referents tend to be supplied b\ a 
retrospective act of rationalization. Hence it results that such complex 
systems of meaning as a sentence form or a musical form mean so much 
more than they can ever be said to refer to. In higliK e\ol\ed systems o( 
reference the relation between symbol and referent becomes increasingly 
variable or inclusive. "' There is never, [in such systems, merely) a one- 
to-one relation of symbol and referent; (the relation is much more com- 
plicated] because of the configurative richness (the iiuohement o( an 



646 til Culture 

entire] 'as-if parallel system [or orientational scheme in which the sym- 
bol participates]. 

'''^•*^" in condensation symbolism also richness of meaning grows with 
increased dissociation. The chief developmental difference, however, be- 
tween this type of symbolism and referential symbolism is that while 
the latter grows with formal elaboration in the conscious, the former 
strikes deeper and deeper roots in the unconscious and diffuses its emo- 
tional quality to types of behavior or situations apparently far removed 
from the original meaning of the symbol. Both types of symbols there- 
fore begin with situations in which a sign is dissociated from its context. 
Tlie conscious elaboration of form makes of such dissociation a system 
o^ reference, while the unconscious spread of emotional quality makes 
o'i it a condensation symbol. Where, as in the case of a national flag or 
a beautiful poem, a symbolic expression which is apparently one of 
mere reference is associated with repressed emotional material of great 
importance to the ego, the two theoretically distinct types of symbolic 
behavior merge into one. One then deals with symbols of peculiar po- 
tency and even danger, for unconscious meanings, full of emotional 
power, become rationalized as mere references. 

'''^■*'-" It is customary to say that society is peculiarly subject to the 
influence of symbols in such emotionally charged fields as religion and 
politics."^' Flags and slogans are the type examples in the field of poli- 
tics, crosses and ceremonial regalia in the field of religion. But all cul- 
ture is in fact heavily charged with symbolism, as is all personal beha- 
vior. Even comparatively simple forms of behavior are far less directly 
functional than they seem to be, but include in their motivation uncon- 
scious and even unacknowledged impulses, for which the behavior must 
be looked upon as a symbol. Many, perhaps most reasons are little 
more than ex post facto rationalizations of behavior controlled by un- 
conscious necessity. Even an elaborate, well documented scientific the- 
ory may from this standpoint be little more than a symbol of the un- 
known necessities of the ego. Scientists fight for their theories not be- 
cause they believe them to be true but because they wish them to be so. 
-""^ Even "objectivity" must be motivated. 

'''" [From the perspective of unconscious motivation] the fundamental 
necessity of the human organism is to express the Hbido - and all 
cultural patterns are [orientedf ^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ another in that direction 
and operate via the mechanisms of symbolism. ^•- '^ By an unconscious 
mechanism of symbolic transfer, an endless consecufive chain of sym- 
bols [is built up] in a richly configurative [symbolic structure.] I'^^^e, ib, si 



Two: riic I'.sviholo}^}' of C ulturc 647 

Thus indi\idiial and socicts. in a nc\cr ending inlcrpUiN o\ symbolic 
gestures, build up the pyramided structure called ciNili/alion. in this 
structure \er\ few bricks touch the groinid. 

'''^'■^'•" [Perhaps this suggestion will be more con\incing to vou jj we 
consider an example] of some o\' the less obvious symbolisms in social- 
ized behavior - [such as those that are ctMueniently summari/ed as 
etiquette.] Etiquette has at least two layers of symbolism. On a relali\ely 
ob\ious plane of symbolism etiquette provides the members of stKiety 
with a set of rules which, in condensed and thoroughly conventitMiali/ed 
form, express society's concern for its members and their relation to 
one another. There is another level of etiquette symbolism, however, 
which takes little or no account of such specific meanings but interprets 
etiquette as a whole as a powerful symbolism of status. From this stand- 
point to know the rules of etiquette is important, not because the feel- 
ings of friends and strangers are becomingly observed but because the 
manipulator of the rule proves that he is a member o'i an exclusi\e 
group. By reason of the richly developed meanings which inhere in eti- 
quette, both positive and negative, a sensitive person can actualls ex- 
press a more bitter hostility through the frigid obser\ance of etiquette 
than by flouting it on an obvious wave of hostility. Etiquette, then, is 
an unusually elaborate symbolic play in which individuals in their actual 
relationships are the players and society is the bogus referee. 

[Now, it is also possible to treat the subject of etiquette as an example 
of a realm of symbolic behavior and to consider how ue might ap- 
proach its study.] '^- Four kinds of approach [may be compared:) 

(1) [One way to study it would be to try to disco\er the recognized) 
rules of etiquette [in a given society. This is] the ethnological objectixe. 

(2) [In another type of study,] the rules are assumed: what sou tr\ \o 
discover, instead, is how the individual would react to them. Fhis is the 
psychological type [of inquiry, and it] needs a huge mass of material [if 
it is to be properly conducted.) 

(3) [Another approach would invoKej testing the etkiuette o\ the 
group in definite contexts, [and seeing what kind ol] rationale emerges. 
On the whole, this is the most ditTicult way [to approach the subiecl.) 

(4) [A fourth possibility would be] a reasoned inquiry inti> the nature 
of etiquette itself, ^^ and its psychological basis, [let us piUNue this 
avenue a little way now.) 

lb, h2. hi. bu [1^ j^ sometimes said that etiquette is a kind ol] "Iuxuia o\' 
behavior", inherently and obviously tri\ial. "' Otherwise it passes over 
into morals, techniques, or law. "' But can you conceive of society with- 



f48 ^^^ Culture 

out enqueue'.' Historically etiquette was no luxury, [but a matter of 
deadly seriousness for the individuals whose social fortunes depended 
on its observance. Perhaps in some quarters] etiquette [is seen] as a 
game - a diversion [from the sober necessities of life. But it is a special 
kind o'i game, then:] 1 [may] play at etiquette, but not flippantly. ^-- '^- ^^ 
[What is fundamental to etiquette is not that it is actually a trivial aspect 
oi life but that it is seen as] inherently trivial - '^ that its triviality is 
recognized. '^- ^- [Indeed, its rule is actually so stern that despite the 
supposed triviality it amounts to a form of] compulsive tyranny as real 
as the tyranny of morality, with which it shares a basis in ego-anxiety, 
[and with which it shares a function of| simplifying human relation- 
ships. '' [Actually, from this quasi-political point of view that assesses 
etiquette's tyrannical governance of human affairs we might look at] 
etiquette as a passport [governing the individual's access to social 
groups outside his circle of intimates. The forms of] etiquette [pertaining 
to contacts] between classes [are particularly interesting, therefore], ^^ 
[with their symbols oi the] rights of status. ^' [In such contacts we are 
likely to get a good view of the] advantages and disadvantages of famil- 
iarity and unfamiliarity with etiquette. 

[Another property of etiquette that bears a paradoxical relationship 
to its compulsiveness is the] ^'- "^ freedom of choice [that one supposedly 
exercises in following its forms,] as if [one behaved not out of necessity 
at all but out of] spontaneity and gratuitousness. [But like the notion 
o\' the] "free gift," [in the rules of etiquette we have only] the fiction of 
freedom - only theoretically a freedom of choice. 

^» The paradox of etiquette, then, is that it combines an obvious 
triviality with a strong moral necessity and tyranny and a felt element 
of choice. The strength of the moral necessity depends upon symbols of 
interpersonal status. [But its presence, and its hidden compulsion, are 
evidenced in the fact that] breaches of etiquette can rarely be atoned 
for m [any] thoroughgoing manner. [True, our] society provides [us with 
a supposed form of atonement in] the apology, but this is never really 
satisfactory. In societies where breaches of etiquette are atoned for [by 
harsher means, such as the imposition of] fines, and so on, etiquette 
merges with morality. So it seems that where the triviality is ostensibly 
important we have etiquette; where the tyranny is overtly emphasized 
we have morality. 

^s In this connection [it would be a useful project] to check up eti- 
quette situations in Polynesia, especially in terms of the relative triviality 
involved. For example, seating arrangements at a feast may not be con- 



Two: The Psycholofiy of Cullurc 649 

sidered a matter of etiquette since llie stains ol the iiulixidual is viialK 
involved, whereas the relation of chief to comnK)ner, with its "noblesse 
obHge," may partake more of the nature o[^ etiquette. I'hal is. where 
rights of status are socially guaranteed and insisted upon, (perhaps) the 
tendency is to move away from regarding such behavior as etiquette 
and, instead, to consider it morality, especially where freedom of choice. 
^^- '^- responsibility and irresponsibility. '"^ or \(iluntar\ participation are 
not factors to be considered. 

^~ [Thus the behaviors we are accustomed to consider "etiquette" 
have] shifting connotations, [depending on their social ciMitext and also 
depending on the personalities of the individuals concerned.] ^^ Person- 
ality differences will count in the evaluation o{ etiquette - a healthy 
introvert will differ from an extravert in his reaction to etiquette pn^b- 
lems. ^' The problem of personality is fundamental and enters into e\er> 
discussion of value. [So we cannot discover the meaning of etiquette in 
the particulars of the behaviors in which we observe it.] ""' [What matters 
most is the behavioral form's] locus in implication: one's hostility to its 
tyranny, [say]; [one's sense of it as] a social duty; one's perfunctoriness 
[in performing it]; perhaps one's use of etiquette as a mask for emotional 
privacy. The actual concrete symbol doesn't matter so much. '^- " [What 
is most important is] the total configuration [in which it is placed.] ''' 
[Like other symbolic forms,] etiquette lives in a world of inarticulate 
implication. 



Editorial Note 

The material in this chapter comes from the years 1933-34. Several 
different Sapir "texts" are represented. The earliest \ersion comes from 
the Rockefeller Seminar in the spring o( 1933, when Sapir conducted 
several class sessions on symbolism: (1) An initial lecture on symbols 
on April 20, 1933 (notes by Halvorsen); (2) a discussion on signs and 
symbols, beginning in the second hour o( April 20 and contmumg on 
another occasion with a discussion of cases of symbol genesis presented 
by students (undated notes by Bingham Dai, and retrospective summa- 
ries in notes dated May 9. 1933. by Hahorsen and Marjolui; (3) a con- 
tinuation of this discussion on May 9. 1933. with comments on the 
social dimension of symbols (notes by Halvorsen and Marjolm dated 
May 9 and May II); (4) a lecture c^i "Speech as a .Symbolic System." 
May 16, 1933 (notes by Walter Beck). 



f,5() III Culture 

Sapir seems to have given another lecture on symboHsm sometime in 
1933 tor a ditTerent audience, in which Beaglehole was present - or so 
1 surmise Irom the fact that Beaglehole's notes, though included with 
his class notes, do not match those of other student note-takers. The 
terminology and concerns shown in BG have more in common with the 
Rockefeller Seminar than with the class lecture given the following 
spring, though the BG notes suggest a tighter organization than in the 
Rockefeller notes. (Beaglehole's notes on symbolism are separate from 
his notes on etiquette, which cohere with those of other students in the 
1933-34 class.) 

Finally. Sapir devoted the fmal session or two (May 15, 1934, and 
perhaps some additional hour) of his 1933-34 course to the topics of 
symbolism and etiquette. He had also just written an article on ''Sym- 
bolism" for the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1934e). Notes by 
DM, LB, HI, and SI from this lecture are all rather similar, and they 
show so close a resemblance to portions of the encyclopedia article that 
it seems reasonable to suppose that Sapir essentially read from that 
paper in his lecture. 

Rather than try to amalgamate all these discussions into a single text, 
which would have had to include contradictory terminology (among 
other problems), I have divided the material into a 1933 version (Rocke- 
feller Seminar plus BG's "symbolism" notes), which represents an ex- 
ploratory discussion, and a 1934 version (other class notes plus encyclo- 
pedia article), which shows the much tighter organization and revised 
terminology Sapir later gave to the topic. 

In the 1933 sources there are occasionally difficulties in distinguishing 
Sapir's statements from other people's comments, since the Rockefeller 
Seminar notes generally include notes on the discussion as well as on 
Sapir's presentations. Although most of the note-takers make clear who 
contributed what, it is harder to sort this out in Dai's notes on "Signs 
and Symbols," especially since Sapir apparently read and commented 
upon written examples he had collected from members of the Seminar. 
There are also some problems concerning the order in which comments 
are presented in Marjolin's notes as compared with Dai's and Hal- 
vorsen's notes for the same session. I have taken some liberties with the 
order of RM passages, therefore, but few for DA or HA. 

For the 1934 lecture I have drawn heavily on passages from the ency- 
clopedia article, merely indicating which note-takers have notes on each 
passage, and footnoting the note-taker's actual text where it shows some 
relevant departure from the published version. The class notes do go 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 651 

beyond the encyclopedia article. hcn\e\er. especial!) in then- discussion 
of etiquette. While the "Symbolism" article has only a paragraph on 
etiquette. Sapir clearly devoted much more time \o the subject in class, 
perhaps even a separate class session. In April he had assigned the class 
the project of making up and answering a questionnaire on etiquette, 
and BG's notes suggest he based his lecture on a discussion o{ these 
class papers. The etiquette section in my text is deri\ed from notes by 
LB, HI, H2, BG, and SI, as well as the encyclopedia article. 



Notes 

1. HA has ■■roturnod". 

2. HA has "remoted". 

3. HA has "manners." 

4. BG simply lists examples; it is not clear whether Sapir discussed any of them at greater 
length. 

5. The bracketed passage is derived from "Symbolism" (Sapir 1934c). 

6. HA adds: "(Dr. Dollard: A symbolic system is more like a Gestalt.)" See also the next 
passage in HA, on the symbolic system, incorporated below. 

7. HA actually has: "The following discussion in the Seminar centered around the many 
aspects of and difficulties involved in the concepts of sign versus symbol. Professor Sapir 
admitted that his intention was just to use this first lecture on symbols to show the 
interesting, but also very ditTicult and complicated field and in a way to clear the ground 
for the following hour on the same topic." 

8. This sentence actually derives from Andras Angyal's comment in the seminar discussion: 
"The distinction is between an actual relation (sign) and an imputed one (ssmK^I) It 
does not seem that there is any genetic relationship between sign and s\mbol." RM gixrs 
on to give Sapir's answer, which asserts that there can indeed be a genetic relationship 

9. The bracketed passage is derived from "Symbolism." Sapir 1934e. 

10. In Dai's notes it is not always clear whether a statement should be attributed to Sapir 
or to some other member of the seminar. In this case we ma\ surmise that Sapir was 
reading from a statement otTered b\ Marjolin. 

11. World War I. 

12. This passage comes from an exchange betueen Sapir and Krzyzanowski (a member ol 
the Seminar). RM has: "Mr. Krzyzanowski: There is another criterion to disimguish 
between signs and symbols. A symbol is a sign which has become stKiali/cd A whole 
group has accepted it as referring to something definite. Dr Sapir Iliere are prnalc 
symbols. Most of the time, the socialization takes place for the material of the s\mbi>l. 
not for its reference. To be true, everything in this rcilin of s\mboliMn is i\iril\ stvial. 
partly individual." 

13. RM presents this comment as following upon this suiicmciu h\ Di'liaul \s uv.d b\ the 
psychiatrist, "symbor has the character of alTeclive sense or power which dislinguishc> it 
from non-symbolic words, gestures, acts... We hit here upi>n pri\ate s>mK>liMn l"hc 
child, for instance, has a private world which is reshaped b\ the mkuiI euMfonmcnt To 
be true, there is no hard and fast line between private and siKiali/cd signs and symK^ls " 

14. According to DA and RM, Sapir continued at this point with some remarks aKiul male 
and female speech "in an Indian tribe in N. California" (presumabU Vana) T»ic discus- 



552 fit Culture 

sion IS somewhat cryptic. I have moved it to the later lecture on "Speech as a Symbolic 
System." whore Sapir evidently took up the same topic again. With that context it is 
easier to stv what Sapir might have had in mind the first time around. 

15 Beck had been a criminologist in Germany before joining the seminar. 

U> Dais notes do not indicate that the key-rattling took place during the greeting, but RM's 
commentary suggests that it must have done. 

17. DA actually has; "(The use oi hands in various connections and gesture in particular 
were discussed at some length. It was found that they represent a kind of symbolism 
that has not been carefully studied.)" RM has: "A discussion takes place about the 
distinction between meaning and symbol." 

IS RM actuallv has "disphasing." 

19. RM actuallv has: "leads to a criticism of the endeavor..." 

20. HA ends his notes with the following: "(Professor Sapir asked everybody to try to sug- 
gest situations where the sign-implication for two persons may be quite different.)" 

21 RM actuallv has: "The danger is to emphasize too much the social character of symbol- 
ism." 

22. RM actually has "the social relations". 

23. The bracketed material derives from Sapir's discussions of "illusions of objectivity" in 
other passages and in his published writings, including the excerpt from Sapir 1934a 
quoted below, where the illusion is linked with "verbal habit." 

24. W'B actually has: "referential (referring to meanings which are not given in the sounds 
themselves and primarily)." 

25. Sapir 1929m, published in \.\\q Journal of Experimental Psychology 12: 225—39. 

26. WB has: "Control indices brought about that languages are not built on such prin- 
ciples..." Evidently Sapir said something about how the experiments were set up to avoid 
calling referential meanings to mind. Since the notes do not report this clearly, I have 
drawn on a passage from Sapir's published paper. 

27. WB adds: "As to further and detailed information I refer to the study mentioned above 
which is published in " (the reference is not inserted). 

28. The wording of this passage comes from "A Study in Phonetic Symbolism," Sapir 
1929m. 

29. See Sapir 1929d, "Male and Female Forms of Speech in Yana." 

30. Exclamation mark and vowel marking added in accordance with Sapir's usage in the 
published text. Sapir I929d has italic r for voiceless r. here rendered as R; both the text 
and WB have the final a raised up as superscript.) 

31. Note that Sapir indulges in no such speculations in his published work on Yana speech. 
On the contrary, he suggests that the differences between male and female speech are as 
conventionalized as anything else in language (Sapir 1929d). Perhaps in his actual re- 
marks in the Rockefeller Seminar he offered his interpretation in a better-hedged version 
than the notes represent. 

32. The essay ("Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry," Sapir 1932a) goes on to argue: "We 
have learned that the individual in isolation from society is a psychological fiction. We 
have not had the courage to face the fact that formally organized groups are equally 
fictitious in the psychological sense, for geographically contiguous groups are merely a 
first approximation to the infinitely variable groupings of human beings to whom culture 
in Its various aspects is actually to be credited as a matter of realistic psychology." 

33. DM has: "Now Hags, mathematics, speech, are symbolic entities in that they have no 
meaning in themselves. They are significant only in so far as they lead the understanding 
recipient to wider conceptions." HI has: "symbolism speech, writing - symbols of refer- 
ence". 

34. LB has "suppressed attitude, masks?" 



Two: I lie PsychoUt^y of Culture 653 

35. SI has: "( 1 ) symbolizing - always rdcrrmg to somclhing which is nol directly connected 
with context of action." 

36. DM has: "2. Is condensation of ciktun Holding latent great amount of emotional energy 
and meaning in apparentis tri\ial fiMnis." HI has: "expression of condensation of en- 
ergy / which is out ol proportion to its mere form." 

37. HI has: "transcendance of form. / 'wink': blink - symbol : relle.x." 

38. HI actually has: "blended symbolisms / pronunciations, verbal slogans, errors subsinu- 
tive form of emotional expression, ritual patterns." SI has: "verbal slogans, emoiu>nal- 
ized rituals." LB has " BUiuUd in slogans or orthography." 

39. H 1 has: "Symbolisms w hich lie in the unconscious are older than those which arc referen- 
tial symbols, which emerge from condensation symbols when the emotional tinge drops 
away -". LB has: "Condensational older than referential symbols." 

40. HI actually has: "shaking list, - as if in anger - in the gesture / language " 

41. For a discussion of a similar topic, see Sapir 1927a, "Anthropology and Sociology." 

42. DM has "directed." 



Chapter 13. The Impact of Culture on IVrsonalil) 

'■"' The Study of'Cuhurc ciiul I'crsofniliiv" 
(May 1933) 

rm \Yhii( problems are worth considering in the field of '■cuUiire and 
personality"? What [problems] do not deserve our spending a L'real 
amount of energy trying to solve them? 

[Let us begin with a] definition of the field. "Culture," [as anthropolo- 
gists have traditionally conceived of it,] is not the chief object of concern 
in the study [o'i "culture and personality.""]' Knou ledge o\' the histor\ 
of culture, [which is what the traditional approach focuses upon.] can 
throw only [a] little light on its present meaning, [or its relationship to 
the individuals who encounter it.] For example, a cathedral may ha\e 
lost all its [original.] intrinsic meaning and have become the mere sym- 
bol of a past greatness. On the other hand, to study the problem o\' the 
relations of "culture and personality" means that one does not consider 
personality as the mere unfolding of a biological organism. So far as 
the study in point is concerned, then, "culture" is rele\ant onI> if it 
takes [its] meaning in the present psychology o'i the people, "personal- 
ity" only if it is referred to its milieu. To be exact, all that can be said 
about a person is relevant, [and this will include a great deal about ihe 
social milieu and cultural background], but it is a question of degree. 

The best name for this field of research would reall> be "social 
psychology," although this term implies erroneously that there is [such 
a thing as] an individual psychology. [At any rate, the field which pur- 
ports to study individual psychology has produced lillle ihal has realK 
to do with that subject, should it even prove a useful conception in ihc 
long run.] A great deal o[^ what has been written about 'indi\iduai 
psychology" is [actually] a blend of physiology and social ps\chology. 

[Another difficulty, from om point of \ie\\. with the field of psychol- 
ogy as it has so far been developed is its preoccupaluMi with scientific 
objectivity.] In the field o\' "culture and perst^nalily." the question o\ 
objectivity or subjectivity is not very important. We know. b\ mtros|x-c- 
tion, that we are always doing some violence to the facts. We cannot 



(,>(, /// Culture 

get down [o an absolute objective level, [and if we could] it would con- 
ceal from us the true meaning of what we are studying. Psychology 
and sociology are the most dangerous disciplines for the field of social 
psNcholouy, because they are well systematized and their concepts well 
defined. Their methods are a lure for the social psychologist [because 
they otTer a spurious sense of accuracy and objectivity.]^ 

Is social psychology a science [anyway? Perhaps it may turn out to 
be, but in our present understanding of "science"]"^ the term is not flexi- 
ble enough for the indeterminacy"^ and the great variety of this field. 
We are concerned with the symbolic interpretation of events, [more than 
with their physical characteristics; and] one is constantly driven to bio- 
graphies, to unique events, [rather than to abstract away from these 
toward the formulation of general laws. In this field] one is concerned 
with the fate of the development of a certain personality. [You may 
wonder why I use the word "fate" - perhaps it is a little dramatic, but 
really] fate is the right word because [it is impossible to pin down defi- 
nite causes of the way a personality develops. Above all] it is impossible 
to attribute responsibility for what happens to somebody else. There is 
a process [of development which from this point of view can only be 
taken as] inevitable. 

[Now, let us return to our initial question. What are the] problems 
worth considering, [in this field?] 

/. The meaning of culture. [When I said that we are not principally 
interested in culture itself as anthropologists have usually studied it, I 
did not mean we are not interested in it at all.] Culture patterns must 
be described and their history must be studied. But the emphasis [in the 
study of culture patterns] must be placed on their meaning. For in- 
stance, it is not relevant to say that in general, sport is important. [In- 
stead,] the importance [(or unimportance)] of sport must be studied with 
reference to the life of the people of each culture. [Similarly,] to have a 
philosophy or a set of moral values [for assessing culture patterns from 
the outset] is mischievous, in this field. No cultural pattern is either 
good or evil. What one has to find is its meaning. [We may not accord 
importance and value to some predetermined mode or aspect of human 
existence from the very start of our study; for] what is important is the 
triumph of life, [not some particular way in which it is led.] That is the 
first problem [in our field, then]: what the generalized patterns [of cul- 
ture] mean for people in given cultural areas. 

2. The study of the individual in his milieu. This [type of] study is 
conditioned by [and dependent upon] our understanding of the meaning 



Two: I'hc I'svcholoiiv of C'ltliim' 657 

of CLilluic. [In a sense the\ lid together, because culture can only have 
meaning A^/- soniecMie. But ulial we emphasize here is the mdi\idual 
rather than the group as a whole.] The most interesting milieu, (il wc 
wish to understand the impact ot culture on the personality.! is that of 
the very young individual. But [this situation in its full complexilv) is 
often difficult to uiuieisiand. 

[If we take the study of individuals in their particular circumstances 
seriously, we shall have to recognize that] '''^-•' culture \aries infinitely, 
not only as to manifest content but as to the distribution of psschologic 
emphases on the elements and implications of this content. According 
to our scale of treatment, we have to deal with the cultures of grt)ups 
and the cultures of indi\ iduals. [From this standpoint we should find, 
for example, that] "" the difference between intra-cultural and inter- 
cultural conflicts is not real. We have always to deal with inter-cultural 
conflicts; [it is only the locus of culture that differs] 

3. The study of the family. [This is one of our most important areas 
-] to study the psychological scheme of the affectixe relationships in 
the family. Though it would be better to discard the term "psschoanaK- 
sis," the psychoanalytic school has probably coniiihuied more than 
anybody else to the understanding of the personality. A comparative 
study of families will reveal different distributions of affections and dif- 
ferent symbolisms. 

It is often impossible to study "the family" itself [- what one is siud>- 
ing is the relationships of the people in it - just as it is impossible to 
study the individual in isolation.] Instead of stud\ing indi\ iduals alone, 
we should try to study them in relation to their famil\. for instance, 
one could arrive at a perfect understanding of the personality of a politi- 
cal leader only by tracing the mechanisms to which he owes his success 
back to those he used in his parental home. Any true knowledge o^ 
meaning is conditioned by the understanding o[^ this primiiixe milieu. 
[In the study of culture,] we are constantly referred to biograph).'' 

These three problems - the meaning of culture, the relatuMi o\ the 
individual and his milieu, and the distribution o{ alTect in the famiK 
and its symbolism - are the three main problems of the field i>f "culture 
and personality.'' [Still, there are two further t.isks worth mentioning, 
though they are more long range.] 

4. Typohgy oj personality. We may look forward to a lime when we 
shall be able to build a typology of personality (from which ma\ come 
a typology of culture). There are three important determinants o\' the 
personality: the genetic process; the maturation [prtKessj; and the early 



^58 11^ Culture 

conditioning factors, [the events of] the first two years [of life. If we 
study a sutricicnt number of individuals in different milieus] we can 
expect to discover tangible parallels and establish types of personalities 
and situations, [it seems to me that this is a task of the utmost impor- 
tance, for) it is onl\ by means of such a typology of [personal] fates that 
we can develop a tolerance for [the varying modes of human] life. To 
trv to enter into personalities completely foreign to your own is the 
most healthy of exercises. 

.^'. The reality of certain normal processes. The cultural anthropologist 
has perhaps developed an excessive sense of relativism. He must see 
that there are some fundamental meanings which persist everywhere: 
for instance the affective bonds between the child and its parents or 
their substitute (the maternal uncle, [or someone else, as the case may 
be, depending on the particular society and its family arrangements). 
Though the affective bonds established in child-rearing may be the 
clearest example. I believe there are other fundamentals too - perhaps 
the sense that] the main task of an individual is to lose himself in the 
love of others. [But however universal a push toward social success may 
be, its particular requirements will not be compatible with every type 
oi personality.] Often a social success is an individual failure. [From a 
certain standpoint] this social success may be interpreted as a reconcilia- 
tion of ourselves with our fate. Nevertheless, [if that reconciliation de- 
mands too much of the personahty its results will not take the form of 
true expressive creativity.] The most expressive creations have been [and 
must be the results of personality] fulfillment, not of thwarting. [It is 
these modes of fulfillment that we must seek to understand, not only the 
pathologies.] Psychic normality is the great task of personality study.^ 

[Psychoanalysis has taken the opposite approach and assumed that 
its main concern is with the abnormal. Still, the psychoanalysts' achieve- 
ment has been enormous.] One of the greatest discoveries of modern 
times is Freud's [revelation that in phenomena which seem to be purely 
psychic] there is a problem of sexual adjustment. [That is, and this is 
the important point,] there is no break between the mind and the body. 
To those [personalities] unable to solve their bodily problems this mis- 
chievous separation [of mind and body] gives release: they can fly away 
from their problems. But although they [may] believe they are flying 
towards God, [what they are doing is] flying from man. The great task 
of the future will be to ennoble the body. 

The problem of sexual adjustment is sometimes solved by dividing it 
m two: on the one side is sexual gratification; on the other, appreciation 



Two: The Pwc/ioloi^y of Culture 659 

cind sliaiiiig ihc life o\' anolhci. liiil ihis appreciation and sharing arc 
onl\ friendship, ihev arc not rcall\ love. [So the separation ot the two 
sides of the problem is no true sokition; and in any case wc should look 
further into the indisiduaTs adjustment to the patterns o\ the cultural 
milieu.] The reason for so many sexual maladjustments is perhaps the 
overdevelopment o\' the "ego" in cuir Western ci\ilization, where the 
fulfillment of the indi\idual is sought in "power." [which for some per- 
sonalities may not be the compatible avenue.] 

[It has not been my purpose here to claim thai we ha\e advanced 
ver\ far into the field thai lies open before us, or to coinince you of 
my speculations about what we might fmd once we got there. j^ The 
main purpose of this Seminar has been to make you feel deeph skeptical 
about the biological, the psychological, or the sociological \iew points 
about "culture and personality." The problems [we encounter in] these 
sciences spring from the field of the concrete behasicM" o\' the people, 
and that is what we have to study. 



^•^ 77^6^ hupcict of Culture on PcrsoiuiHiy 
(May 1934) 

^^ [We have now spent a considerable time discussing conceptions o^ 
culture, of personality, and of their possible relationships, as well as the 
various disciplines that have taken these problems as within their pur- 
view. Let us see if we can now summarize our discussion b\ noting a 
few] general considerations, [particularK concerning] the impact i^f cul- 
ture on personality. 

[I have said on several occasions that one must begin with a study of 
the cultural patterns in the individual's milieu. No matter how interested 
we may be in individuals in their own right, we must not forget that 
'^•"^-^ the individual in isolation from society is a psychological fiction. 
[It is obvious, for example, that] ^^ .society classifies individuals in terms 
of rank, status, and other [attributes and schemes]. [.Although one ma\ 
question the particular category to which one is assigned] the indnidual 
is not allowed to question [the social process of classifiCtition itselt]. *'»^- 
"" What a personality does, therefore, is onls in small measure a func- 
tion of what he is of himself It is culture that makes him what he is 
- "" [that makes him, to some degree, a sort o\'\ refraction of society. ** 

''"^" [So] the difference between culture and personality is not that the 
data are different, but that the How of our interests is dilTerenl. -'"' In 



(1^0 /// Culture 

anthropology there are two viewpoints, then - the psychological and 
the sociological - [depending on whether] we wish to hold onto our 
personality/^ ^^ The individual in relation to himself is a personality. 
The individual in relation to others is part of culture. '^ One sees person- 
iiliiv when looking from the inside outwards; one sees culture when 
looking toward the other individual. For in personal relationships, the 
other person never is himself. 

'"^ The reason for our interest in personality is that we are never 
tired o( looking and peering into ourselves. ^^ Indeed, one may study 
personality only by [striving at the same time to gain] a deeper knowl- 
edge o\^ oneself, and through the growth of self-consciousness. On the 
other hand, the personality needs culture in order to give it [its] fullest 
meanings. It is the culture of a group that gives the meanings to symbol- 
isms without which the individual cannot function, either in relation to 
himself or to others. 

hg. lb From one point of view, however, culture is the agreed-upon 
ghost in the [machine], that catches up the individual and moulds him 
according to a predetermined foim and style. "^ [This is the view of 
culture as the] impersonal, pageant-like Superorganic, as Kroeber 
[termed it and against which I have engaged in some] polemic. '° Cul- 
ture, like truth, is what we make it. [It does not seem to me necessary 
or suitable to construct as unbridgeable a chasm between individual and 
culture as there seems to be between the organic and the social.]'' '^'^'^ 
Social science is not psychology, not because it studies the resultants of 
a superpsychic or superorganic force, but because its terms are dif- 
ferently demarcated. 

iyi7a [When I have made this point, over the years, I have always 
begun]'- to fear misunderstanding. It might almost appear that I con- 
sidered, with certain psychological students of culture, the fundamental 
problem of social science to consist of the resolution of the social into 
the psychic, '"^ [or that I have no genuine interest in cultural patterns in 
themselves.] ^'"^ Of course I'm interested in cultural patterns, linguistic 
included. All I claim is that their consistencies and spatial and temporal 
persistences can be, and ultimately should be, explained in terms of 
humble psychological formulations, with particular emphasis on inter- 
personal relations. I have no consciousness whatever of being revolu- 
tionary or of losing an interest in what is generally phrased in an imper- 
sonal way. Quite the contrary. I feel rather like a physicist who believes 
the immensities of the atom are not unrelated to the immensities of 
interstellar space. "^ 



Two: The Psviholoi^y of Cultun' 661 

^^ [Perhaps I should find it a more appropriate image to consider 
culture not so much as the ghost in the machine, as] a form orcolleelivc 
lunacy. [1 would hardly wish to deny that culture patterns mlluencc. 
even govern, our actions even though I belie\e they are patterns wc 
ourselves have created. Indeed,] '^- so tyrannical are our methods of 
mapping out experience that we l\o not do what ue ihmk we (.U). we do 
not see what we think we see; we do not hear what we think we hear; 
we do not feel what we think we feel. We know the "functions" [of our 
actions, and the] "needs'" [toward which the\ are addressed. onl>] 
through the actixities thai try to satisfy ihem. [Il will not do to read a 
higher purpose into these activities. Perhaps we had best look upon 
culture as a form ot] collccti\e floundering! 

i^)^)sh j^ji-n^,-^. -ire many problems I ha\e raised in these lectures wlK)se 
solutions I must] leave to future investigators. I am not so bold as to 
suggest anything at all. But as to the reality o\' the dual problem o\' 
seeing the "set" personality - and set alarminglx early, in m\ opmion 
- going out into culture and embracing it and making it alwass the 
same thing as itself in a constantly increasing complexity o\' blends o\' 
behavior in some sensible meaning o\'^ the word "same."" on the one 
hand, and seeing the historically determined stream o\' culture, which 
takes us right back to paleolithic man. actualizing itself in gi\en human 
behavior, on the other - this dual problem set by two opposed duec- 
tions of interest, is the real problem, it seems to me. o\' the anal>st o( 
human behavior. The difTiculty at present is not so much the under- 
standing of the problem as a problem but the conxincing t>ursel\es that 
it is a real one. 



Editorial Note 

Material for the first section of this chapter comes \\o\u Sapir's fnial 
lecture in the Rockefeller Seminar: an ouilme ol the field ot "C"ullure 
and Personality" (May 25. 1933; notes by Marjolin). I'he second section 
of the chapter comes f"rom Sapir's concluding remarks to the 1^33 }A 
class (notes by BG, LB, 112). Because these two conclusions seem lo be 
somewhat differently focused. I ha\e presented them separately. 

The May 1934 conclusion, though difficult [o reconstruct hcvausc of 
the sparseness oC notes on it. is the one more relevant to the book as a 
whole. In presenting it I have also drawn upon some o\ Sapn's pub- 
lished papers ("Do We Need a 'Superorganic'*.'". 1917a; and "Cultural 



662 III Culture 

Anthropology and Psychiatry," 1932a); his presentation to the SSRC 
Hanover conference in 1930 (1998b); a 1938 letter to A. L. Kroeber; 
Mandelbaiim's notes on Sapir's lecture to the Friday Night Club, Octo- 
ber 1933; and LaBarre's notes on Sapir's lectures to the Medical Society, 
1935-36. 



Notes 

1 RM actually has "of such a study." 

2. Wording o\' the bracketed passage comes from several passages in the class notes, e. g. 
H2, referring to "spurious accuracy" in attempts to be scientific. See also 2MS: "'techni- 
cal fallacy": bending knee to technique-established, to protect oneself from scientific mis- 
takes or from the moral blame of intellectual dishonesty." 

3. I add this qualification in the light of Sapir's programmatic statements about a "true 
science o^ man," cited earlier in this volume. 

4. RM has "indetermination." 

5. The bracketed passage, indicating that Sapir is alluding to the study of culture here, 
comes from his remarks in earlier passages on meaning and culture. 

6. See also Sapir 1932a, "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry": "Cultural anthropology 
is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable 
because it is constantly rediscovering the normal." 

7. Wording of the bracketed passage derives from Sapir 1939c. 

8. LB has this phrase in quotation marks. 

9. 2MS actually has: "In anthropology, then, two viewpoints are these: Psychological - "I 
wish to hold onto my personality" / Sociological - "I do not wish to hold onto my 
personality." 

10. LB has: "Polemic against impersonal 'pageant-like' Super-organic. 'Culture is the agreed- 
upon ghost in the culture' (culture like truth is what we make it). (Cf, Sapir versus 
Kroeber at home)". See Kroeber 1917 and Sapir 1917a on the "Superorganic." 

11. Wording of the bracketed passage is derived from Sapir 1917a. 

12. The text of Sapir 1917a actually has: "At this point I begin to fear misunderstanding." 
But Sapir was misunderstood on this, or felt himself to be, long after his 1917 statement, 
as is obvious from his 1938 letter to Kroeber quoted below. 

13. The text of Sapir 1917a continues: "of the unraveling of the tangled web of psychology 
that may be thought to underlie social phenomena. This conception of social science I 
have as much abhorrence of as Dr. Kroeber." 

14. The letter to Kroeber continues: "In spite of all you say to the contrary, your philosophy 
is pervaded by fear of the individual and his reality. You find anchorage - as most 
people do, for that matter - in an imaginatively sundered system of cultural and social 
values in the face of which the individual has almost to apologize for presuming to exist 
at all." 



Appendices 

APPENDIX 1. Classre^om Exercises on the Study of American 

Culliire: Smoking and Piano-Playing as Cultural Patterns (1^)33) 

^■^ I Iniliul Discussion of'/ Quest ioiimiircs on Snu)king 
iiiul Pinno Ph/yini^ 

^^ There is much more community o\'^ feeling regarding the meaning 
of smoking than regarding the meaning o\^ piano pla\ing. [Perhaps the 
distributional facts themselves already suggest this, since] there are more 
people who smoke than there are people who have studied the piano - 
in our culture, [at least.] Contrast this [limited distribution of piano 
playing in America] with the Vienna aristocrac>, where all intellectuals 
- [let us focus] on a group similar to [the members ot] this class - take 
it as a matter of course that everyone plays the piano, and pla\s it 
skillfully. 

[The questionnaire responses reveal, howe\er, that despite the wide- 
spread distribution of smoking, there can be] different s> mbolisms [as- 
sociated with it. For instance, some people] consider it less graceful to 
wave out the match with the hand than to blow it out, while I' consider 
the latter less graceful than to wave out the match along wuh doing 
something else. 

[Some of these symbolisms may be quite personal. ha\ing an emo- 
tional signitlcance deriving, perhaps, from an indisiduafs childhood ex- 
periences. Were I to attempt this kind ol] anahsis of m> own smoking, 
[I might discover that I] took up cigarette smoking late in life with the 
desire to symbolize my solidarity with a [certain] social group. [But wh> 
cigarettes?] For me the pipe is "too good." 1 would like to smoke a pipe, 
because it symbolizes for me a sort o\' comfortable adjustment to life; 
also because a pipe can be smoked without ciMilinual breaks lo drop 
ashes, and so on; but it is too late for me to lake it up. [Despiic] child- 
hood fantasies - based on pictures seen [at an impressionable age] - 
of the skipper with a pipe having a yarn, or the farmer smoking a pipe, 
[and despite a persistent] fantas\ o\' the scholar smoking a pipe, book 
in hand, feet on table - [I remain with m\ cigarettes. j 



664 il^ Culture 

[One must not suppose, however, that all those who smoke only ciga- 
rettes refrain from pipes for the same personal reasons. Some reasons 
may even be more socially patterned. For example,] my interpretation 
o'i the reason why women took up smoking - but never more than 
cigarette smoking - is that by smoking the cigarette they sufficiently 
s\ mboli/ed their emancipation, but they retain their femininity by going 
tiuis o\^\\ half-way and not taking up the pipe or cigar. 



nni hi; p^^yf^ -^ Rcpoi't OH t/w Histovy and Distribution of Smoking 

'""' [Park:] A 1535 account of smoking in Haiti [indicates that] the 
smoking instrument was called tobacco. The native name [for the sub- 
stance being smoked] never was tobacco. 

The American distribution [of the use of the substance we call tobacco 
varies according to what is done with it.] Although the pipe occurs 
everywhere, [tobacco] chewing [is found only in] South America in an 
area contiguous to coca chewing. Snuff is found in the chewing areas; 
the cigar, in the Amazon basin. 

In Europe, tobacco is supposed to have been introduced in about 
1565 by Sir John Hawkins, first to England [and later onto the Conti- 
nent]. In Spain [tobacco] was first grown as an ornamental garden plant, 
and later was used for medicinal purposes. But the Spaniards never 
took to pipe smoking, only adopting the cigar and cigarette. It was 
from Portugal that tobacco was brought to France and Italy. In France, 
tobacco was first used as snuff, and so remained until 1800. In Italy 
[tobacco was first a] medicinal and garden plant, but in about 1610 
smoking came in from England. It was Enghshmen who principally 
diffused the trait throughout Europe. In Turkey, the first reference [to 
tobacco occurs] in 1599, after which its use became extremely wide- 
spread. The Portuguese brought tobacco to Persia before 1590. 

Why was there such a resistance to the introduction of tobacco? Why 
also was it so attractive? 

Sapir: [Notice the] analogy to the Devil and brimstone. [Also, of 
course, there is the sheer] strangeness of the custom. 

[Park:] In Asia too there was [initially] the medicinal use of tobacco 
and also the same polifical resistance to smoking. When the Russians 
came mto Siberia, [however,] they found smoking well established. 

Laufer" thinks opium smoking [began as] an analogy with tobacco. 
The Dutch gave [the practice of smoking] to the Javanese; there the 
poppy was taken [only] internally. 



Two: The Psycholoiix of Ctiliiiri' 665 

[As for Africa.] tobacco is firsl iiicnlioncd in U>()" in Sicir.i I. cone. 
Many accounls niciilion il later, (and there seem to ha\e beenj se\eral 
introductions. In 1652 the Dutch [uuroduced it] to the Hotlenlol. I'hc 
Portuguese [introduced it] to Madagascar. Ihni/) has been used for 
smokine onl\ in Africa. 



Sapir'.s Comments 

md. bg yj^g difference between originating and borrowing a habit is 
not a clear-cut thing, as [we suppose] that it might be. ''^' The borrowing 
of a culture pattern is mostly re-creation, the formation of a new s\nihc- 
sis based on the previous habits [existing] in the culture which borrows. 
"^'^ Originating and borrowing - the two enter into all inno\atii>n and 
fuse to form the new pattern. 

^s The report on the history of smoking reveals that our knowledge 
is really only that of the culture historian, and is consequentl\ not \ery 
useful to the social psychologist. We have no knowledge of the meaning 
of the behavior - why it was accepted or rejected, or w hat was lacked 
onto it; most explanations are purely marginal. And this is [true despite 
the tact that] smoking is a really favorable subject because there is in 
the literature a fair amount of material - material which, however, 
deals only or mostly with [smoking's] distribution in history. '"'' I'luis 
even in as favorable an historical case as smoking we actually know 
very little about the motivations behind the act. People have left little 
actual experimental record of themselves. 

^- What we must do in order to begin to undersiaiul such a subject 
is thoroughly to study and understand its place in our own culture. Phis 
will give us clues [for investigating its motivation elsewhere.] Hence the 
usefulness o^ the questionnaire. 

[As we have just heard,] smoking has had an alarminglv rapid and 
thorough distribution and spread. How are we to know the reason why 
peoples all over the world were so receptive to this thing as against 
others? We can't know, [of course, in anv absolute sense.] But we can 
guess, [at least, that people were attracted \o tobacco as) the dreamv 
stimulant, and that the chewing o[' tobacco was an easv changeover 
from the chewing of another plant or nut. and so on. Still, the psvcho- 
analyst gives us what may be the only ultimate explanation; smoking 
- really, having something in the mouth jmighl be explained] as a 
transference from nipple sucking. I'he eaiiv libulinous activatic>n of the 



566 i^i Culture 

oral zone is a habit which is reverted to in smoking and is consequently 
one which is natural and pleasant to nearly everyone (James I evidently 
excepted). 



Report of the Student Committee on Smoking Questionnaires 

[(Not recorded)] 

Sapir's Comments^ 

^^ [We should not be too surprised by the committee's report] that 
thev found any attempt to formulate a new and perfect questionnaire 
difficult if not impossible. There are many problems that arise in stating 
questions: one must try not to ask questions that are too suggestive, 
and try not to get answers that are too simple; one must consider to 
whom the questionnaire is addressed, how to deliver it, and so on. Re- 
all) it is better to ask the respondent"^ to give his initial smoking experi- 
ence in full, than to ask when he began to smoke, was it because of 
[this or that,] etcetera. 



nid, h2 



Mrs. Straus's Report on Piano Playing 



md. h2 j-ji^g earliest musical instruments ancestral to the piano were 
the] psaltery, of ''sweet and intimate" tone, and Pythagoras's mo- 
nochord, the ancestor of the clavichord ([technologically ancestral, that 
is] - not for the music [played on it]). ^^ A similar device was used even 
before Pythagoras. 

'^"^ [Another early instrument related to the piano was] the harpsi- 
chord, [including] the "virginal" ([a type of harpsichord] so called be- 
cause it was a ladies' instrument). It was a mark of higher class to play 
the harspichord, and harpsichords became beautiful pieces of furniture. 

^- Bach considered the pianoforte too coarse; he preferred the clavi- 
chord. [In his time] the piano was popular, but as a house instrument, 
[not generally as an instrument for solo public performance. Although] 
the first public performance [on the piano had been given] in England 
m 1667, the first solo public performance [was not given until] 1708,^ 
by Johann Christian Bach. 

"^^ The pianoforte could be readily adapted to [a new cultural empha- 
sis on] the sentimental, at the end of the eighteenth century, [because of 



T^\-o: The Pwi/ioloiiy of Culfun- 667 

the sounds produced by its] silk sirings. called "lubbN/" and ihc dreamy 
effects produced by the sustaining pedals. '"''• '*' This is true for romanti- 
cism [as well and one could even say that] romanticism and the piano 
came in together, at the beginning of the nineleenlh cenun\. 

''- [Technologically an imporlanl change occurred in] IS43. \suh the 
use of a single casting plate. There came to be more and more metal 
parts. The modern [piano] frame is cast steel. As for the strings, in the 
sixteenth century claviers had strings of silver, gold, gut, or silk, but m 
the modern piano all strings are made of steel. There are sixteen sizes 
of strings, and 243 [strings in total.] for S8 tones. 7 he average strain per 
string is 176 pounds. The seventeenth-century clavier had a bar for the 
hands, and a mirror for the face; [while playing.) no wriggling [was 
allowed.] Later [instruments had a] higher seat. 



Sapir 's Conmictits 

^^ In this report on the technological history of piano playing [wc 
have heard some suggestions, perhaps not yet more than] \ague ciMisid- 
erations, of the influence of technological equipment on the nature o\' 
composition, in the blur effect [in the music] of post-pedal composers' 
[writing] for the piano, as against the clearcut music oi' Bach. Moreover, 
[we may also begin to gather that] as in many other things, you gel 
various subcultures in music — among the technicians, the artists o\ 
different levels, the interested public, and so on. 

md. h2 [tjnlike tobacco and smoking,] the piano belongs to a special 
class, [a kind of] informal guild, inhabiting a subculture, [or several o\' 
these]. "^^ In our culture some very specialized techniques [are present, 
for building pianos and for playing them, althmigh these techniques] 
rest upon very widespread traits. 

[You must not suppose, however, that our culture is alone m having 
specialized subcultures, or that they are onl\ lo be found in the indu- 
strial world.] In even the simplest of cultures, we gel the demand for 
certain meanings which must call forth specialization o\' the extremist 
type. The extreme specialization is thus concomitant with the ver> con- 
duct of economic life (and this [fact must] refute the ideas o\' those 
historians who stress economic aspects [as determining cultural evolu- 
tion].^' [Notice, incidentally, that] humor and its derailments rest on a 
certain homogeneity of meaning within the culture itself. '""'• '''' So in 
fact a good pragmatic test of [the existence] and the homogeneity of a 



668 lil Culture 

•'sub-culture" is the ability of the participants to joke among themselves 
to the exclusion, as far as meaning is conceived, of others. [Indeed, 
perhaps the incentive to make in-jokes and exclude others is itself at 
I he root of specializations on which the jokes can be based.] "'"^ Thus 
[(if this is so)] ultra-specialization is common to all society. 

Secondly, [although I have just emphasized such non-economic as- 
pects of subcultures as humor, it remains a sober fact that] vested inter- 
ests atTect even such a "[cultural] trait" as the piano. Ultimately this 
instrument, and all instruments, are tied up with a class stratification. 
The roots [of these instruments trace] back to common folk organs, [but 
their later history is tied up with the history of classes and elites.] 

md. h2 xhirdly, [let us not fail to observe] the relevance of the purely 
technological substratum to the meaning of the culture as a whole. "^^ 
Musical meanings, that is, must not be set apart from the purely me- 
chanical meanings. Thus the history of the piano is a tale of give and 
lake between need and presentation. Sometimes the new trait came to 
answer a need; sometimes the new trait was just there, and the musicians 
proceeded to utilize it. ^-- ^"^ Technological limitations really help to 
form your styles - also your [musical] cliches. ^- For instance, the [char- 
acteristic] broken chord [used] in sonata forms [in the later eighteenth 
century suggests that] composer and audience are piano-minded. [And 
consider also, at that period, the use of musical] turns and quavers, at 
first [introduced] to compensate for the lack of sustaining power [in 
earlier instruments such as the harpsichord, but] now liked [for them- 
selves and] also as a test of the virtuoso [performer]. "^'^ The musician 
always naively believes that his patterns and effects are based upon 
nature, [upon intrinsic properties of the sounds;] but the actuality of his 
use of his particular techniques is always based upon the unique tradi- 
tion of his group. ^'^ The same thing [is true of other cultural traits.] 
The shape of letters [of our alphabet] is derived from [the properties of) 
stone [on which they were engraved; the shape of] Chinese [writing,] 
from the cameFs hair brush. 

dm. h2 There is not a single thing about our music that you can pick 
out to which you are not unconsciously prepared to give preferred 
meanings. No one passively lets music act upon him; the audience con- 
ditions art. [Consciously or not, the composer must be aware that the] 
use of drums [suggests] the masculine or the exotic, [in ways that are 
affected by the totality of our musical experience,] so that our toying 
with jazz has weakened some of the effects of symphonic music [and 
altered the meanings of] some of our previous efforts. "^^ Certain reck- 



Two The /'s\(ht)/(}i;y dJ ( ultuir 559 

less rliNlhms in oklci" coinpt)siiions no longer ha\c ihc original meaning 
because o\' the nilerposing o\' the jazz rhyihiiis (in our musical experi- 
ence.] Thus we cannot reproduce the time spirit o\' the minuet now 
we regard it as mincing and oNerdehcale. ""' ''' ''^' [Insieati. m the pre- 
sent age] we are especiall\ sensiii\e to ■■blurred" eU'ects. in music and 
elsewhere in modern art. The ps\clu)log\ o\' the blur, m art and also 
in philosoph\. [suggests] the anli-Kigical; [it recalls] James* idea thai 
somewhere in the world the law of gravity does not appl\. ''^' I*erhaps 
this blur efTecl is due to a desire {o escape from the brutal logic of the 
world. "^'■'- ''- As an escape Worn the clear-ciil arliculatii>ns o\' modern 
machines [and their mo\ements, the blur acquires a] special \alue as a 
symbol of liberation from the technology that has us in its grip, [con- 
straining us as if it were an] all-prevailing universe. 

•'- Thus some very technical point may symbolize the general attitude 
of the age. '"''• '^- Even a highly functional activity where the meanings 
of patterns are very obvious on one plateau may yield very dilTerent 
and significant meanings on another. '''" [Whatever the activity and its 
apparent function.] invariably there are very generalized subtler mean- 
ings which crop up and are never definitely eliminated^ in the situations 
themselves. '^-- ''"^ So our first approach to meaning is always an impov- 
erished one. for these added accretions are really the reason for the 
[persistence of the] patterns - for the inertia of culture. Patterns linger 
[beyond the expiration of their original function] because of the mean- 
inizs that have accrued to them. 



Report of the Student CoDiiuittcc on Piono-Phiyini^ 
Qiu'.stionnnirc.s 

[(Not rcc(^rdcd)l 
Sapir'.s C'oninwnl.s 

bg, h2 j^Q report on the questionnaires raises several points. l-irsl o\ 
all, is it important that in our society, women teachers prediMiiinatc for 
elementary piano lessons'.' Must this not have its elTect on the voung 
learner, and an effect on the role o\' music [in our lives'] Piano playing. 
with us. has then an emphatic feminine svnibt>lism; vet. musical achieve- 
ment is preponderantly masculine. 

Secondly: [we observe that] the piano is valued dilTerently bv the m- 
group (i. e., in the sub-culture) o\' professional musicians as compared 



670 iti Culture 

with the valuation of out-groups (sub-cultures) of amateurs and others. 
^i^ By the former, the piano is considered an exceptionally adequate 
instrument with its complete or nearly complete musical capabilities - 
its range, harmonic variability, its possibility of nervous response, and 
so on. ''- [It is considered as being] in possession of as much musical 
meaning as an orchestra, in miniature. ^^ Yet, others find it insufficient 
as a solo instrument. 

Thirdly: to what is the indifference to piano playing, on the part of 
some people, due - to organismic defects or to sociological condition- 
ing? ^^- '^- [To this and to some other questions about interest and] ap- 
preciation o'i music [I suggest] three categories, [or types of] apprecia- 
tion: the direct, the derived, and the exploratory. (^^ [This is a different 
kind o'i categorization from a typology of motives.] An appreciation 
may develop from a sociological or symboHcal or psychological motiva- 
tion and yet be quite direct, ^s- ^-^ For "exploratory," a better term may 
be "substitutively direct."^) ^^ To what, then, can we attribute some 
people's greater interest in reading [musical] scores than in playing or 
listening? The auditory patterning may be freer, for some people, than 
the motor ability. Or, [the activity of reading scores] may be somewhat 
swank. Or possibly it is the symbol of a narcissistic withdrawal from 
the world. (Compare the greater pleasure some people find in reading 
a play than in seeing it.) 

bg. h2 gy^ ^1^^^ |g |.|^g fundamental meaning of piano playing? ^-^ [One 
might as well ask what is the] real value of music [in general - and a 
final answer will prove equally elusive,] ^^^ ^^ [For the piano soloist, 
perhaps the meaning is tied up with the] complete physical control [he 
has over the music,] as compared with the violin or flute [player.] The 
pianist has within his own power a complete world of control, [involv- 
ing] a release of motor abilities, and a rich parficipation in rhythm, with 
[a sense of] implicit conquest. [For those who do not play the piano 
themselves, the meaning of piano-playing will surely be different.] 

''- [Now when we listened to the report on the technological history 
of the piano, we did not need to concern ourselves with all these varia- 
tions. Our investigation of piano playing, therefore, illustrates the two 
sides] cultural patterns have: cold history, on the one hand, and, on the 
other - [on the subjecfive side -] the meanings [invested] in behavior. 

^^ In continuation of our discussion on the questionnaires, [let us 
consider the construction of the questions. In addition to the kinds of 
questions so far posed,] I would suggest a fantasy questionnaire: "Given 
a certain situation, a certain house, certain people, plus someone play- 



Two: The Psyclu)l()^y of Culture 671 

ing the piano, how wtuiki \oii tccl'.'"' [That is ihc kmJ of qucslioii. or 
hsptnhctical iiKiiiirv, I lia\c in niiiui.| Also, [wc need U> uicliidc] a finder. 
In our questionnaires [so far,] we lake for granted common knowledge 
of common [cultural] patterns; but the issue is, how far is this true".' Do 
Missourans understand piano playing the same way we do, and mean 
by piano pla\ing [the same things we mean'.'| \^o all people phi\ the 
piano and sing ot an evening in our own [various] culture areas, and so 
on'.' It is interesting to construct'" a questionnaire to see hou much of 
what we think is common knowledge and common culture is really 
[held in] common. 

[Notice, incidentally, that what we think of as "common knowledge" 
comes to be known very early in life.] At the age of four, a child has 
already learned more about culture than he will e\er know [that he 
knows;] the rest of his life is spent in forgetting what he learned. By 
four, the child knows all the fundamental linguistic patterns, [and we 
must suppose that he has progressed] similarly in regard to the funda- 
mental cultural patterns. The intense curiosity of a child o[' four enables 
him to acquire a profound knowledge of social interaction. 



Editorial Note 

In 1933-34, Sapir gave his students several assignments which \scie 
subsequently discussed in class. The first exercise, assigned earlv m the 
fall semester, seems to have focused on the concepts of culture and the 
social. The students were to try their hands at composing defmitions o^ 
one or other of these terms. H2 has: "Write out essential points to be 
included in defining culture. What is culture in Anthropological sense'.'" 
- while MD has: "Write out the criteria for the concept social [its] 
meaning - uses - connotations." These elTorts. for which \ersions by 
HI and DM survive (on the Yale microfilm and m DMs papers respec- 
tively), were the background for class sessions on Oct. P and 24. 

The second exercise, assigned on Oct. 24 to be handed in the 
following week, was to construct questionnaires on two .American cul- 
tural patterns and answer the questions. DM has: "Construct a ques- 
tionnaire in Social Psychology and answer [the questions in) them. 

"1. Piano playing - significance what is ii what rele\ance to 
individual. 

"2. Smoking. 



672 ^li Culture 

••Organize logically but not too formally [a] couple of typewritten 
pages on each of these. Be descriptive but keep in mind meanings." 

The same assignment is more briefly noted in LaBarre's notes. Man- 
dclbaum's etTort at completing the assignment was found among his 
papers. 

The questionnaires were handed in on Oct. 31 and discussed in a 
preliminary way. For Nov. 14 and 27, two students were to give reports 
on the history and distribution of smoking and of piano playing, while 
committees of two other students - one committee for smoking, an- 
other for piano playing - were to examine all the questionnaires and 
write up a new questionnaire, designed to include everything suggested 
by the lot." The smoking report was given by Willard Park, the piano 
report by a Mrs. Straus. Notes on the two reports and Sapir's discussion 
o^ them can be found in DM, BG, and H2 (piano only). These class 
sessions are reconstructed in this appendix. 

Sapir assigned a similar questionnaire exercise in April 1934, this time 
on etiquette. Sapir's discussion of that topic may be found in chapter 
12. Mandelbaum's etiquette questionnaire survived among his papers, 
as did his copy of the take-home final exam, assigned at the end of 
May. 



Notes 

1. i.e.. Sapir. Beaglehole's notes make it clear where Sapir speaks for himself. I render 
these passages in the first person. 

2. See Laufer 1924a, 1924b, 1930. 

3. Beaglehole's notes do not specify that the following statements came from Sapir, rather 
than from the student committee. I infer that they came from Sapir because Beaglehole 
rarely recorded student statements. 

4. BG has "answerer." 

5. H2 has a question mark by this date, which is obviously incorrect. 

6. The interpretation represented in the bracketed material is questionable. 

7. H2 has "escape." 

8. This word is unclear. 

9. H2 adds, "Cf language - verbalizing." It is not clear whether the point is that language 
is a substitute for its referent, or whether an appreciation for language can be categorized 
in the same way as an appreciation for music. 

0. BG has "ask." 

1. From BG. 



APPENDIX 2: Notes on a Lecture lo ihc 
Friday Night Club, Oct. 13. 1933 

I cannot be ethnological and be sincere in observing my little bo\ play 
marbles. 1 cannot watch a Chinese mandarin and be psychological.' 

My own past history determines my outlook. When I see my bo\. I 
am not interested in his game. I am interested in his behavior, i am ... 

We are afraid to probe too deeply into personality. Our children are 
tully developed personalities very early and to recognize this would be 
to blow up the parent-child relationship [that is] so soothing and pleas- 
ing to us. 

The nature of interest in human behavior is of such a kind that we 

1. Classify under authority — what "they" say 

2. [Classify under] 1 - what "I" want 

Children accept everything on authority; [they accept something as 
true] because Daddy said so. That is why culture is so poncrjul - be- 
cause Authority is Culture, and the Father is the "Great Authority." 

Whatever authority happens to intYinge most closely on the child is 
for him the valid world. This culture comes to us with the greatest pos- 
sible emotional weight. Love is the greatest activating factor, but also 
there must be germs of hate, of revolt. We ne\er know what our true 
culture is because we can never depersonalize our emoiii^nal tie-ups. A 
vitalized ... 

The difference between culture and personality is not that the data 
are different, but that the flow of our interests is dilTerent. 

The reason for our interest in personalit\ is that we are ne\er tired 
oi^ looking and peering into oursehes. 

There is not much difference between the organization called persi>n- 
alily, and ... 

I think that the so-called obiecli\it\ of culture is a myth It cannot 
be divorced from the empathizing mind. Ihe onl\ thing you can do is 
to take ten or twelve personalities and rub out the peculiar vagaries.' 

All personality judgement is always an extreme judgement, lor in- 
stance, personality judgement from primitive people is commonly 



574 ^^^ Culture 

Habby. Because his world is the "great World" of impersonalized rela- 
tionship, his nomenclature is one of great social tradition, not of per- 
sonality bias. 

Our great fear o'i finding out too much has justly kept us from prob- 
ing too deeply into the individual psyche. But because of the complexity 
of our culture - because of the cumbersomeness ... we become more 
and more interested in personality. 

One man has as much personality as another. Personality, I mean, is 
objective. A "'charming personality" is a list of things that look in dif- 
ferent directions. For instance, [such a] man is (1) mild mannered; (2) 
plays the piano. 

The best things in the world are compensations for our weaknesses. 
When we evaluate each other we don't distinguish elements scientific- 
ally, but take or reject the whole combination. 

Our own attitudes toward peoples then are valuable only insofar as 
they reveal our own personality. 

The biological influence presented is very important in the formation 
of personality. At an alarmingly early age personality differences ap- 
pear. 

The only important events that happen after the first three years of 
a child's life are catastrophes. 

The organized intuitive organization of a three year old is far more 
valid and real than the most ambitious psychological theory ever con- 
structed. 

Their world is a different kind of a thing^ because the fundamental 
emotional relationships were differently established as first or second 
child. 

Culture just doesn't adhere, it is hooked by the personality and tied 
into the individual. Thus culture is really only these hooked events mo- 
notonously repeated forever. 

The ultra complicated world of culture from the psychiatric stand- 
point is nothing more than the pyramiding of personality pictures. 

It is absurd to carry on a grilling psychoanalysis; it is too dangerous, 
it isn't worth it. 

All activity is the same - social or private - all in the nature of 
personality and culture is merely an abstraction of items so reduplicated 
that we may call them impersonal. But they bear no meaning aside from 
the Ego. Also the content has no meaning aside from behavior. 

For content consult history. 

For meaning consult the individual. 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 675 

Editorial Note 

This Appendix reproduces notes by David Mandclbaum on a lecture 
given by Sapir. Only a few editorial insertions are included. At several 
points. Mandclbaum has the beginning of a stalenienl but missed the 
rest o( it; 1 have represented these gaps with ellipses, rather than trymg 
to complete the sentence. Italics, capitalizations, and spacing (between 
paragraphs) are all original. The source text is Mandelbaum's handwrit- 
ten version, not the typescript he later prepared for microfilming along 
with his class notes. 



Notes 

1. See Sapir 1934a for what appears to be a fuller version of this opcniiii:. 

2. Here DM has the word "Examples," crossed out. 

3. This word is hard to decipher. In DM's handwritten version it is probably "thing." but 
might be "theory;" in the typescript it is "one." 



APPENDIX 3. Sapir's lists of suggested readings lor 

'The Impact of Culture on Personality" (1933-34) and 

'The Psychology of Culture" (1935-36) 



Adler, Alfred 
Benedict, R. F. 
Boas, Franz 
Cooley, Charles 

Dewey, John 
Dummer, Ethel (ed.): 

Flugel, J. C. 
Freud, S. 



Goldenweiser, A. A. 
Hart, Bernard 
Hoh, E. B. 
Huntington, E. 
Jung, Carl C. 
Kantor, J. R. 



Koffka, K. 
Kretschmer, Ernst 
Kroeber, A. L. 
Lowie, R. H. 

McDougall, Wm. 
Malinowski, B. 

Ogburn, W. R 
Ogburn, W. F, and 
Goldenweiser, A. A. 
(eds.) 



Individual Psychology 

Patterns of Culture [1935 list onlyl 

The Mind of Primitive Man 

Human Nature and the Social Order 

The Social Process 

Human Nature and Conduct 

The Unconscious, A Symposium (Alfred 

A. Knopf 1927) 

The Psychoanalytic Study o\' the Family 

Introduction to Psychoanalysis 

The Interpretation of Dreams 

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life 

Early Civilization 

The Psychology o[' Insanii) 

The Freudian Wish 

Climate and Civilization 

Psychological Types 

An Essay toward an InsiiiulioiKil Conception o\' 

Social Psychology (American J. o( Sociology 

1922) 

The Growth of the Mind 

Physique and Cliaractcr 

The Superorganic (American Anlhrop<.>Iogisl 1917) 

Culture and Ethnology 

Primitive Society 

An Introduction to Social Psychology 

Crime and Custom in Primiti\e Sociel> 

Sex and Repression in Savage Society 

Social Change 

The Social Sciences and then Inici ici.iiu'iis 



578 JJJ Culture 

Rice, S. A. (ed.) Methods in Social Science, A Case Book 

Rivers, W. H. R. Instinct and the Unconscious 

Sapir, E. Language (Harcourt, Brace and Co.) 

Time Perspective in Aboriginal American 

Culture 
Teggard, F. I.' Processes of History 

Trotter, Wm. Instincts of the Herd in War and Peace 

Tvlor, E. B. Primitive Culture 

Veblen, T. Theory of the Leisure Class 

Wissler, Clark Man and Culture 

Addenda, 1933. Essays by Sapir. 

"Language and Environment," American Anthropologist [1912b] 
"Do We Need a Superorganic?" American Anthropologist 1917, 
pp. 441-447 [1917a] 

"Culture Genuine and Spurious," American J. of Sociology [1924b] 
"Speech as a Personality Trait," American J. of Sociology [1927h] 
Encyclopedia of Social Sciences: 

"Communication" [1931a] 

"Custom" [1931d] 

"Dialect" [1931e] 

"Fashion" [1931 f| 

"Group" [1932b] 

"Language" [1933b] 
"Cultural Anthropology and Psychology [sic],'' J. of Abnormal and So- 
cial Psychology, Oct. 1932, pp. 229-242 [1932a] 

Editorial Note 

Reading lists for these two years of Sapir's course were found among the 
papers of David Mandelbaum and Walter Taylor, respectively. The two lists 
are almost identical, except that Mandelbaum adds several of Sapir's own 
essays (recorded in handwriting at the end of a typed, alphabetized list). The 
references are reproduced here in the form in which they occur in the Man- 
delbaum and Taylor papers. For complete references, see the Bibliography. 

Note 

1. The reference is presumably to Teggart, F. J. 



References, Section Two 

Authors other thiin Supir 

Adler. Alfred 

1929 The Practice and Theory oj Individual Psycholoi^y. Second ediluni. 

revised. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 
1937 Psychiatric aspects regarding individual and social disorganization. 
American Journal oJ Sociology 42: 773 -7K(). 
Alexander, Franz 

1937 Psychoanalysis and social disorganization. American Journal of So- 
ciology 42: 781-813. 
Benedict, Ruth Fulton 

1934 Patterns of Culture. Boston and New York: Houghton MifTlin. 
Blumer. Herbert 

1937 Social disorganization and individual disorganization. Ameruun 
Journal of Sociology 42: 871 -77. 
Boas, Franz 

1891 The dissemination of tales. Journal of Anwrican Folklore 4: 13 2U. 
1911 The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: Macmillan. 
1916 The development of folktales and myths. Scieniifu- Monthly 3: 
335-43. 
Brill, Abraham Arden 

1914 Psychoanalysis: Its Theories and Practical Application. Philadelphia 

and London: W. B. Saunders. 
1921 Fundatnental Conceptions of Psychoanalysis. New ^ork: HarciHirl 

Burrow, Trigant 

1937 The law of the organism: A ncuro-social approach to the problcniN 
of human behavior. American Journal of Sociology A2: S14 24 
Butler, Samuel 

1903 The Way of All Flesh. London: Ciiant Richards. 
Cooley, Charles Horton 

1902 Human Nature and the Social Order. New ^ork: Scnbnci s 
1918 Social Process. New York: Scribncr's. 
Cowan, William, Michael K. Foster, and Koiiiad Kocrncr. cds 

1986 New Perspectives in Language. Culture, and Pcrumality: Pnuccumgs 
of the Edward Sapir Centenary Contcrcncc. Ottawa. 1-3 Octohvr 
1984. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 



680 lit Culture 

Darnell, Regna 

1990 Edwcird Sapir: Linguist, Anthropologist, Humanist. Berkeley, CA: 
University of California Press. 
Dewey, John 

1922 Human Nature anil Conduet. New York: H. Holt. 
Dorsey, George Amos 

1903 The Arapaho Sun Dance; The Ceremony of the Offerings Lodge. 
Field Columbian Museum, Publication 75, Anthropological Series 
vol. IV. Chicago. 
Dummer. Ethel, ed. 

1927 The Unconscious: A Symposium. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 
Fielding, Henry 

1749 The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. London: A. Millar. 
Flugel. John Carl 

1921 The Psychoanalytic Study of the Family. London, New York: Ho- 
garth and the International Psychoanalytic Press. 

Frazer, James 

1917-20 The Golden Bough. Third edition, 12 volumes. London: Macmil- 
lan. 
Freud, Sigmund 

1917 The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Authorized English edition, 

with an introduction by A. A. Brill. New York: Macmillan. 

1920 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. Authorized translation, with 

a preface by G. Stanley Hall. New York: Boni & Liveright. 

1923 The Interpretation of Dreams. Third edition, with an introduction 
by A. A. Brill. New York: Macmillan. (First published 1913.) 

1928 The Future of an Illusion. Trans. W. D. Robson-Scott. New York: 
Liveright. 

Gale, Zona 

1928 Portage, Wisconsin and Other Essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 
Goldenweiser, Alexander 

1922 Early Civilization: An Introduction to Anthropology. New York: Al- 
fred A. Knopf. 

Gorky, Maxim 

1912 The Lower Depths. Trans. Laurence Irving. London: T. F. Unwin. 
(First published 1903.) 
Graebner, Fritz 

1911 Methode der Etlmologie. Heidelberg: C. Winter. 

1924 Das Welthild der Primitiven. Munich: E. Reinhardt. 
Hart, Bernhard 

1931 The Psychology of Insanity. Fourth edition. New York: Macmillan. 
(First published 1912.) 
Holt, Edwin Bissell 

1915 The Freudian Wish and Its Place in Ethics. New York: H. Holt. 



Two: The Twcholoi^v a/ ( uiiiuc 681 

Hughes, Thomas 

1 857 Tom Brown's Schooldays. C'ambnduc: Macnull.m. 
Huntington. Charles C litTord, and I'led A. Carlson 

1929 /■//(' Tnvlronnu'iifiil Basis of Social (ico^raphv. New York: Prcnlicc- 
Hall. 

1933 The Geographic Basis oj Society. (Revision ol Huntnigton and Carl- 
son 1929.) New York: Prentice-Hall. 
Huntington, Ellsworth 

1915 Civilization iiiul Cli)}hitc. New Haven: Yale rni\ersU\ Press. 
Jung. Carl G. 

1922 Collected Papers on Atuilvdcal Psychology. Constance H. L.Dng. ed. 
Second edition. London: Bailliere. Tindall & Co,\. 

1923 Psychological Types; or. the Psychology of Individuation. Trans. 
H. Godwin Baynes. New York: Harcourt Brace. 

Kantor. J. R. 

1922 An essay toward an institutional conception o\' social psychology. 
American Journal oJ Sociology 27: 611 -27. 758-79. 

KofTka. Kurt 

1925 The Growth of the Mind: An Introduction to Child- Psychology. 
Trans. Robert Morris Ogden. New York: Harcourt Brace. 
Kretschmer, Ernst 

1925 Physique and Character: An Investigation of the .\ature of Const iiu- 
tion and of the Theory ofTcniperanwnt. Translated from the second, 
revised edition by W.J. H. Sprott. New >brk: ll.ii\inni Mr.ui.- 
Kroeber. A. L. 

1917 The Superorganic. /^/77tT/V^//7 .-f//////7Y'<'/o,i^/.s7 19: j(i3 21 V 
Lauter, Berthold 

1924a Tobacco and Its Use in Asia. Chicago: Field Museum o\' Natural 

History. Anthropology leaflet 18. 
1924b Introduction of Tobacco into Europe. Chicago: I leld Museum ol 
Natural History. Anthropology leaflet 19. 
Laufer, Berthold, Wilfrid D. Hambly, and Ralph Linton 

1930 Tobacco and Its Use in Africa. Chicago: lield Museum of Natural 
History. Anthropology leaflet 29. 

Levy-Bruhl, Lucien 

1923 Primitive Mentality. Trans. Lilian Clare. London: Cicorge .Mien & 
Unwin; New York: Macmiilan. ( 1 ust published 1922.) 

Lippert, Julius 

1886-87 Kulturgeschichtc der Men.schhcii in ihrem Orgonischtn .4ufhtiu 
Stuttgart: F. Enke. 
Lowie. Robert 

1917 Culture and Ethnology. New \o\\. Livenghl. 

1920 Primitive Society. New York: Boni & Livenghl. 



582 /// Culture 

Machen, Arthur 

1927 The Hill of Dreams. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. (First published 
1907.) 
Malinovvski, Bronislaw 

1923 The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages. Supplementary 
essay in C. K. Ogden and I. R. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning. 
London: Kegan Paul. Pp. 451-510. 

1926 Crime and Custom in Savage Society. New York: Harcourt, Brace. 

1927 Sex ami Repression in Savage Society. New York: Harcourt, Brace. 
Mandelbaum, David 

1941 Edward Sapir. Jewish Social Studies 3: 131-40. 
Mandelbaum, David, ed. 

1949 Selected Writings of Edward Sapir. Berkeley, CA: University of Cali- 
fornia Press. 
May. Mark Arthur 

1937 A research note on cooperative and competitive behavior. American 
Journal of Sociology 42: 887—91. 
Mayo, Elton 

1937 Psychiatry and sociology in relation to social disorganization. 
American Journal of Sociology 42: 825 — 31. 
McDougall, William 

1921 An Introduction to Social Psychology. Fourteenth edition. Boston: 
J. W. Luce. 

Mead, Margaret 

1928 Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: William Morrow. 

1959 An Anthropologist At Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict. Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin. 
Mecklin, John Moffatt 

1924 The Ku Klux Klan: A Study of the American Mind. New York: Har- 
court Brace. 

1934 The Story of American Dissent. New York: Harcourt Brace. 
Newman, Stanley 

1933 Further experiments in phonetic symbolism. American Journal of 
Psychology 45: 53-75. 
Ogburn, William Fielding 

1922 Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature. New 
York: B. W. Huebsch. 

Ogburn, William Fielding, and Alexander A. Goldenweiser, eds. 

1927 The Social Sciences and Their Interrelations. Boston: Little and 
James. 
Ogburn, William Fielding, and Abram J. Jaffe 

1937 Recovery and social conditions. American Journal of Sociology 42: 
878-86. 



Two: The Psychology of Culture 683 

Perry. William James 

1923 The Children of the Sun. New York: T. P OuitiMi 
Preston. Richard 

1986 Sapir's "Psychology of Culture" I'rospeclus. lu William Cowan. 

Michael K. Foster, and Konrad Koerner. eds.. New Ferspcciives in 
Lcuiguage, Culture, and Personality: Proceedings of the F.dward Saptr 
Centenary Conference. Ottawa. 1-3 Octoher l^iS4. Amsterdam and 
Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pp. 533-551. 
Rice. Stuart Arthur, ed. 

1931 Methods in Social Science. Chicago: University orChicagi> Press. 
Rickert, Heinrich 

1899 Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft: ein I'ortrai^. JYeiburg i. 

B. (Fifth edition published 1925.) 
1902 Die Grenzen der Naturwis.senschaftlichen Be^riffshildunii. Tubingen: 
J. C. B. Mohr. (Fifth edition published 1929.) 
Ritchie, James E. 

1967 Ernest Beaglehole, 1906-65. Anwricati Anthropologist 69:68-70. 
Rivers, W. H. R. 

1920 Instinct ami the Unconscious. Cambridge (U. K): Cambridge L ni- 
versity Press. 
Roheim, Geza 

1932 Psychoanalysis of primitive cultural types. International Journal of 
Psychoanalysis 13: 1—224. 

1934 The Riddle of the Sphinx. London: Hogarth. 
Saussure, Ferdinand de 

1922 Cours de linguistique generale. Second edition. Edited b\ Charles 
Bally and Albert Sechehaye. Paris: Payot. (First published 1916 ) 
Schilder, Paul 

1937 The relation between social and personal disorganizaiion. Anuruan 
Journal of Sociology 42: 832-39. 
Schmidt. Wilhelm 

1924 Volker mid Kulturen. Regensburg: J. Habbel. 
1926-35 Der Ur.sprung der Gottesidee. Miinslcr: .•\sclicndortr 

Slight, David 

1937 Disorganization in the individual and m socicis Ameruan Journal 
of Sociology 42: 840-47. 
Smith, Grafton Elliot 

1915 The Migrations of Early Culture. London. Neu \oi\ Longmans. 

Green. 
1930 Human History. London: J. Cape. 
Spengler, Oswald 

1922-23 Der Untergang des Ahendlandes. Munich: Heck 

Spier, Leslie 

1939 Edward Sapir. Scieiue 89 (2307): 237-238. 



^{^4 ^^^ Culture 

Spier, Leslie, Alfred 1. Hallowell, and Stanley Newman, eds. 

U)41 Lani^uiiiii'. Culture, ami Personality: Essays in Memory of Edward 
Supir. Menasha, WI: Edward Sapir Memorial Fund. 

Sullivan, Harrv Stack 

1937 A note on the implications of psychiatry, the study of interpersonal 
relations, for investigations in the social sciences. American Journal 
of Sociology 42: 848-61. 
Teggarl, Frederick John 

lilS Processes of History New Haven: Yale University Press. 
Iliurnwald, Richard 

1^32 Economics in Primitive Communities. London: Oxford University 
Press. 
Thurstone, Louis Leon 

1929 The Measurement of Attitude. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
Trotter. Wilfred 

1916 Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. New York: Macmillan. 
Tylor, Edward Burnett 

1871 Primitive Culture. London: John Murray. 
Veblen, Thorstein 

1899 Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: A. M. Kelley. 
Wissler, Clark 

1923 Man and Culture. New York: Thomas Y. CrowelL 



Publications ami manuscripts by Edward Sapir 

(Works that appear in The Collected Works of Edward Sapir are numbered 
according to the general bibliography and show the appropriate CWES volume 
number following the entry.) 

1912b Language and Environment. American Anthropologist 14: 226-242. 
I 

1913b A Girls' Puberty Ceremony among the Nootka Indians. Transac- 
tions. Royal Society of Canada, 3d series, 7: 67-80. IV. 

1915a Abnormal Types of Speech in Nootka. Canada, Department of 
Mines, Geological Survey, Memoir 62, Anthropological Series 5. 
VI 

191 5g A Sketch of the Social Organization of the Mass River Indians. Can- 
ada, Department of Mines, Geological Survey, Museum Bulletin 
19, Anthropological Series 7. IV. 

191 5h The Social Organization of the West Coast Tribes. Transactions, 
Royal Society of Canada, Second Series, 9: 355-374. IV. 

1916h Time Perspective in Ahorigincd American Culture: A Study in 
Method. Canada, Department of Mines, Geological Survey, Mem- 
oir 90, Anthropological Series 13. IV. 



Two: The Psychology of C ulturc 685 

1917a Do Wc Need a 'Supcmrganic"? American AmhropohigiM 19: 
441-447.111. 

1917i Psychoanalysis as PalhUndcr. Review olOskar Pfisier. I he Psycho- 
analytic Method. The Dial ^2: 503-506. III. 

192 Id Lan^iia^e: An Introdiiclion lo the Siiulv of Speech. New York; liar- 
court. Brace. II. 

1922y Sayach'apis, A Nootka Trader. In l.lsie C . Parsons, ed.. Ameruan 
Indian Life. New York: B. W. Huebsch. Pp. 297-323. IV 

1923J Review of C. Jung. P.sycholoi^icid Types. Two Kinds of Hunum Be- 
ings. The Freeman 8:211-212. III. 

19231 Review ot C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. I he .\feanin\i of \fean- 
ini^. An Approach to Symbolism. The Freeman 7: 572-573. III. 

1924b Culture, Genuine and Spurious. American J (mrnal of Sociology 29: 
401-429. (Part 1 previously published 1922 m 77;t' Dalhou.sie Re- 
view 2: 165-178; Part 2 previously published in The Dial 67: 
233-236 and in The Dalfwmie Review 2: 358-368.) III. 

1924c The Grammarian and His Language. The American Mercury 
1:149-155.1. 

1924e Racial Superiority. The Menorah Journal 10: 200-212. III. 

1925a Are the Nordics a Superior Race? The Canadian Forum (June). 
265-266. III. 

1925p Sound Patterns in Language. Lani^uage 1: 37-51. I. 

1927a Anthropology and Sociology. In W. F. Ogburn and .A. (ioldcn- 
weiser, eds.. The Social Sciences and Their Interrelations. Boston: 
Houghton MilTlin. Pp. 97-113. III. 

1927h Speech as a Personality Trait. .Anwrican .founuil of Sociolof^y 32: 
892-905. III. 

1928a The Meaning of Religion. The Anu-rican Mercury 15: 72-79. III. 

I928e Review of Sigmund Freud. 77;t' Future of an Illusion. Psychoanalysis 
as Prophet. The New Republic 56: 356-357. III. 

1928J The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society. In Flhel Hum- 
mer, ed.. The Unconsciou.s: A Symposium. Neu York: .\. .\ Knopf. 
Pp. 114-142. III. 

1929m A Study in Phonetic Symbolism. Journal of F.xpenmental Psychol- 
ogy 12: 225-239. I. 

1930b Proceedings. Second Codoipuum on Personality Imestif^atUm: Held 
under the Joint .tuspices of the Anwrican Psychiatric .issocialutn and 
of the Social Science Rcscmrli Council. Baltimore. III. 

1931a Communication. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences A: 7S SI I 

193 Id Custom. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 4: 658-662. Ill 

1931c Dialect. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 5: 123-126. I. 

193 If Fashion. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 6: 1.39-144 III 

1932a Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry. Journal <>' ihn.^nud and 
Social P.svchology 27: 229-242. III. 



686 l^i Culture 

1932b Group. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 7: 178-182. III. 

1933b Lanijuage. Fjicvclopcdia of the Social Sciences 9: 155-169. I. 

1934a The l-mcrgence o[' the Concept of Personality in a Study of Cul- 
tures. Journal of Social Psychology 5: 408-415. III. 

1934c Personality. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 12: 85-87. III. 

1934e Symbolism. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 14: 492-495. III. 

1937a The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior 
in Society. American Journal of Sociology 42: 862-870. III. 

1938e Why Cultural Anthropology Needs the Psychiatrist. Psychiatry 1: 
7-12 III 

1 939c Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business of Getting a Living. 
Stcnial Health (a publication of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science) 9: 237-244. III. 

1939e Songs for a Comox Dancing Mask. Edited by Leslie Spier. Ethnos 
4: 49-55. IV. 

1959 Letters to Ruth Benedict. In Margaret Mead, ed., An Anthropologist 
at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 

1980 Letter to Philip A. Selznick, 25 October 1938. In G. Stocking, 
Sapir's Last Testament on Culture and Personality. History of 
Anthropology Newsletter 7: 8—11. III. 

1998a Notes on Psychological Orientation in a Given Society. Social Sci- 
ence Research Council, Hanover Conference, 1926. (Hanover Con- 
ference transcripts, Dartmouth College.) III. 

1998b The Cultural Approach to the Study of Personality. Social Science 
Research Council, Hanover Conference, 1930. (Hanover Confer- 
ence transcripts, Dartmouth College; includes Sapir's Original 
memorandum to the Social Science Research Council from the 
Conference on Acculturation and Personality.) III. 

n.d. [1938] Letter to A. L. Kroeber, 25 August 1938. University of Cali- 
fornia, Berkeley, Bancroft Library (Kroeber papers). 
Sapir, Edward, and Morris Swadesh 

1946 American Indian Grammatical Categories. Word!: 103-112. V. 



Section Three 
Assessments of Psychology and Psychiatry 

Regna Darnell and Judith T. Irvine, editors 



InlroduLlion 

Although there is no complete or direct record of the tiniinii and 
content of Sapir's exploration of psychology and psychiatry as he de\el- 
oped his own theory o( cuhure, his series o\' book reviews in various 
popular journals in the 1910's and 1920's summarize his response to 
these disciplines and to increasingly dilTerentiated and professionalized 
schools of thought within them. In part, of course, Sapir wrote book 
reviews to obtain copies of newly published or translated works. He 
could not order such books for the Anthropological Di\ision o\'^ the 
Geological Survey of Canada because its maiKlaic did not include the 
psychological sciences. Indeed, oral history records that Sapir met his 
second wife, Jean Victoria McClenaghan. when she visited him in Ot- 
tawa to borrow a book on psychoanalysis. Sapir may well ha\e been 
unique in Ottawa civil service circles for his interest in this topic. 

The reasons for Sapir's reorientation of his linguistics and eihnolog> 
toward psychology are complex, both personally and intellect uall> 
(Darnell 1986a). At Columbia as a graduate student, Sapir did not share 
the conviction of many of his contemporaries that the courses o\' 
psychologist J. McLean Cattell were important for fledgling anthropi>l- 
ogists. He seems to have ignored Boas's 1911 pronouncement in Ihc 
Mind of Primitive Man that anthropological questions were ultimatel\ 
psychological. For Boas, culture was a largel\ unconscious bods o\' 
knowledge subject to "secondary rationalization" which was to be dis- 
missed by the anthropologist in favour of his/her own analytic inter- 
pretation. Sapir agreed, although he was more interested in language, 
which -because of its formal structure - was less subicct \o sccoiuiar\ 
rationalization than was culture as a w hole. 

Many of Boas's followers flirted with psychoanalysis during the same 
period. Alfred Kroeber even became a lay analyst for several years f or 
Sapir, these intellectual currents gained further relevance from the men- 
tal and physical illness of his wife Florence from about l'-)!^ until her 
death in 1924. Her illness gave him personal motixcs to explore diagnos- 
tic and clinical issues in psychology and psychiatrs. 

Throughout this period, Sapir was increasingh dissalislied with the 
reification of the culture concept common in the social sciences. His 



690 /// Culture 

critique of the superorganic in 1917 reflects his increasing reorientation 
toward the study of the individual in relation to culture. His writing of 
poetry and literary criticism and dabbling in musical composition in 
this same period also encouraged attention to the psychological dimen- 
sion of human life. Indeed, psychology appears to have meant to Sapir 
a loose analytic focus on the individual rather than on institutionalized 
structures. Aesthetics and creativity became issues for him in relation 
to his literary endeavors but came to influence dramatically his model 
for culture as a whole. 

Sapir corresponded with Boas's friend Frederick Wells, a practising 
clinician who wanted examples from "primitive folklore" to compare 
with dementia praecox among his patients. Sapir was skeptical of the 
evolutionary interpretation of the primitive implicit in the Freudian his- 
tory of the human psyche. Whether or not Freud saw himself as describ- 
ing real historical events, e. g., in the Oedipus complex, Sapir and his 
anthropological contemporaries so read his argument. Sapir was further 
critical of Freud for citing ethnographic evidence out of context, thereby 
distorting its meaning. Moreover, Freud's scheme was universal, based 
on species biology, a difficult position for anthropologists habituated to 
emphasize diversity rather than similarity across cultures. 

Nonetheless, Sapir was not prepared to throw out the baby with the 
bath water. Although his mature position on psychoanalysis and psychi- 
atry would emerge only after his collaboration with Harry Stack Sulli- 
van from 1926 on, these early reviews set the groundwork for Sapir's 
later position. 

In "Freud, Delusion and Dream" (1917), Sapir praised the intuition 
in Freud's interpretation of a fantasy novel, though he questioned the 
literary quality of the work. Sapir offered a cultural explanation of the 
independent match between Freud and the novelist on grounds of 
shared culture. He saw no relevance of this work to testing the scientific 
validity of psychoanalysis. 

Also in 1917, Sapir reviewed Oskar Pfister on psychoanalytic method. 
Differences among Freud's disciples appeared to him quite minor. After 
all the uncritical enthusiasm died away, Sapir saw a core of useful in- 
sight - the identification of repressed emotions which could enter into 
consciousness in various ways. Sapir applied this insight to cuhural 
anthropology through cultural symbolisms. Among his list of positive 
features of the emerging discipHne, Sapir found this the most useful in 
his own work. 



Three: Assessments of Psk holoi^v aiui PsychUiirv 691 

A few years lalei. Sapir tiiiiiecl ti^ Hniish psyehologist and anlhrt^pol- 
ogisl W. M. R. Ri\eis. wliDse hisiuut und the Unnmscious (1921) per- 
suaded him ihal ps\ehoanalysis did not ha\e lo be iTeudian lo be eredi- 
ble in relation to anthropology. Indeed, Ri\ers' posilii>n was eonsisicnl 
with British funetionalism, then emerging as a major Fiielhod ot anlhro- 
pologieal analysis. Mechanisms o\' ps\chic organization uere eompali- 
ble with cross-cultural \ariation. Objecting to Rivers' biological analo- 
gies, however, Sapir's claim that earh man was no dilTerent from his 
modern counterpart was consistent with the Boasian tradition of his 
own training. 

R. S. Woodworth's book (1922) was a conventional text lor non- 
psychologists by a Columbia professor. Sapir. in line with his oun devel- 
oping position, proposed that the concept o\' personality wt>uld allou 
Woodworth to integrate behaviorism and physiology with the Ireudian 
unconscious and cultural symbolism. "Individual histor> " would clarify 
the nature of the mind. Sapir questioned, however, the ease with which 
Woodworth assumed he could equate "the inner feel o\' alien minds" 
with his own intuitions about his own society; as a fieldworker. Sapn 
knew it was more complicated. 

Frederick Pierce (1922) attempted to provide a textbook of psycho- 
logical advice for Americans. Sapir found the effort largeK unsuccessful 
but was intrigued by Pierce's unintentional characieri/atiinis o{ .Ameri- 
can attitudes toward culture and science. Both anthropology and 
psychology could interpret these artifacts. This argument undoubtedly 
draws on Sapir's own critique of American societv. written no\ long 
before this review ("Culture, Genuine and Spurious," this volume). 

Sapir's review of Jung's Psycliolo^ical Types (1923) retlecled genuine 
enthusiasm, a breakthrough in his own undersiaiuling o\' personalilv 
organization and the incommensurable worlds o\' introvert and extra- 
vert. As a social scientist, however, Sapir missed case studies which 
would provide behavioral bases for the psychological tvpes. Readme 
Jung seems to have provided Sapir with a catharsis: he CiMilemplaled 
his own temperament through these categories. 

Jung was generally popular among the Boasians. In the mid-lwenties. 
Sapir and many of his colleagues enjoyed applvmg the persi>naliiv ivpcs 
not only to ethnographically familiar cultures but alsi> lo familiar in- 
dividuals. Margaret Mead (ed. 1959) recalled Sapir and Alexander 
Goldenweiser's enthusiasm for this parlor game at the British .-VssiKia- 
tion for the Advancement of Science meeting in loronto in 1924. De- 
spite the playful quality of such conversations. Sapir believed ihai his 



692 ^tf Culture 

success in applying such categories to known individuals provided an 
independent test of the validity and replicabihty of the Jungian method, 
in Tlic Psvclioloi^y of Culfiirc, he developed a more extended discussion 
o( Jung and experimented with applying the types to other cultures. 
Neither Sapir nor any other of his generation, however, seriously at- 
tempted to take the next step and apply the categories systematically to 
other cultures. 

Sapir's lack of enthusiasm for Knight Dunlap (1925) reduced him to 
revamping the author's definition of humour in terms of "an intuitive 
grasp of certain formal incongruities," an analysis consistent with 
Sapir's treatment of linguistic form (see Language, Sapir 192 Id and 
"Sound Patterns in Language," Sapir 1925p). 

The review of anthropologist George A. Dorsey on human behavior 
(1926) was Sapir's first psychological review for a technical professional 
audience; it appeared in the American Journal of Sociology the year 
after his appointment to the University of Chicago. Sapir was appalled 
by Dorsey 's popular style and his failure to address the application of 
the concept of cultural "stimuli" to human behavior; further, Dorsey 's 
definition of culture lacked any focus on symbolism. Sapir did not re- 
treat from his own, incompatible, position. 

The review of Jean Piaget on child language (1927) reflects Sapir's 
exploration of the variety of contemporary schools of psychology. He 
was impressed by Piaget's methodology for studying child language, 
which he found parallel to that of the field ethnographer. In line with 
his own theoretical position, the review focused on the transition from 
egocentric to socialized speech, the link between the individual and the 
cultural in life history. Since Sapir saw language as intuitively appre- 
hended symbolism oriented to aesthetic and expressive purposes - an 
unconsciously developing whole with function secondary to form - 
Piaget's cognitive psychology was more palatable to him as a psychol- 
ogy of language than was either behaviorism or psychoanalysis. Fur- 
ther. Piaget's emphasis on the emergence of effective communicafion fit 
with Sapir's claim that each individual has a unique version of his/her 
culture. 

In reviewing Freud's The Future of an Illusion (1928), Sapir was highly 
critical of the analysis in terms of a primal Oedipus complex. He further 
objected to the standard psychological equation of children with neuro- 
tics and primitives, concluding that Freud was more engaging as clini- 
cian than as "social philosopher and prophet." 



Three: Assessments of Psydioloi^v and Psychiatry 693 

Psychology and psychiatr\ had helped Sapir to tormulatc his own 
theory of cuhure, hui he rejecied most of ilieir classic formulations on 
grounds of anthropological non-sophislicalion. The psychiatry he 
found most suited to his own ideas - that of Harry Stack Sullivan - 
was still very new in the late 192()'s and does not appear in this collec- 
tion o\' reviews. Nor did Sapir publish any re\iew o\' KoHVa's gcstalt 
psychology, an approach he also found congenial. [:ven while appropri- 
ating some of these insights, however, Sapir remained fundamentally an 
anthropologist in spite of his fascination with various forms of ps\elu)l- 
ogy from 1917 on. 



Review of Sigmund Frciid. 
Delusion and Drcani 

Sigmund Freud, Delusion luul Drcdni: An Infcrpinmion in ilic iJs^hi 
of Psychoanalysis r>/"Gradiva, a Novel, by W'ilhchn Jensen. lYanslalcd 
by Helen M. Downey. Moffat, Yard & Co.. 1917. 

To what extent can true psychologic insight, not n>nscic)usl\ deter- 
mined by objective experience, be credited to the literary artist? Is there 
such a thing as an intuition or instinct of psychic verity anticipating, 
nay transcending, the more laborious constructions o\' the systematic 
psychologist? And has the latter nothing but admiration and envy for 
the great artist's unguided, yet infallible, iinrax clings o\' the mysteries 
of the human soul? Perhaps. At least we may grant without fear i>f 
contradiction that modern psychology might rest content uith the as- 
surance of but half the grasp of mental phenomena that the great arms 
of Shakespearean interpreters have, at one lime cUid place or another, 
ascribed to their liege lord. And how does it stand with ps>choanalysis? 
Have the not altogether self-evident psychic mechanisms that I'reud has 
disinterred tor us ever been anticipated in toio in a work o\' fiction? It 
is not a question of whether this or that isolated bit oi psychoanal>lic 
theory finds its parallel or confirmation in litLMaiure such con- 
vergences of thought may be instanced by the hundred but o\' \s heiher 
there are to be found anywhere a literary plot and an iinderl>mg ps\- 
chological analysis that are comparable to a typical ps\clu>anal>iic clin- 
ical picture. 

The latest addition of Messrs. MotTat, Yard & Co. to their rapid!) 
growing library of psychoanalytic literature undertakes to answer this 
question. It consists oi^ two parts: a short novel, or .\ovelle. b> the 
prolific German writer Wilhelm Jensen, entitled (iraJiva. a Pompcium 
Fancy; and a Freudian interpretation o\' this \\o\\ o\' fiction. Delusion 
and Dream in Jensen's [636] Gradi\a. The intrinsic literary merit o\ 
Gradiva hardly concerns us, except in so far as it puts us in an imliaih 
responsive or begrudging mood when confri>nled b\ the succeeding 
commentary. The translator, as usual m these MotTat. ^ard & Co. trans- 



696 /// Ciilli'rc 

Unions from the CiLMiiian, has done her best to create a haze of lit- 
cralness separating us from too close intellectual contact with the writer, 
yet I doubt whether even the best type of rendering would have altoge- 
ther made credible Kreud's own estimate of the aesthetic value of the 
story. It has the same heavy combination of sentimental fancy and 
rather coarse jocularity that, in such tales as "Die Nonna" and "Hoher 
als die Kirche/' was served up to us in high-school days. The "fancy" 
wings Its night in comfortable view of German Gemiltlichkeit. It is with 
somewhat o'i a shock that we learn that the Gustav Freitag-Paul Heyse 
type of sentimentality was still flourishing in Germany in 1903; presum- 
ably its germs are still intact. Of the jocular note running through Jen- 
sen's fantasia Freud seems a bit oblivious, perhaps because there are 
weightier matters at hand. And yet, that Freud's sense of humor is not 
altogether in abeyance and that he is aware of the smallness of the step 
that separates interpretative acuity from flightiness is shown by the final 
remark with which he calls a halt to his own resourcefulness: "But we 
must stop or we may forget that Hanold and Gradiva are only creatures 
of our author." All psychoanalysts who are capable of making reserva- 
tions should thank Freud for this sly dig in his own ribs. 

Let all this not obscure the fact that Freud makes a case, and indeed 
a very plausible and sharp-witted one. Aside from certain shortcomings, 
psychoanalytically considered, of Jensen himself, and aside from a few 
cases of rather evident overdoing it on Freud's part, the accord of Grad- 
iva with psychoanalytic requirements is remarkable enough, however 
one chooses to explain it, and this despite the obvious fact that the 
suggestion of anything like psychological plausibility was far from Jen- 
sen's conscious mind. That Jensen intended to move almost entirely in 
the realm of pure fancy is indicated by two or three of his assumptions, 
assumptions credible only in a fantasia. The reader of the novel must 
take for granted, without motivation, the complete identity in appear- 
ance and manner of walking of Zoe Bertgang, the long-forgotten child- 
hood playmate of Hanold, the archaeologist, and of Gradiva of the 
bas-relief dug up at Pompeii; the meeting of Zoe and Hanold, who are 
next-door neighbors in a German town, in Pompeii itself; and the fact 
of Hanold's strange forgetfulness. The nucleus of the tale is the abnor- 
mal interest that Hanold takes in the bas-relief, more particularly in 
Gradiva's very peculiar trick of lifting the foot in walking. Psychoana- 
lytically, this interest, which leads to fancies of a delusive nature, is 
mterpretable as a substitutive form of expression of the sexual instinct, 
all direct and normal manifestations of which have been denied an out- 



Three: Assessments of Psyilwloi;\ utnl I'sycluatry 697 

let by the conscicnis self. I he reasiMi lor ihe repression, however, is nol 
evident, for Hanold's intensive preoeeupation with elassical archaeology 
is. at best, but an occasion or shaping circumstance, nol a suiricient 
cause. At least so psychoanalysis; Jensen mas have other ideas olvshal 
constitutes causality in a fantasia. As the only sexually ulili/able mate- 
rial antedating the repression is Hanold's childish relations to Zoe, now 
"remembered" only by the unconscious, it is natural that the dammed 
instinct should feed on a representation linked, \ia this unconscious 
memory, with his childish past. We have, therefore, in Hanold's infatua- 
tion with the bas-relief a typical example o{ the unconscious infantile 
fixation which is so frequently at the back of neurotic phenomena. His 
delusional fancies are, in effect, a compromise formation induced by 
two contlicting volitional streams, the sexual impulse and the repressive 
force; they "satisfy" the former through the power o[' an unconscious 
series of associations, the latter by guaranteeing a flight from sexual 
reality. The psychoanalytic complexion of Jensen's (innli\a extends far 
beyond this delusional nucleus to a considerable number o\^ details. 
Emotional transference, rationalization of motive, unconscious symbol- 
ization of desire, regression to infantile experiences - all these familiar 
aspects of Freudian thinking find, or seem to find, tYequent illustration 
in the novel. The very name Gradiva, "splendid in walking," which has 
been bestowed by Hanold on the girl of the bas-relief turns out to be. 
as Jensen himself points out, but the Latinized equivalent o\' the living 
girl's surname, Bertgang; that Hanold fancies somehiing Hellenic in the 
features of the Pompeiian girl is a distorted reflex o\^ the unconsciousK 
remembered name Zoe; his sudden departure for PcMiipeii. apparentl) 
a poorly motivated caprice, is plausibly explained by lYeud as s\ niboliz- 
ing both his desire for Zoe-Gradiva (consciouslv rationalized as an ab- 
surd quest of Gradiva's peculiar footprints in the lava o\' Pomix'ii) (6.'^7] 
and his unconscious fear of Zoe, the work of the repressiiMi. lo al least 
some extent Freud's detailed analyses o\^ two o\' the dreams introduced 
by Jensen carry conviction, but onlv to some extent The treatment of 
the "latent content" of the dreams is less plausible than the analysis of 
the delusions. This is precisely as it should be, for the chances of con- 
structing dreams possessing psychological verisimilitude are not very 
high. Finally, the cure o\' Hanold's delusions elfected bv Zoe ma> be 
described as an abridged replica of the I reudian psvchi>therap>. 

What are we to make o\' it all? Jensen himself '"tesiilv" denied all 
knowledge of psychoanalysis. .\re we then, with Ireud. driven lo ascribe 
to Jensen a high degree o^ instinctive psvchological insight, an arlisl's 



698 /// Culture 

intiiilion that more than makes up for ignorance of psychological the- 
ory".' In view of the very moderate artistic ability displayed by Jensen 
and the obvious lack of deep earnestness in his treatment of the plot, 
one hesitates to commit himself to Freud's thesis. We might be less 
disinclined to follow Freud if the author of Gradiva were a Shakespeare, 
a Balzac, or a Dostoevsky. Perhaps we are unfair to Jensen. An unpreju- 
diced survey of his other works might bring conviction. Yet would it, 
after all, be rash to seek a less ambitious explanation in what the ethnol- 
ogists term "cultural convergence"? Jensen might have started with the 
purely mechanical idea of tying an arbitrarily interrupted past to a sen- 
timental present and have hit upon the device of unconscious sous- 
cntcndus as a convenient means. This would be tantamount to an un- 
conscious aping of the psychoanalytic procedure. It would also explain 
Jensen's failure to motivate what Freud interprets as a repression. Or, 
still more plausibly, a modicum of psychological insight, say into the 
facts of unconscious memory, may have been helped out by such a 
mechanical device as is here suggested. 

However we decide as to the psychoanalytic credentials of Wilhelm 
Jensen, we may accept Freud's study as a sugar-coated introduction to 
the subject of psychoanalysis itself. As such it may have its uses. A 
scientific confirmation of Freudian psychology it can hardly claim to 
be. While it does not seem to the reviewer to represent a full day's work 
in the psychoanalytic workshop, it is too good a thing to be dismissed 
as the vagary of an off day. May not Freud have taken a half-holiday 
when he wrote it? 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Dial 63, 635-637 (1917), under the title 
"A Freudian Half-Holiday." Reprinted by permission of The Dial. 



Review of Oskar Pfislcr. 
TJic Psycliodiuilylic Method 

Oskar Pfister, The Psychoanalytic Method. Translated by Charles 
Rockwell Payne. 2nd: MotTat. Yard & Co.. 1915. 

The Freudian psychology has travelled a course thai might have been 
predicted with tolerable certainty. Al fusi received with mingled derision 
and disgust, it has now attained a position not only o\' \ irtual security 
but, one is almost tempted to say unfortunately, of \ery genuine and 
widespread popularity. Whitmanesque poets sing paeans to Jung's li- 
bido, one of the metaphysical offshoots of the psychoanalytic nio\e- 
ment, while half-baked doctors fearlessly disentangle homosexual 
"complexes" at the end of a first half-hour's consultation with hssierical 
patients. Those who are profoundly convinced o\' the epoch-making 
importance of the psychological mechanisms revealed by F'reud and. 
even more, of the extraordinary suggestiveness o\' numerous lines o\' 
inquiry opened up by psychoanalysis, without, at the same time, being 
blind to criticisms that need to be made of certain aspects of psschoana- 
lytic theory, can only hope and pray that this not altogether health) 
overpopularity of the subject prove no hindrance to the siud> o\' the 
perplexing problems with which the Freudian psychology bristles. W hat 
is sorely needed at the present time, or will be before man> years, is a 
thoroughly objective probing into the new psychoU>g> with a spct^-ial 
view to seeking out the paths of reconciliation with the older orthodox 
psychology of conscious states and lo the rigorous elimination ol all 
aspects of Freudian theory that seem dispensable or ill-substantiated. 
The present militant attitude of the psychoanalysts toward their skepti- 
cal schoolmasters is naturally but a passing phase. I'he opposed schools 
of psychological interpretation will have to meet each other halfway 
and effect a common modus vivcmh. 

For the present it is obvious that the personal bias o\ the brilliant 
founder of psychoanalysis has gi\en the l-reudian ps\cholog> more 
than one twist that is not altogether necessitated by its inxaluable kernel 
- the proof of the existence o\^ the unconscious mind o\' emotionally 



700 /// Culture 

toned "complexes," repressed trends that are directly elaborated out of 
the instinctive life and that leak out into consciousness in a large 
number o^ superficially dissimilar psychic phenomena, for example, 
dreams, automatic and compulsive reactions, neurotic symptoms. A 
firm belief in the \alidity o{ the main lines of psychological theory set 
forth b> hreud by no means necessitates an unreserved adherence to 
such incidental concomitants as his apparently one-sided interpretation 
of sexual perversions or his general conception of the compound nature 
o\^ the sexual instinct. At the least, very radical shiftings of emphasis 
are certain to emerge. An analogous development has characterized the 
history of the theory of organic evolution. Only recently has the original 
Darwinian bias toward an overemphasis of the factor of natural selec- 
tion yielded to the proper evaluation of other factors. The inertia of 
impetus given by the founder of a radical scientific departure is, indeed, 
one o\' the most humiliating, one of the most ironically human, things 
about the history of science. So far there seems to be a disposiiton on 
the part of psychoanalysts to accept the whole Freudian programme at 
practically its face value. What criticism there is within the ranks is 
chiefly on matters of relatively minor import. Even the Jung sedition, 
o^ which so much is made, consists of hardly more, it would seem, than 
a tendency to generalize and carry further some of the more doubtful 
elements of Freud's theoretical groundwork. I refer particularly to 
Jung's handling of symbolization as an interpretative principle and to 
his reckless application of the principles of individual psychoanalysis to 
cultural phenomena. 

We shall be disappointed if we turn to Pfister's extensive treatise in 
the hope of finding such a critical and reconciliatory survey of psycho- 
analytic research. It does not advance the subject very perceptibly in 
the direction indicated. There is, to be sure, a fair amount of critical 
comment en passant on particular Freudian positions, but the whole is 
mainly a summary, and a very convenient and useful one, of the typical 
psychoanalytic interpretations. The greater part of the book deals with 
the analysis and mechanism of repression, constant use being made of 
case material. The latter portion deals with the application as a practical 
technique of the theory developed in detail in the preceding pages. What 
particularly distinguishes The Psychoanalytic Method is the emphasis 
placed upon the usefulness and future possibilities of psychoanalysis for 
pedagogic purposes, curative and prophylactic. We learn, for instance, 
that lack of success in the business of teaching is to no inconsiderable 
degree due to the presence of powerful repressions in teachers them- 



Three: Assessmenis of Psycholoio and I'syeliiutry "TOl 

selves. May we hope that when pedagogues and sludenls alike (268) 
shall have had the obstructive cobwebs cleared mit o\' their unconscious 
by psychoanalytic examination, we shall be able to bid welcome to an 
educational regime that with conscious intelligence frames a pedagogi- 
cal technique bearing a genuine relation to the lite problems of its sub- 
jects? 

The book, while nowhere rising to the brilliance of some of the Freud- 
ian writings themselves, is probably the most careful and inclusive pre- 
sentation yet published in English of the results attained and the theo- 
ries elaborated by Freud and his followers. It excels in this respect such 
works as Brill's Psychoanalysis and Hitschmanirs Freud's Theories of 
the Neuroses. Unfortunately, Dr. Payne's translation can claim only a 
moderate measure of success. The overliteralness o\^ the renderings has 
given numerous passages an irksome awkwardness and, cK-casionally, 
obscurity. One needs sometimes to translate back to the (jerman to 
arrive at the intended nuance of meaning. 

Let us turn, now, to the theoretical structure reared by the psychoan- 
alysts. We are entitled to ask: Leaving all questions o{' anal\ tic detail 
and technique to one side, what are some of the basic contributions of 
the Freudian school to psychologic thinking? First and foremost, I 
should say, is the new spirit of attitude and method that psychoanalysis 
has introduced into the study of the mind. The orthodox psychology, 
for all its disavowal of the older faculty-mongering, has never reall\ 
succeeded in grasping the vast network of individual mental phenomena 
as a single growth rooting in the most primiiive t>pe o\^ mental life ue 
know of, the instinctive life. It would be too much to say that psycho- 
analysis has succeeded in reconstructing the c^der of dilTerentialion o^ 
mental phenomena, but it has taken a more patient attitude toward the 
actual dynamics of the individual mind and is thus in a better position 
to ferret out gradually the development o[^ the fundamenial instincls 
into the higher forms of mentality. Psychoanalysis takes hold of chunks 
of mental life as they present themselves in experience; it does not ab- 
stract driblets of mental experience for the purpose of classifNing ihcm 
and examining them under the microscope, in brief, the older psychol- 
ogy is an anatomy o{ mind, somciimcs icrincti; |">s>choanalysis is an 
entering wedge toward a physiology o^ mind, generally quite crude lor 
the present. From the clear recognition o\' this ditVerence ot method 
results the conviction that the two types of psychologic mquirv are not 
in any true sense opposed to each other. rhe> merel> attack their sub- 



702 Jit Culture 

jcct-mattcr from distinct viewpoints. They will, each of them, in the 
long run be found to be indispensable and mutually reconcilable. 

The second point of capital importance that we must set down to the 
credit o^ psychoanalysis is the light it has thrown on the nature and 
functioning o^ tlic unconscious. To psychoanalysis the unconscious is 
not merely a negative ileus e.\ imichma which does convenient service in 
the explanation of memory and in the positing of a continuity of per- 
sonalitv. It is a very real and active domain from which are worked the 
strings that move about the puppets of the conscious self. The naive 
assumption of a self-contained consciousness whose motivation is safely 
interpretable in terms of conscious data alone has been exposed by the 
Ireudian psychology as a huge fallacy. 

One of the most interesting and promising vistas that have been 
opened up. though I find it but little stressed by the psychoanalysts 
themsel\ es. is the quantitative consideration of emotion and will. I am 
not referring to the measuring of reactions under controlled experimen- 
tal conditions. When psychoanalysis tells us that the emotion belonging 
to a certain trend is not always discharged in the consciousness but may 
in part be inhibited in the unconscious or transferred to other reactions, 
we are evidently confronted by certain quantitative implications. It 
seems difficult to avoid the inference of a certain specific, theoretically 
measurable, sum of emotion or volitional impulse which can be divided 
up and distributed in a great variety of ways. The elaboration of the 
concepts that follow on the heels of this hypothesis has been but begun. 
It would not be surprising if this glimmer of a quanfitafive understand- 
ing of mental functioning blossomed out in time to an exactness of 
comprehension of psychological processes such as we have hardly an 
inkling of at present. 

Among the more readily defined and generally recognized insights 
that we owe, directly or indirectly, to Freud are the genetic analysis and 
the treatment of the neuroses, to a much smaller extent also of the 
psychoses (forms of insanity); the frequency and radical importance of 
symbol-formation in the unconscious mind, understanding of which is 
sure to prove indispensable for an approach to the deeper problems of 
religion and art; the analysis and interpretafion of [269] dreams; the 
basic importance of the psychic sexual constitution, not merely in its 
proper functional sphere, but also in connections that seem unrelated; 
the far-reaching importance of infanfile psychic experiences in adult life 
and the ever-present tendency to regression to them; and the general 
light thrown on the problem of mental determinatism. Many other 



Three: Assessments of Psycholoi^y and Psychitilrv 703 

points might be enumerated, some cleaii\ defiiied. others eonimversial. 
Indeed, there has scarcely e\er been a new road opened m science thai 
so spontaneously and rruitfully branched oul \n\o tributary trails. It is 
true that hardly anything is known of the psychoanalytic problems and 
solutions with absolutely satisfying clarity. Yet it takes no bold man to 
assert that enough has been glimpsed to j-ironiise perhaps the greatest 
fructification that the study of mind has \et experienced. 



Editorial Notes 

Originally published in The Dial 63, 267-269 (1917), under the title 
'Psychoanalysis as a Pathfinder." Reprinted by permission o\' The Dial. 



Review of W. H. R. Rivers, 
Instinct and the Unconscious 

W. H. R. Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, a Contribution to a 
Bioloi^icu! Theory of the Psycho-neuroses. New York: The Macmillan 
Company. 1921. 

The Freudian psychology has ceased to be a mystical body of prin- 
ciples which are either to be accepted holus-bolus, like the half-under- 
stood tenets of a cult, or to be rejected outright as an affront to intelli- 
gence and decency. The more fantastic elements of this new psychology 
iia\c separated themselves from the core and have found hospitality in 
the minds of certain litterateurs, while the core itself is becoming stead- 
ily integrated with the older psychologies and even with the latest work 
in physiology. Among the notable efforts to appropriate and interpret 
what is of patent value in psychoanalytic Hterature without heated con- 
cern for Freudian and anti-Freudian dogma is Dr. Rivers's recent book 
on Instinct and the Unconscious. This volume of modest size is admira- 
ble in tone and completely lacking in verbiage. It moves rapidly from 
idea to idea, clarifies one conception after another, and throws out 
many valuable suggestions by the way. Above all, it gives us a biological 
point of view which, whether wholly tenable or not, serves to link psy- 
choanalytic theory more firmly than ever withi the general body of 
research on man as a psycho-physical organism. Dr. Rivers correlates 
the passing of experience into the unconscious with certain instinctive 
mechanisms and considers a psycho-neurosis as a "solution of a conflict 
between opposed and incompatible principles of mental activity," an 
archaic, undifferentiated type of response and a later, more complex 
and discriminating system of adjustments to the stimuH of the environ- 
ment. His main purpose thus becomes the assignment of a definite bio- 
logical "function" to the phenomena of unconscious repression - "sup- 
pression" is the term favoured by Dr. Rivers. 

The author frankly recognizes the possibility of errors of interpreta- 
tion resulting from the selected nature of his data. Dr. Rivers worked 
exclusively with war-patients, in whom the psychic conflict underlying 



Three: Assessmcms of Psychology ami Psychiatry 705 

the neurosis was presuiiiahls ctMiiicetcd with the iiisiinetivc activities 
that tend to preserve the organism in tlie piescnce of danger. Such typi- 
cal neuroses as livsteria and Dr. Ireuds "anxiety-neurosis" arc here 
seen as morbid responses to danger which dodge the frank impulse to 
night without leading to an acceptance by the organism ol" liie etVectivc 
aggression necessary to sur\i\al. 

The neurotic symptoms dealt with by Dr. Rivers in his war-work were 
far too similar to those that Dr. Kreud and other psychoanalysts had 
ascribed to a sexual origin to justify us in considering his neuroses as 
fundamentally distinct from theirs. We are thus dri\en ti> conclude that 
either Dr. Freud's or Dr. Rivers's interpretation needs correction or 
ampliHcation at the hands o\^ the other. One may perhaps suggest that 
too much attention has been bestowed on the causati\e \alue of particu- 
lar types of "complexes," that the frustrated instincts that underlie these 
complexes are by no means the neatly sundered reaction-systems that 
they appear to be in psychological discussions, and that the ultimate 
physiological cause of the neurosis will be found to rest in the particular 
pattern of nervous activity implicit in the individual organism. This 
pattern may be conceived of as always in operation and as showing up 
in a morbid form when certain of its elements ha\c hccii mtensilled 
under the stress of emotion. 

All individuals have conflicts of the types that are held responsible 
for a neurosis, whence it seems to follow that the ditVerentiating factor 
in a neurosis must be of a quantitative nature. Certain ner\ous patterns 
allow of a greater give than others, without essential loss o\' form. \S'e 
can hardly hope to understand the rationale of suppression and neurosis 
until we have a theory of what actually happens to a nerxous impulse 
in terms of relative quantity, speed, acceleration, and dilTusion. until, in 
other words, we can actually lay out the typical ncr\ous rh>ihnis o\ the 
individual organism. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Rivers's book does undoubtedly indicate that l)i 
Freud and his immediate followers have entirel> oxerdone the necessity 
of sexual elements in conflicts powerful enough to bring on a neurosis. 
though it probably remains true that the sexual conflict is one o\' the 
most potent strains that the human organism can be made to lx*ar. Hie 
really valuable contribution o\^ the Freudian school seems to me to lie 
in the domain o{ pure psychology. Nearl> c\crything that is specific in 
Freudian theory, such as the "Oedipux complex" as a normative image 
or the definite interpretation of certain ssmbols or the distincti\el\ sex- 
ual nature of certain infantile reactions, may well prove to be either ill- 



706 III Culture 

founded or seen in a distorted perspective, but there can be little doubt 
o'i the immense service that Dr. Freud has rendered psychology in his 
revelation of typical psychic mechanisms. Such relational ideas as the 
emotionally integrated complex, the tendency to suppression under the 
stress of a conflict, the symptomatic expression of a suppressed impulse, 
the transfer of emotion and the canalizing or pooling of impulses, the 
tendency to regression, are so many powerful clues to an understanding 
o'i how the "soul" of man sets to work. Psychology will not willingly 
let go of these and still other Freudian concepts, but will build upon 
them, gradually coming to see them in their wider significance. Dr. Riv- 
ers helps us in this appreciation not so much explicitly as implicitly. 
His new types of experience, his alternative hypotheses, and his general 
insistence on mechanism at the expense of typical content give us the 
invaluable touchstone of contrast. 

Dr. Rivers is so hurriedly complete in his survey, so eager to introduce 
clarity into his concepts, that one wonders if he is not at times the 
victim of a "definition-complex." I suspect that the exclusiveness of 
some o{ his definitions may result in a too rigid handling of terms. 
The obvious reply to this criticism is that terms do not commit us to 
interpretations, but merely serve as handy counters in proceeding from 
point to point of a discussion. Yet it is strange how often the preliminary 
scaffolding of a scientific structure settles into its unyielding skeleton. I 
am inclined to believe that the fluidity of some of the Freudian terms 
is an advantage in the present state of our knowledge. Not only does 
his love of the clean definition lead Dr. Rivers to make distinctions 
which are [358] perhaps more convincing in the abstract than helpful 
towards a profounder understainding, but it betrays him into the accep- 
tance of external analogies as indicative of substantial psychic or biolog- 
ical relationships. 

Throughout the book Dr. Rivers is imbued with the typically evolu- 
tionary concepts of the former biological "function" or psychic mecha- 
nisms that serve no assignable "purpose" today. Endless post-Darwin- 
ian speculation of this order flows through many of our psychologies, 
biologies, and even sociologies. The instincts in particular have been a 
famous field for the discovery of early forms of invertebrate behavior. 
With the vast field of organic activity to choose from, and with only an 
elementary knowledge of the psychic growth of man as race and as 
individual, what could be easier than to frame evolutionary "explana- 
tions" of obscure types of behavior? It would appear that man as a 
simian tree-climber and as an epigone of the amphibians has been rather 



Three: Assessments of Psyeholoi^y ami f'svchiatrv 707 

o\crtk>nc. I am inclined lo l|iicsIioii the \alidil\ iil" nuich ol I)r Ki\cis s 
own sjicculalions alonu llicsc Inics and. \n iicncral. u> wonder il" ihc 
telcological point of \icw in biology is not a tl.ingcrous one. parlieularK 
when it is appHed to psychic phenomena. 

Dr. Rivers's main thesis o\' the i elation between the unconscious of 
modern man and an instineti\e beha\ioi" tiial at one time had freer pla\ 
is suggestively argued, though whether the thesis is entirel\ sound must 
ultimately be decided by closer ph\siological study. Voo little is known 
as yet of the physiology of human instincts, almost nothing of the ph\si- 
ology lliai underlies psychic suppression. 



Editorial Nolo 

Originally published in The Tiecniun 5. 357-358 (1^)21). under the 
title "'A Touchstone to Freud."" Reprinted h\ permission o\' The Tree- 

Dicin. 



Review of Frederick Pierce, 
Our Unconscious Mind and How to Use It 

Frederick Pierce. Ow Unconscious Mind and How to Use It. New 
York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1922. 

We Americans are often accused of a lack of interest in the formal 
aspect of our literary and scientific writing. An essay or a monograph, 
or, for that matter, an illustrated lecture, we hear it said, will proceed 
from point to point, from idea to related or unrelated idea, without a 
greater concern for unity than is implied in the tied interests of the 
writer or lecturer and with little more appreciation of structure than 
can be satisfied by scissors and glue or a periodic 'To turn to another 
subject." The present volume suggests that there may be some truth in 
this criticism. Certainly, the publishers' jacket is a little disturbing, for 
in the alluring "Partial List of Subjects" we find mentioned endocrine 
glands, psychoanalysis, auto-suggestion, bringing up successful chil- 
dren, mating problems, and new principles in advertising. The book 
itself confirms, and more than confirms, the publishers' announcement. 

Mr. Pierce's miscellaneousness is by no means the result of wool- 
gathering. On the contrary, it proceeds from a determined desire, an 
almost frenetic desire, to be "practical." Mr. Pierce believes in giving 
just enough Freudian psychology, just enough endocrinology, just 
enough of a glimpse into the auto-suggestive technique of the "New 
Nancy" school, to conjure up a background of up-to-date science 
against which he may throw his conception of how the American hu- 
man ideal, the "successful" man, can be brought into being. It is just 
because his eye is so constantly on the practical upshot of all this new 
psychology, on the possible increase in effective brains, dollars and 
cents, total output, selling value, and the other well-known shibboleths 
which may result from psychoanalyzing and from the fixing up of 
glands, that he fails of clarity and convincingness. This is not to say 
that there is not something of value in Mr. Pierce's theoretical founda- 
tions and practical advice. The point is that in his haste to get to the 
advice he has not been careful to build the thoroughly intelligible theory 
of the unconscious that he would need to apply. 



Three: Assessnwnis of Psychology ami Psychiatry 709 

The coiilrasl wilh I rcuds (iciwrnl li]tr(Hhich(tn to Psychounalvsis is 
striking. This book also is inlendcd tor a la> pubhc. bui ii is honestly 
concerned, fnsl and tbreniosl, with llie iiradiial de\elopnicnl of a new 
and still debatable psychological lheor\. Ihere is far less cocksureness 
m It than in the science o\' Mr. Pierce. \sho does link* more than pick 
Lip here and there tVoni ps\choanal\ tic literature, generall\ diluting and 
al\\a\s furbishing with a pretentious terminologs. Where 1 reud silently 
suggests practical applications of crucial importance. Mr. I*ierce trum- 
pets the practice after a few magical passes of his ps\choanal>tic \sand. 
it is all \ery impressive - after the fashion ol the pointed linger m 
"Fruitatives." (Mr. Pierce would be the last one to object to the compar- 
ison. His final chapter, on the New Psychology in Ad\ertising and Sell- 
ing, is a real gospel for the tribe of Carter's Little Li\er Pills, (jrapc 
Nuts, and Dutch Cleanser.) And very harmless, after all. We have been 
too unreasonably frightened by Freud's Stygian shapes, (or here is a 
psNchoanalysis that is "clean," as the publishers ha\e it. and that all 
but lisps, polysyllabically. There is practically nothing in .Mr. F*ierce*s 
book that cannot be told to a meeting o( Rotarians to which (iirl Scouts 
and the Forward Movement ha\e been imited as guests. 

The long chapter entitled "'Application to Fveryday Life" contains 
some interesting corollaries of preceding chapters desoted to the uncon- 
scious, the foreconscious, and the censor of each domain. 

If a child tries to snatch things from others or to use its lists, let it 
see in the mother's face neither anger nor half-amused tolerance; but 
quiet, firm disapproval. Let the child at once be remo\ed to another 
room and kept there for a time without playthings, it is an excellent 
plan for the mother to sit in the room also, paying no attention to 
the child and maintaining the expression of disapproval and regret. 
Mr. Pierce writes for a race of demigods whit know not humi>r Apro- 
pos of the inevitable dispute between Johnny and Charles as to whether 
or not the latter has cheated at marbles, Mr. Pierce warns Johnny's 
parents not to content themselves with comforting their son and assur- 
ing him that Charles is a "bad boy." "Why not suggest that Johnny 
invite Charles to lunch." queries the author, "and then during lunch 
encourage both o( them to talk it o\er? If necessars. try to secure the 
cooperation of Charles's parents." 

In the next chapter, "Making a Contented Human Ciroup." during 
which, by the way, the new psychologies put in no apjx-arance whatever. 
so far as one can see, Mr. Pierce has something to sa> about " llic 
America to be worked for. " He supposes a coming America in which 



710 /// Culture 

the policing of the school is in the hands of the scholars, with respon- 
sibility divided between boys and girls, and the code of conduct is 
the Golden Rule, which is inset on a metal plate in every desk, printed 
on the flyleaf of every book, and recited in the form of a pledge [italics 
not mine] by the entire school at the commencement of each session. 
This chapter, so fertile in suggestions and prejudices, ends on a clarion 
note: 
The point is to begin doing it [apparently the remodeling of our coun- 
try] now and not wait until we have forgotten to do it at all; for the 
American of to-morrow is our job, a job big enough and splendid 
enough to enlist us all, from the smallest school-child to the mightiest 
intellect between the two oceans. 
But "the salesman himself," to jump into the following chapter, 
should study and practice the use of very varied similes. They are 
easily fitted into the sales talk, and any one of them may elicit that 
slight smile, or change of expression, or unconscious movement of 
the hand, that tells of a keen interest being touched - which interest 
often gives a valuable index of habit or tastes. 

Sapienti sat! This book is not unimportant. It throws more light on 
our average American attitude towards the thing called culture and on 
what we expect of our scientists than a dozen books of ten times its 
merely scientific value. For it is the genuine folk-utterance of the Amer- 
ica that distrusts the individual mind, despises the distinctive as an im- 
pertinent abnormality, organizes all movements of the spirit into the 
frigidity known as "efficiency," and loses its head over "success." And 
is it not more than a little strange that psychoanalysis, almost the first 
peep that psychology has given us into personality, should have been 
appropriated by Mr. Pierce for the apotheosis of a dummy ideal? So 
powerfully does the unconscious color and warp what finds entry into 
the conscious! 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in 77?^ Literary Review of The New York Evening 
Post, July 1, 1922, p. 772, under the title "Practical Psychology." 



Review of Robert S. Woodworili. 
Psychology: A Study of Mcnfcil Life 

Robert S. Woodworth, Psychology: A Study of Mciiuil Life. New 
York: Henry Holt & Co.. 1921. 

While Professor WoodwortlVs Psychology is iiuiinl\ inlcnded lor use 
in college classes, it has a claim to more attentive consideration than 
textbooks are in the habit of receiving. It is a clearly worded presenta- 
tion of the main body of doctrine at present held by the orthodox school 
of American psychology. Substantially, F^rofessor Woodworth is a mod- 
erate introspectionist. Unlike the thoroughgoing beha\ iorists. he cheer- 
fully accepts consciousness as a datum of experience. Man\ of his obser- 
vations and "laws" are of introspective origin; but a large portion of 
his book, being based on inference from controlled experiments, should 
prove thoroughly acceptable to the beha\iorist. e\en if his theoretical 
standpoint is not. 

But what is Professor Woodworth's theoretical standpoint'.' He does 
not define his position in set terms but leaves it to be gathered from his 
treatment of the subject. He is prepared to accept the tlndings o^ any 
approaches to the science that bid fair to \icld intelligible and mutually 
consistent results. The human mind, one ma\ imagine him to siiy. is a 
difficult enough thing to get at in an\ e\cni. We do not know exactly 
what it is, nor can we satisfactoril\ define ii in terms o^ observable 
activity or of underlying physiolog\. But we can make shift to piece 
together some notion of the "mental life'' by sidling up to it. as it were, 
from different points of view. Introspection ma\ be a dangerously elu- 
sive method, for the moment of consciousness that we set out to de- 
scribe can not be strictly synchronous with the moment of observation. 
In a sense, introspective psychology must be a kind of lifting of oneself 
by one's bootstraps. Yet common sense has aluass approved oi intro- 
spection as a guide to knowledge of the mind, and rightly so. It is merely 
necessary to remember that the knowledge so arri\ed at is not gleaned 
from the whole and steady contemplation of actually existent Males of 
mind," but is laboriously constructed form such partial glimpses of 



712 /// Culture 

mental experience as the memory can hold to. The resulting psychology 
has not a leg to stand on, yet it possesses a powerful intuitive warrant 
that no amount of behavioristic heckling can impair. Our survey of the 
mind is somewhat like the notion a bird gets of his cage. He can not 
sec the whole of the cage, because he is always occupying some portion 
of it; but by flitting about from perch to perch, the bird, if a philo- 
sopher, can formulate a very workable theory of its shape, its size, and 
o^ the relations of its parts. 

But Professor Woodworth is by no means limited to introspectionist 
data. He is as firm a believer in the value of the inferences concerning 
mental process and discrimination yielded by conditioned reflex-experi- 
ments and tests as any behaviorist. He assumes (again on the basis of 
intuitive common sense rather than of a philosophical examination) 
that the inner feel of alien minds is similar to that of his own, and that 
he is warranted in hitching on psychic inferences from the behavior of 
human beings other than himself to the descriptive analysis of mental 
states and processes that introspection yields him in the first place. 
Roughly speaking, introspection provides the qualitative basis of 
psychology, while behavioristic observation introduces measure: but 
only roughly, for the two methods are interdependent. 

It is not a neat discipline, this orthodox psychology of Professor 
Woodworth's. Confessedly it can but be a thing of compromise, a some- 
what patchy structure at the crossroads leading to two mighty sciences 
of the future - a physiology, delicate, quantitative, and completely inte- 
grated, which will have absorbed the present behavior-psychology with 
the utmost sang-froid; and a self-contained science of consciousness 
which will be able to build up a functional theory of the psyche without 
concerning itself in the least with physiological mechanisms. The nature 
of the relation between these two disciplines will be, as it has always 
been, a matter of philosophy. There can be no objection to Professor 
Woodworth's standpoint. As long as neither physiology nor psychology 
is the delicate and integrated interpretation of personality that it may 
one day become, a mixed method and a constantly shifting point of 
view are probably the most acceptable approach to the study of beha- 
vior. 

Personality is only beginning to be apprehended as the true subject- 
matter of both physiology and psychology. The orthodox psychologist, 
in spite of formal denials, has limited himself in the main to a descrip- 
tive inventory of selected phases of consciousness or behavior. It is as 
though one tried to get a unified idea of a house by a close scrutiny of 



Three: Assessmeni.s of Psychulofiy an J I'.syihiairy 7|3 

its parts (doors as doors, a random slrclcli ol' brick wall, firc-placc, ihc 
flooring of a bedroom, and a bit o( roof). Only the vaguest conception 
of the true nature and purpose o\' a house would emerge. Tlie reading 
of Professor Woodworlh's P.sycholoi^y, and of other ps\ehologies of iis 
type, leaves one with a subtle sense of dissatisfaction. One has a persis- 
tent feeling that the mind has been more or less competently anato- 
mized: but that its functioning, its indi\idual histor\, and ils purpose. 
if one may use a dangerous word, remain obscure. 

Professor Woodworth is best in his fundamental chapters, such as 
those on native and acquired trails, emotion, the feelings, antl sensation. 
He does not carry the reader along with him quite so conxincingly in 
the more synthetic chapters. What he says about such topics as imagina- 
tion, will and personality, has a decidedly tenlati\e air. Perhaps the 
strangest thing about the book is its failure to explain full> the nature 
of thought. Reasoning, which is handled immediately after perception, 
is but a highly specialized, inhibited. purposi\ely directed. t\pe o( 
thought. Very little reasoning is done b\ human beings. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Freeman 5. 619 (1922). under the title 
"An Orthodox Psychology." Reprinted b\ permission o\' The Freeman. 



Review of C. G. Jung, 
Psychological Types 

C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, or the Psychology of Individuation. 
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1923. 

To all of us there comes at certain moments of life a poignant sense 
of the futility, nay the sheer impossibility, of explaining our inmost self 
to some friend of long standing. He is ready to receive our confidence, 
his smile of welcome is unforced, but no sooner have we begun to throw 
out an invisible bridge of understanding than we shrink back from the 
heavy labor, knowing in the twinkhng of an eye that here at least is an 
abyss that will never be spanned. It may be that he knows our every 
conscious thought, yet there is something that he is profoundly unaware 
of, some code of irrational love and delicate aversion to which he has 
not the key. Indeed, in the rough-and-ready world of conscious motiva- 
tion, "misunderstandings" are a necessity. They ease the tension be- 
tween discordant spirits, and they warn us. Life would be too terrible 
if we allowed ourselves to be guided by our intuitive understandings. 
The camouflage of behavior is essential. We can not afford to recognize 
too clearly that there are warring battahons of personality and silent 
freemasonries of temperament, for the art of behavior is no citadel built 
about the integrity of an ego. If we were honest, if we were utterly true 
to the law of our ego, loving and hating consciously where we love and 
hate unconsciously, culture would lapse at once and we should all be 
freezing in the rigors of the elemental. There are spirits which brook no 
compromise, no deceit. The world counts them insane. 

In attacking the problem of personahty in its most intimate and final 
sense, the psychoanalyst Dr. Jung dispenses with all preliminary canters. 
In a book of upwards of six hundred pages he is really concerned with 
but a single theme, the demonstration of the existence and the essential 
stability of two radically distinct types of personality or, as he would 
prefer to say,of two distinct psychic attitudes - the extraverted and the 
introverted types. No attempt is made to define "character," that ethi- 
cally-toned facet or remaking of personality with which society has its 



Three: Assessments of Psychology ami /'sychialrv 7|5 

semi-official concern; no physioU-)gical basis is sought or suggested lor 
the psNchic manifcsialions; ihcic is liiilc or no aiicnipi [o balance the 
intluence of the social envuonmcnl against the congenital slant o\ the 
ego; nor are we really shown how the ego sets to wc^rk to carrv out or 
subvent the law which nature has gi\en it from the moment of its first 
awakening. We ha\e here no bus\, undergrouiui laboratory of analysis 
in the manner of a Freudian dream-book or psycho-pathology. The 
book is almost detlantly bare of case-material, for the long and rather 
taxing sections on Tertullian i: Origen, nominalism v. realism, and the 
Prometheus and Epimetheus of the Swiss poet Carl Spitteler are hardK 
case-material in the true sense of the word. They are abstract and some- 
what mystical exemplifications of Dr. Jung's opposed types. Nor do the 
discussions of Schiller's "naive" and ""sentimental" attitudes, of 
Nietzsche's Apollonians and Dionysians. o\' Jordan's ""more impas- 
sioned" and '"less impassioned" types, o( the [wo contrasted aesthetic 
processes of abstraction and "feeling-in." o\' James's ""tender-mmded " 
and ""tough-minded" philosophers and philosophies, and of Ostwalds 
""classical" and ""romantic" types ol' scientist do much more than pre- 
pare the way for his own antithesis. Psychif/oi^icul lypcs is like a Greek 
temple, built on the simplest of lines, yet needing space and iteration to 
give its formula a hold on the eye and on the understanding. It is not 
until the tenth chapter is reached that we get an explicit description of 
the types, that is, of the pure types, for Dr. Jung seems disposed to 
admit that his somewhat rigid formulations (.\o not generally appl\ 
without qualification. The succeeding chapter, which is the last, is de- 
voted to a series of definitions o\'^ the concepts peculiar to Dr. Jung's 
psychology. Many of these concepts, needless to say, fc^rm no part of 
Dr. Watson's psychological armoury. 

Not until the last page is turned back does one fulK reali/e how 
extraordinary a work one has been reading. It is often dr>. it is some- 
times impossible to follow, and it is ne\er \er\ closel> reasoned, lor Dr. 
Jung accepts intuitively as given, as elementary, concepts and ps\cho- 
logical functions which others can gel al on\\ by the most painful of 
syntheses, if indeed they can find a way to some o\' them at all. But it 
is a fascinating book. Its one idea is like the intense stare of a man who 
has found something, and this something a Imle uncanny. Sonic of us 
are extraverts or tend to be so. aiul others ol us are introverts or tend 
to be so: surely there is nothing strange or uncann> or new about this 
classification of personalities. Ihat some of us are interested in the acci- 
dents and particularities of the environment is a known fact; that others 



716 III Culture 

arc more interested in general ideas and that they tend to turn inward, 
to reflect and introspect, is an equally well-known fact. Surely there are 
more basic distinctions than these; the emotional v. the intellectual type, 
for instance. But to reduce Dr. Jung's antithesis to an order of difference 
in the relative emphasis of interest, or in the habitual direction of atten- 
tion, is not to have fully grasped his meaning. It is not a mere question 
o'i interest at all. 

It is a question of the natural flow of the libido, to speak in the 
author's terms. The ego finds itself lost in an overwhelmingly potent 
and complex environment. Convulsively it seeks to save itself, to estab- 
lish a set of relations and a network of presumptions which enable it to 
survive, to convince itself that it m.atters, to feel that it is ever victorious 
or about to become so. There are two ways of attaining this necessary 
understanding between the helplessness of the ego and the surrounding 
insistence of things, and these ways may not be chosen, aside from 
secondary compensations which obscure but do not efface the underly- 
ing psychology. They are dictated by the inherited mechanics of the 
libido. Whether these inherited differences in the impulse to adjustment 
are but psychic reinterpretations or summings-up of comparatively sim- 
ple differences in the rhythmic form or intensity or rapidity or quality 
of nervous discharge, we do not at all know nor does it greatly matter. 

The extravert saves himself by surrendering to the enemy. He refuses 
to be cowed by the object, to shrink back into a warm privacy of the 
mind. If he looks within, he is met by the cold cheer of blank walls 
and an untenanted room. Involuntarily he turns back to the object and 
becomes oblivious of all but the environment, material and spiritual. 
With this environment he identifies himself. To miss any of the sub- 
stance or color of the object is felt as a deprivation, for it is in the object 
that he realizes himself. [212] The exercise is more or less of an effort, 
if not actually painful, for it means being thrown back on a world, a 
system of evaluations, which is not prepared to receive him. To the 
genume introvert, the extravert presents a spectacle at once amusing 
and baffiing. He finds him feeding ravenously on the husks of reality, 
and he is a little piqued to discover that while the personality that he is 
contemplating has no "Pou sto" from which to become conscious of 
Itself, it does nevertheless get about the universe in an alarmingly effec- 
tive way. The introvert reflects that it pays to be naive. To the introvert 
the object has always a shade of the inimical, the irrelevant, the unwar- 
ranted. It is not necessarily uninteresfing, but it needs to be taken with 
a gram of salt. The introvert has learned to adapt himself to reality by 



Three: Assessments of Psyelwlo^y ami Psyehiatry 7|7 

pruning it o^ ils luxuriance, b\ seeing and by feeling no more in it than 
can be conveniently fitted inlo the richly chambered form of his ego. 
While he can not afford to ignore the object, he can translate or inter- 
pret it, minimize it. if need be, by some method o{ abstraction uhich 
takes most of the sting out of it. or he may entirely transfigure it. Where 
the extravert loses himself in the object, the introvert makes it over in 
such wise as to master it in terms o[ his ps\che. leasing much o{ its 
indi\idual quality to fall by the wayside - unsensed or unfelt or other- 
wise unvalued. It is just because the extravert is ever greedy for experi- 
ence that he tends to lose the power to become greatly inlluenced by 
slight or fleeting stimuli. He believes that the introvert makes a moun- 
tain of a molehill, a self-important wealth of a mere driblet of substance, 
while the latter is prepared to find that his extras ert friend labors o\er 
a mountain o'i the chaff of experience to bring forth a poor mouse o^ 
reflection, insight or feeling. The extra\eri is al\\a\s asking. "Where did 
he get it?'' The introvert wonders, "What will he do with it'.'" 

It is easy to misunderstand the nature o'^ these opposed i\pes. One 
must be studiously careful not to water Dr. Jung's conception and dis- 
solve it into current notions of successful and unsuccessful adjustment, 
of conduct right and wrong, of normal and relali\el\ abnormal beha- 
vior. Either type has its successes and its failures, its geniuses and its 
simpletons. Each has its characteristic pathology. But o^ one thing we 
may be certain. Neither type in its purity can do full justice \o the other. 
The introvert can never wholly comprehend ihc extraxeri because he 
can not resign himself to what he inevitably feels to be a vicarious exis- 
tence. To him the extravert must ever seem a little superficial, a chronic 
vagrant from the spirit's home. Nor can the extra\erl \sholl> convince 
himself that behind the introvert's reserve and apparent impoverishment 
of interest there may lie the greatest wealth o\' subjective experience, 
and such subtlety of feeling as he may hardly parallel in his own exter- 
nal responses. This lack of mutual comprehension ma> lead to an un- 
dercurrent of hostility, or it may fire the fancy and result in strange 
hero-worships and infatuations. 

Those who have read Dr. Jung's Collcetcil Pupers on Anuiyiuul 
Psychology may remember that in an earlier tentative classification o( 
types he was disposed to identify the introverted with the thinking, the 
extraverted with the feeling type. These ver> dubious identifications 
have now been abandoned. Dr. Jung is perfecilv clear, and the reader 
will be with him. about the independence o\' a classification based ou 
general attitude (extravert and introvert ivpes) and one based on the 



718 III Culture 

specific functioning of the psyche. Whether Dr. Jung's theory of the 
existence of four distinct functional types of personahty is correct it 
would be ditHcult to say. It may be that a given personality tends to 
finds its way in the world chietly by aid of the intellect, of emotion, of 
intuitive processes, or of sensation. It would be dangerous, however, to 
creel the eight neatly sundered types that result from a crossing of the 
two points of view into a psychological dogma. We may be quite certain 
that such a classification is too scholastic to prove entirely sound and 
workable. It is not easy to see, for instance, why a primary concept like 
that of sensation is paired with something as derivative as reason; nor 
does "intuition" readily allow itself to be accepted as a fundamental 
type of psychic functioning. Possibly Dr. Jung's vast clinical experience 
justifies his setting up these four functional types, but the evidence is 
not presented in his book. 

Why is there something uncanny, something disquieting, about the 
main thesis of Psychological Typesl It is because once again we are 
deprived of the serenity of an absolute system of values. If the orienta- 
tion of the extravert is as different from that of the introvert as Dr. 
Jung says it is, it is obviously vain to expect them to pledge loyalty to 
the same truths. Must we resign ourselves to a new relativity of the 
psyche and expect no more of psychology than that it render clear to 
us the ways of a particular kind of mental attitude? It is impossible to 
believe that the spirit of man will rest content with a schism. It is certain 
that orthodoxies will be proclaimed to the end of mortal time. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Freeman 8, 211-212 (1923), under the 
title "Two Kinds of Human Beings." Reprinted by permission of The 
Freeman. 



Review of George A. Dorsey. 
ll'liv He Behave like Ilunuin Beini^s 

George A. Dorsey. ll'hv lie Bc/nnc like //unicin Beings. New York 
and London: Harper and Bn^s.. U)25. 

This book, which has already bcci^nic \or\ popular, contains a vast 
deal of assembled information on the biological aspects of human beha- 
vior. Unfortunately, what might have been an intensely interesting, as 
well as meaty, work is bothered by a style which can onI\ be described 
as a St. Vitus dance of words, or as journalese on the rampage. This is 
a pity, for the author has an excellent knowledge o\' the subjects he 
treats of and is far from being the mountebank w hich he day-dreams 
himself into being. Never has science been more jaz/ily ser\ed up. One 
hopes that Mr. Dorsey "s contribution does not inaugurate a new era in 
scientific popularization. 

It is strange that an anthropologist such as Mr. Dorsey is should be 
so allured by the mysteries of endocrinology and the no-mysteries o^ 
Watsonian behaviorism as to leave himself no space for a treatment o^ 
the properly cultural stimuli to human beha\ior. Neither lights, liver. 
nor conditioned reflex arcs "explain." in an\ luimanl\ significant sense 
of the word, why given humans behave as they do. .All that Mr. Dorsey 
succeeds in "getting across" is to what extent we beha\e like mamma- 
lian organisms, while the profounder question o\' uhy ue beha\e like 
human beings is scarcely referred to in his book. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in /'he .inurlicin Journu/ of Sociology 32. 140 
(1926). Reprinted by permission of the r!ii\ersii> of Chicago Press. 



Review of Knight Dunlap, 
Old ami New Viewpoints in Psychology 

Knight Dunlap, Old ami New Viewpoints in Psychology. St. Louis: 
C. V. Mosbv Co., 1925. 

Old and New Viewpoints in Psychology is a misleading title for a right 
readable book whieh consists of five essays that have no more in [699] 
common than that they express the conservative and largely negative 
attitude of a single psychologist. There seems to be no reason why a 
number of scattered papers or addresses should be given a factitious 
unity by coming before the public in a synthetic guide that is quite 
foreign to their spirit. 

The first of these papers, "Mental Measurements," distinguishes care- 
fully between experimental psychology and mental testing. In the for- 
mer the individual is merely a random sampling of his type, the results 
aimed at being such as are capable of general human application in the 
form o( psychological principles; in the latter the psychological dif- 
ferentia which characterize the individual are themselves the object of 
study. The author seems to beHeve that between the two of these labora- 
tory procedures the complete human being, psychologically considered, 
may be captured for definition. But he does not overestimate the diag- 
nostic value of such mental measurements as intelligence tests; he ex- 
pressly warns us that these are no adequate substitute for specific ex- 
aminations. 

The second paper, "Present Day Schools of Psychology," is a rapid 
survey of various schools of psychological thinking to which Mr. Dun- 
lap takes excepfion. He has as httle use for the orthodox "introspecfion- 
alism" of James as for the behaviorism of Watson and his school; 
McDougall's instinct psychology is no more acceptable to him than to 
anybody else, while psychoanalysis gets a scolding in the grand manner. 
One would like to believe, at the end of Mr. Dunlap's sweeping out of 
the Augean stables of psychology, that an inadvertent pearl or two lay 
hidden in the muck, but perhaps the hope is vain, for psychology seems 
to be the science par excellence in which a step in advance necessitates 
the complete abandonment of all previous trails. 



Three: Assessments of Psyeholo^y ami rwchialrv 721 

"Psychological Factors in Spirilualism" and "1 lie Reading of Charac- 
ter from External Signs" are iiiildl\ entertaining causeries. The conclu- 
sion arrived at in each case is that "there is nothing in it." More positive 
in its claims, if not in its results, is the essay on "The Psychology of the 
Comic." The comic, Mr. Dunlap thinks, is an expression ot trmmph at 
the recognition o[' our superioril\ lo those unloriunales at whose e.x- 
pense the joke comes into being. His theory is thus a variant of the class 
of theories of the comic to which Bergson's famous essay Le Hire be- 
longs. A profounder analysis will probably disclose their superficiality. 
The lightning-like response to a capital joke suggests an intuitive grasp 
of certain formal incongruities which has little to do with such clumsy 
functional concepts as superiority or awkwardness in practical adiust- 
ment. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in TJic American Journal oj Soeioloi:} ."^l. 
698-699 (1926). Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago 
Press. 



Review of Jean Piaget, 
The Language and Thought of the Child 

Jean Piaget, The Language ami Thought of the Child Translated by 
Marjoric Warden. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926. 

\\ hai happens when children talk to each other? Do their words leap 
from mind to mind and establish at once a freemasonry of perfect un- 
derstanding, in a world of wonder from which the too precise adult is 
barred by reason of his pedantry? We know, from our daily observation, 
that a handful of normal children, but newly met, will soon attain to 
intimacy in a web of verbal excitement. But is this web a finely woven 
context of mutual comprehension, or is it but the happiness of a com- 
mon illusion? And what of the very nature of childish speech? Is it but 
a phase in the much discussed technique of communication by means 
of verbal symbols? And what of a child's questions? Do they invariably 
require an answer, and is a "why" all it sounds Hke? 

Questions such as these are asked and answered in M. Piaget's very 
notable book. The method followed by this able Swiss child-psycholo- 
gist is, first, the systematic and complete record of the speech of a 
number of children, under conditions at school which are not too rigidly 
controlled, but which closely approximate the conditions of spontane- 
ous, everyday life; second, a careful but not too pretentious statistical 
analysis of these data. The inferences are always duly weighed and of- 
fered with caution. One likes the temper of the book, which is at once 
eager and [351] restrained. It is unavoidable that, in interpreting his 
material M. Piaget is often led to questions of fundamental import to 
the solution of larger problems than he seems to set himself. He is 
aware of all these implications, but wisely refrains form foraging too 
extensively in the domains of primitive mentality, the nature of language 
expression, the relation between verbalism and thought, and allied sub- 
jects. From among the many rich suggestions brought by the book, we 
shall select but three for the very briefest comment. 

In the first chapter, which deals with "the functions of language in 
two children of six," the material is classified into two groups, ego- 



Three: Assessments of Psyeholo^y and Psychiatry 723 

centric siiccch aiul scKiali/ctI speech. I he fiMiiier iiroiip includes rcpcli- 
lion. nu>nt>lc>giie. aiul "collecli\e moiK^lDgue" (in which "an oulsidcr is 
always associated with the action or thought ol the nionicnl. bul is 
expected neither to attend nor to understand"); the latter includes 
"adapted information/" criticism, commands and requests, questions. 
and answers. If we exclude answers as due to the more obvious demands 
of the environment and then divide the total of examples ofcgiKcniric 
language by the total of egocentric plus "spontaneous socialized" lan- 
guage, we get a rough "coefficient of egocentrism," a general index o)i 
the child's spontaneous functional attitude to language. M. Piagel's fig- 
ures are interesting. They give the two children who were selected for 
special study coefficients of egocentrism o'( 0.43 and 0.47. In plain 
terms, this means that, as late as the age of six, and after, the child is 
using language, the communicative technique pur excellence o[' adult 
life, for non-communicative purposes, in close on half the cases m which 
he uses it at all. This generalization is of great interest, for it helps to 
give the lie to those theories of linguistic form and development which 
explain all phenomena of language in terms of its overt communicative 
function. There is not the slightest douct that, long before directed com- 
munication has shaped itself as the most typical, if iu>i the onlv. use of 
speech, the child has already mastered everything that is essential in its 
content and build. The rapidly growing need of communication utilizes 
an intuitively apprehended symbolism which has been serving all man- 
ner of autistic and expressive purposes. M. Piaget's researches confirm 
the linguist's feeling that language is. first and foremost, an uncon- 
sciously developing esthetic whole, only in the second instance a merel> 
functional organization, though he does not stress this point himself 

Equally fascinating are the chapters devoted to the conversations o^ 
young children among themselves, and to the problem of mutual under- 
standing. On the basis of experiments at once simple and ingenious, the 
author shows that children do not understand each other nearlv so well 
as we might have imagined, but that they are under the chronic illusion 
that they make themselves perfecilv clear and that they gel ou! of a 
communication precisely what it was intended to ciMnmunicale, Hie 
foundations of faith, of inward certainty, and of a social cohesu>n that 
needs no critical warrant arc thus securely laid in childhood. Only an 
up-to-the-minute intellectualist woiikl dmibt that it is well thai this 
should be so. 

In the last chapter of the book, there is a somewhat elaborate analysis 
of the questions of a child of six. Hie "whys" are in a significant major- 



724 III Culture 

ity. Bui 11 would be wrong to infer that the child is obsessed by a thirst 
for causal explanations or logical justification, in the true meaning of 
these terms. What he often desires is really a psychological motivation. 
Here, again, we see the child as an egocentric, projecting into the cold, 
meaningless world o[' mechanical causality a more naively intelligible 
world o\' molixe. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The New Republic 50, 350-351 (1927), under 
the title "Speech and Verbal Thought in Childhood." Reprinted by per- 
mission o'i The New Republic. 



Review of Sigmund Ircud. 
The Future of an Illusion 

Sigmund Freud. 77/c' Future of cm Illusion. Translalcd b\ W I) Rob- 
son-Scott. New York: Horace Liveright and the Institute of Psychoanal- 
ysis, 1928. 

The "illusion" of Dr. Freud's little book is religion. Religion, ue arc 
told, is the "universal obsessional neurosis o\' humanity, it, like the 
child's, originated in the Oedipus complex, the relation to the father. 
According to this conception one might prophesy that the abandoning 
of religion must take place with the fateful ine\orabilii\ of a pri>cess of 
growth, and that we are just now in the middle of this phase of develop- 
ment." There are many who would need a less formidable terminology 
with which to warn off the future from religion. 

Culture, in all probability, "must be built upon coercion and msimc- 
tual renunciation." All men are, at bottom, anti-cultural, and if ihey 
submit to its demands it is largely, thinks Freud, because o\' certain 
terrors, which have been fastened on to them, of the dire consequences 
which would ensue if the fantasied will of a projected father-nnage - 
often referred to as God - is tlouted. Reall\ mature human bcmgs 
manage to see, with the unmystical light of the intelligence alone, thai 
cultural values cannot be maintained without some individual sacrifice 
of the deeply buried instinctive wishes, such as incest, cannibalism |357] 
and murder, which are so easily demonstrated to bother lYeud's inevita- 
ble triad of children, neurotics and savages, but the \asi majorily of 
mankind, even a number of psychoanalysts, ha\e iu>i dared lo trust 
their intelligence, but have preferred to get themseUes ordered around 
by the bugaboos of religion. Needless to sa>. it is the antkiue remorse 
for the slaying of the primordial father by his exasperated children 
see Totem and Tahoo for the authorized \ersion of this drama \^hich 
motivated the creation of God and his religion. 

Is it reasonable to suppose that mankind can forever go on underpin- 
ning its culture with such cloudy, fear-born stulTas all that'.* What nei- 
ther Atlas nor fabled elephant, even elephant supported by tortoise. 



726 /// Culture 

could in I lie end accomplish for a stable mother earth, that neither 
ghostly Father nor his dark wishes can be expected to do for culture 
and right li\ ing. To be sure, it is perilous to expose the dread truth, and 
F-reud has some uneasy sentences on this score. "Culture has little to 
fear from the educated or from the brain workers. . . . But it is another 
matter with the great mass of the uneducated and suppressed, who have 
every reason to be enemies of culture. So long as they do not discover 
that people no longer believe in God, all is well. But they discover it, 
infallibly, and would do so even if this work of mine were not published. 
... is there not a danger that these masses, in their hostihty to culture, 
will attack the weak point which they have discovered in their taskmas- 
ter? If you must not kill your neighbor, solely because God has forbid- 
den it and will sorely avenge it in this or the other life, and you then 
discover that there is no God so that one need not fear his punishment, 
then you will certainly kill without hesitation, and you could only be 
prevented from this by mundane force." 

All of which may prove Freud's courage in braving ostracism from 
Heaven and its spokesmen on earth, or merely that psychoanalysis is 
less exciting as social philosopher and prophet than as clinician. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The New Republic 56, 356-357 (1928), under 
the title "Psychoanalysis as Prophet." Reprinted by permission of The 
New Republic. 



References, Section Three 

Boas. Franz 

1911 The Mi)id oj' Primitive Miiii. New York: Macniillan, 
Darnell, Regna 

1986 Personality and Culture: The Fate o\' the Sapirian Alternaiivc. ///.v- 
tory of Anthropology 4: 156-183. 
Irvine, Judith T., ed. 

1993 77?^ Psychology of Culture: A Course oj Lectures [by Edward SapirJ. 
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 
Jung, Carl Gustav 

1923 Psychological Types: or The Psychology of Individuation. New York: 
Harcourt Brace. 
Mead. Margaret, ed. 

1959 An Anthropologist at Work: The W'rilitigs of Ruth Benedui Hi>sioii 
Houghton Mifflin. 
Rivers. W. H. R. 

1921 Instinct atul the Unconscious. Cambridge: C\imbridge rni\erMt\ 
Press. 
Sapir, Edward 

191 7h Review of Sigmund Freud, Delusion and Drcctni. A F'rcudian hall- 
holiday. The Dial 63: 635-637. 
192 Id Language: An Introduction to the Studv of Speech. New York ll.u 

court. Brace and Co. 
1924b Culture, genuine and spurious, .tnicricun Journal of Socioloi^v ?^ 

401-429. 
1925p Sound patterns in language. Language 1: 37-51. 



Section Four 
Reflections on Contemporary Civili/ation 

Richard Handler, editor 



Introduction to Sections Four and I i\c 
Edward Sapir's Aesthetic and CulUiral Criiicism 

Too frequently, scholars read the work of the masters who preceded 
them solely in order to discover how they can be seen to contribute to 
the current state of whichever disciplines claim ihcm. Since I:d\sard 
Sapir's death in 1939, we have witnessed the enlrenehment of increas- 
ingly narrowly defined disciplines in an increasingly bureaucraii/ed 
academy where scholars are less inclined than ever to read widely and 
to write on a range of topics for a variety of audiences, in such a climate 
linguists and anthropologists have found it normal to ignore Sapir's 
literary reviews and social commentary, assuming such work to be triv- 
ial and unrelated to his 'serious' contributions, ^'ei Sapir deviated a 
significant portion of his intellectual energies to poetry, aesthetic theory 
and cultural criticism, particularly in the decade after 1916. Undoubt- 
edly those interests provided an escape from personal uiMries and pro- 
fessional frustrations, and a release as well from his wide-rangmg and 
absorbing linguistic researches — from the "fastnesses of a purely techni- 
cal linguistic erudition," as Sapir described it. with mingled pride and 
ambivalence, in a letter to Ruth Benedict (14 June 1925. in Mead 1959; 
180). Yet Sapir's writings outside his linguistic and anthropological sfx*- 
cialties represent more than a diversion. We must read them careful!), 
from at least two perspectives, in order to grasp the full significance o\ 
Sapir's humanistic and scientific endeavors. 

In the first place, Sapir's aesthetic and cultural criticism is largeK 
concerned with the central themes oi his linguistic and anthropological 
work. In both disciplinary and general writing, Sapir elaborated an 
aesthetic vision of culture and society, in which the unconscious and 
tenaciously enduring patterning of human symbols and actions is to bo 
seen in formal and historical, rather than functional or ulililanan. 
terms. To this understanding of cultural palicrn Sapir added a concern 
for the creative personality, for the interaction o\ individuals and cul- 
tures. For Sapir, such interests could be as provocaliveh examined in 
wrifings about poetry and poets, or about American indi\idualism and 
the development of a national culture, as they could in technical analy- 



732 JIJ Culture 

ses presented to fellow linguists and ethnologists. Moreover, we cannot 
separate the development of Sapir's thought in linguistics and anthro- 
pology from his thinking outside those fields, for Sapir did not simply 
apply the fruits of his professional study to non-technical topics. 
Rather, his philosophy of culture grew out of his work in all the disci- 
plines that engaged him. Indeed, Sapir elaborated some of the most 
celebrated arguments of his anthropology and linguistics in his writing 
about poetry, aesthetic theory and modern culture. In short, to under- 
stand Sapir's substantive intellectual concerns we must follow his exam- 
ple and disregard the disciplinary and topical boundaries that can be 
used to separate his writings. We will then find that his aesthetic and 
cultural criticism can teach us much about his anthropology and, of 
course, vice versa. 

Secondly, a careful reading of Sapir's writings in art, culture and 
society is necessary in order to place his anthropology in the context of 
a wider intellectual history. Like many of his colleagues -Franz Boas, 
Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead -Sapir 
was concerned not solely with a scientific theory of culture but, more 
generally, with culture as an idea of importance to the broader public. 
Thus Sapir's philosophy of culture represents more than a stage in the 
development of Boasian cultural anthropology understood as a nar- 
rowly specialized scientific discipline. It is also a contribution to a wider 
debate that engaged the artists and intellectuals of Sapir's time, a debate 
concerning the nature and status of American culture and the role of 
the creative personality within-or against-that culture. Only within 
the context of that debate, for example, does Sapir's concern for litera- 
ture, especially poetry, take on its full significance. Sapir's writings on 
poetry and poets speak to the issues of 'genuine' culture and creative 
genius, issues central not only to his aesthetic and cultural criticism, but 
to his anthropology. 

The writings included in this section of Sapir's Collected Works thus 
bnng to bear the concepts of Boasian anthropology on a wider debate 
and, at the same time, make use of that debate to elaborate and even 
to rethmk some of the more narrowly technical concepts of Boasian 
culture theory. Enumerating the themes that dominate Sapir's aesthetic 
and cultural criticism, we find (1) a Boasian conception of culture as an 
historically conditioned, aesthefically patterned phenomenon, to which 
Sapir added, as a major concern, (2) the creative personality and its 
dialectical interaction with culture. To these components of a culture 
theory Sapir brought (3) an appreciation of the psychoanalytic ap- 



Four: Rcjlcctions on Contemporary 733 

proach to creativity and ccMitoniiity. Also, ilic Boasian notion of (4) 
unconscious patterning was extensively developed by Sapir. whose con- 
cern for creativity was balanced by a concern Tor the dangers of loo 
much self-consciousness, and an awareness of the limits of rational con- 
trol in human thinking. Finally, Sapir used this broad theory of culture 
and personality to construct (5) a critique o\' American individualism 
and American national character. Let us examine each i>f these compo- 
nents in turn. 



The Boasian Basis 

Implicit in Franz Boas's approach to the study oi culture were two 
conflicting tendencies. In his battle against evolutionary theories of cul- 
tural progress, Boas argued that cultural phenomena resulted from 
unique historical sequences rather than the operation o\' uni\ersal laws 
of development. From this perspective, each culture could be seen as 
an accidental assemblage, and to understand cultures each unique, 
each an 'historical individual' -one had to unra\el the threads of their 
history, tracing each cultural element to its 'origins' rather than explain- 
ing it away as the mechanical resultant of evolutionary laws. At the 
same time, Boas realized that to understand alien cultural phenomena 
one had to transcend or neutralize one's own cultural biases. This re- 
quired that any cultural phenomenon be studied in context, thai is. in 
its meaningful relations to the rest of a living culture, a cultural it^ialiiy. 
Thus in Boasian anthropology historical analysis, which unra\els the 
threads of culture, is counterbalanced by the di.scovery o\' patterned 
cultural meanings in the context of whole cultures (Stocking l%8: 214). 

Sapir developed both of these tendencies in important ways. He 
transformed Boas's historicist critique of evolutionary stages into a so- 
phisticated attack on reificalion in the cultural sciences, arguing thai 
culture is not located in naturally bounded units but in interactions 
between human beings, each of whom represents "at least one sub- 
culture" (1932: 236). Sapir's position is stated most elegantly m his late 
papers on culture and personality, but he occasiv^nalK introduced the 
argument into writing intended for a general audience, particularly to 
debunk racist or nationalist assumptions. For example. -'Culture in the 
Melting Pot" (Sapir 1916a) is a friendly critique ol .\ohu Dewey's call 
for the creation of a distinctively American culture (Dewe\ h>l6). Like 
many progressives of the time, Dewey urged Americans to reject the 



734 /// Culture 

European past as their cultural ideal and to replace it with a new culture 
grounded in the realities of modern American society. Sapir agreed with 
Dewey on the need to transcend the past of "discarded classicism," but 
he argued that national boundaries were largely irrelevant in a cultural 
renewal that would occur, if at all, throughout the Western world. 
America, connected to Europe both historically and by ongoing eco- 
nomic, political and cultural exchanges, could not simply will the exis- 
tence of a separate national culture: "Culture is not congruous with 
political lines ... but is strictly dependent on its historical antecedents 
and on the foreign influences with which it comes into constant contact. 
Europe's cast-off clothes are our own, though we may be ashamed of 
them" (Sapir 1916a: 1). 

In "Racial Superiority," Sapir made a similar appeal to the Boasian 
sense of culture as the contingent and ever-changing resultant of histori- 
cal processes. Arguing against the racist assumption that the mainte- 
nance and development of 'high' culture depended on the purity of a 
'Nordic' race presumed superior to all others, Sapir suggested that "In 
the fullness of time other peoples (Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, 
Negroes -why not?) may have assimilated all of it [world civilization] 
that is worth assimilating and culture will be safe" (1924e: 210). Thus 
Sapir not only debunked the belief in the existence of distinctive races, 
he appealed to the long history of cultural borrowing to deny the exis- 
tence of the bounded cultures presumed to be associated with them. 
"The reasonable man," he concluded in "Let Race Alone," will avoid 
"collective chimeras of one kind or another" (1925d: 213). 

Taking the other side of the Boasian equation, Sapir developed an 
influential conception of cultural harmony based on his aesthetics of 
language, literature and art. "Culture, Genuine and Spurious," already 
written by 1918, as Sapir 's letters to Lowie indicate (20 May 1918, in 
Lowie 1965: 27), presents the first theoretical formulation in American 
anthropology of what was to become a central concept: cultural integ- 
ration. Sapir's description of the genuine culture- "inherently harmoni- 
ous, balanced, self-satisfactory" (1924b: 4 10) -is well known and need 
not be analyzed here. However, it is worth stressing that Sapir's notion 
of what constituted cultural harmony was elaborated in a rhetoric 
drawn from his thinking about aesthetics. For him, art was a privileged 
domam of culture because culture was collective art. As he put it in a 
review of a book on the history of writing, "It is not otherwise with 
language, with religion, with the forms of social organization. Wherever 
the human mind has worked collectively and unconsciously, it has 



Four: Rcfld tlons on Contvmporurv 735 

Striven lor and often allaincti unkiuc lorni" ( 1921c: M). The ariiumcni 
is central in Ldiii^iuii^c. where Sapir re|iealecll\ stressed that 

IcMiii li\cs longer than its own conceptual content. Both are ceaselessly changing. 
but ... the form tends to linger on when the spirit has floun .. Irrational ' im 

for form's sake-however we term this tendency to hold onto lormal . ui 

once they have come to be~is as natural to the life of language as is the retention 
of modes of conduct that have long outlived the meaning thev once had. (I92ld: 
103-104) 

Sapir developed his analyses of patterinng most fulls ni his technical 
linguistic work, but the same analytic gifts are e\ident m his writings 
about both music and poetry. Indeed, his structuralist (as wc would 
now say) understanding of formal opposition, and his particular version 
of phonemic theory (with its emphasis on the role of subjective discrim- 
inations) were discussed in writings on music and poetry before ihcy 
were fully elaborated in linguistic papers, though Sapir's insights un- 
doubtedly originated in his studies ol" American Indian languages. In 
1916 he wrote to Lowie that "what 1 most care for is beauts o\' form 
... A perfect style, a well-balanced system ol' philosophy, a perfect bit 
of music, a clearly conceived linguistic organism, the beaui\ of mathe- 
matical relations- these are some of the things that ... ha\e most deepls 
stirred me" (29 September 1916. in Lowie 1965: 21 ). He returned more 
than once to the analogy between music, mathematics and langu.ige. 
and it is worth noting that as a field eliinologist he was parlicularl\ 
interested in music. Music, of course, is language-like (or, language is 
musical) because both are grounded in formal opposition. I'ormal op- 
position is the basis of the musical scale, which depends not on the 
absolute pitch of the tones that compose it. but on the relations (or 
intervals) between them. Early in his career Sapir reviewed, with cMdeni 
excitement, the work of the German musicologists Carl Siumpf and 
Erich von Hornbostel, both of whom recognized the musical scale, .md 
the relational principle it involves, as an important element in the c\o\{i- 
tion of musical culture (Sapir 19121". 19Lh1). 

After 1917 Sapir's interests turned from music lo poetry, in 1921 he 
published a remarkable paper on "The Musical foundations of Verse." 
which prefigures his theory o\' the phoneme, sketched briell> in lAtn- 
^^uai^c (1921d: 56-58), but not fully elaborated until the publication of 
"Sound Patterns in Language" (1925p). "The Musical foundations of 
Verse" was intended as a contribution lo a debate over the metrical 
basis of poetry. This had been occasioned b> the free verse nuncnicnt 
and, more particularly, by its detractors who claimed that free verse. 



736 It J Culture 

vvritten without conventional poetic meters, was not poetry. Defenders 
of free verse, such as the poet Amy Lowell (1914, 1918), countered 
that poetry depended on rhythm in general rather than the traditional 
metrical units or "feet' -iamb, trochee, dactyl and so on-of European 
poetry. Sapir agreed with Lowell, but went on to provide a sophisticated 
account of the grounding of rhythm in the play of the opposing formal 
units of poetic language. To this structuralist analysis of the generation 
of significance out of formal opposition, Sapir added an idea analogous 
to a central concept in his theory of the phoneme: that poetic effects 
could only be achieved in the presence of auditors (or readers) prepared 
to notice them. In other words, in Sapir's poetics, there is no objective 
answer to questions such as 'What is poetry?' or "Is free verse poetry?' 
because according to Sapir, the listener plays a crucial role in constitut- 
ing the poetic object: "the same passage is both prose and verse accord- 
ing to the rhythmic receptivity of the reader or hearer" (1921g: 226). As 
a "corollary," Sapir warned of "the necessary limitation of machine 
methods in the investigation of prosodic problems" (p. 224), a statement 
echoed in the famous closing paragraph of "Sound Patterns in Lan- 
guage," where he questioned "the adequacy of purely objective methods 
in studying speech sounds" (1925p: 51). 



Culture and the Creative Individual 

For Sapir, the 'genuineness' of a culture was to be found not only in 
the formal harmony of cultural patterns, but in the degree of freedom 
and encouragement provided the potentially creative individual. As he 
explained in "Culture, Genuine and Spurious," the genuine culture was 
both rich enough to stimulate creative personalities and securely enough 
anchored to permit them to "swing free" of tradition by engaging in 
creative activity destined to transform the culture that fostered it 
(1924b: 419). Sapir also defined two types of spurious culture: one in 
which a dead but venerated tradition stifled individual creativity and 
one without tradition, lacking the aesthetic resources necessary to stim- 
ulate creativity: "The former is the decay of Alexandrianism, in which 
the individual is no more; the latter, the combined immaturity and de- 
cay of an uprooted culture, in which the individual is not yet" (1924: 
419). 

Sapir's concern for the relationship between culture and individual 
creativity reflected, and contributed to, a wider debate about the status 



Four: Re fleet ions on Conicnipormv ^Y| 

o\' American culture aiul the slalure o\' American artists. His phrase. 
"the decay of Alexandrianisiii."' refers, one guesses, to Europe, and his 
"uprooted culture" is America. Sapir agreed with intellectuals like 
Dewey and Randolph Bourne (whom Sapir eulogi/ed m a h^l9 letter 
to The Dial), who sought to reorient American education and culture 
away from the European past, louard the democratic and industrial 
realities ol^ modern American society. 

The nationalistic frenzy C)\^ the First World War increased these con- 
cerns of the American intelligentsia, who. witnessing what appeared to 
be the disintegration of 'high" civilization m liurope, were led to ask 
more insistently than ever whether their own national culture had at 
last 'come of age.* As a sign o{ national maturity they looked for the 
appearance of great artists, such as might be found in the poetr> renais- 
sance to which Sapir contributed. Even before the uar the new 
poets' — like Ezra Pound and the imagists and Harriet Monroe and the 
contributors to Poetry magazine-were experimenting with a "free" \erse 
that shocked and challenged the upholders o\' N'ictorian cultural tradi- 
tions. During the War the figure of the soldier-poet captured the popu- 
lar imagination, and Poetry editorialists like Monroe (1917) and I dgar 
Lee Masters (1917) wrote of the utility of war in sweeping awa\ a stag- 
nant cultural order, and of the leading role that poets would pla\ in 
articulating a new vision in a renewed world. Sapir would not follow 
these spokespersons of the poetry movement in their enthusiasm for the 
War (his own war poems were militantly pacifistic and anti-jingoisiic). 
However, like Pound, Monroe and their colleagues. Sapir focused on 
the interaction of creativity and tradition, genius and technique, in 
much of his writing about modern poetr\. 

Sapir's essay on "The Poetry Prize Contest" (192()e). a contest orga- 
nized by the Arts and Letters Club of Ottawa, shows how thoroughly 
Sapir had incorporated the aesthetic theory and rhetoric oi the new 
poetry movement into his own poetic acti\ities. Sapir was awarded an 
honorable mention by Poetry in 1920 for his translations of French- 
Canadian folk songs, and he apparently took a leading role in organiz- 
ing a contest with similar prizes in Canada. In hi.s report on the results 
of the contest, Sapir discussed the question of poetic failure and success 
in a passage that recalls the new poetr\ theorists: 

Poem after poem, especially in the elass ol paliiotie ciTorls. vmecd lli. 
ingly convenlional, personally iinrelt ami uiie\|XMienec«.l. scnunicms - n 

poems all lold had something original to say or presented a univer cni m 

a strikingly original manner. Genuine feeling tended to express itself vi.iun. ^.iHiipc- 
tent formal e.xpression seemed lo stille leeling. (p. .V^O) 



738 fll Culture 

Here Sapir suggested that successful art depends first of all on the ex- 
pression of a unique personal vision. In order to see, to experience, or 
to feel in a unique manner, the poet must go beyond the cliches and 
conventions o^ past poetic practice. To fall back on traditional formal 
devices is to abandon the possibility of unique experience, because con- 
ventional language will irrevocably shape, and even substitute itself for, 
the poet's experience. On the other hand, form is essential for art. As 
Sapir phrased it, in a review of Edgar Lee Masters, ''An unembodied 
conception is, in art, no conception at all" (1922n: 334). Thus art re- 
quires not merely the rejection of cliched forms, but the creation of new 
ones, in sum. for Sapir the inseparability of form and content is essen- 
tial to art because the poet's 'sincere' or 'genuine' vision can emerge 
only from a technique that is both proficient and original. 

Sapir focused explicitly on poetic technique in two papers on rhyme, 
a topic which, like meter, had been made timely by the debate over free 
\erse. Some critics of free verse argued that rhyme was a necessary 
component of poetry. In "The Twilight of Rhyme," Sapir responded 
that formal devices, though essential to art, had to be ceaselessly in- 
vented by the artist who, were he to abandon himself to conventional 
techniques, would lose the possibility of creative self-expression. Ac- 
cording to Sapir, proponents of rhyme confused "form (an inner striv- 
ing) with formalism (an outer obstacle)" (1917o: 100). In "The Heuristic 
Value of Rhyme," published three years later, he considered the prob- 
lem from another angle, arguing that rhyme might serve the poet as a 
useful "taskmaster," acting "as a valuable stimulant in the shaping of 
his thought and imagination" (1920a: 309). The later essay supplements 
rather than contradicts the earlier one, for Sapir never overlooked the 
artistic necessity of formal discipline, arguing only that historically par- 
ticular devices, such as rhyme, ought not to be elevated to the status of 
poetic universals. 

For Sapir, then, genuine artists begin with the techniques provided 
by their culture, but transcend those techniques in the creation of new 
culture. Moreover, genuine artists will not be culturally limited in their 
critical responses to the art of alien traditions. Thus Sapir praised the 
composer Percy Grainger for studying seriously, rather than dismissing, 
"primitive music." According to Sapir, it is not the "amateur" who will 
respond positively to "primitive music," but "the musical creator, the 
composer, whose musical learning does not sit so heavily on him as to 
crush his instinctive appreciation of the beautiful wherever and however 
it may be found" (1916d: 592). 



Four: Rcflci lions on ('ontcmporarv 739 

The Psychology ot" Acslliclic Creation 

As we have seen, Sapir's philosophy olcuhurc stressed both the lor- 
mal properties of eultural patterning and the role of the ereati\e person- 
aHty in reshaping artistie and eultural tradnions. Taken together, these 
concerns led Sapir to ensisic^n an ultimate science t>r aesthetics fiKused 
on the interplay of personality and pattern. Iluis "The Heuristic Value 
o\^ Rhyme." which examines how a particular aesthetic device (rh\me) 
might shape self-expression, ends with a programmatic call for the 
analysis of "the process of creation": "if aesthetics is ever to be more 
than a speculative play, of the genus philosophical, it uill have to gel 
down to the very arduous business of studying the concrete processes 
of artistic production and appreciation" (192()a: 312). Sapir's review of 
a biography of the composer Richard Strauss concludes on a similar 
note, asking for more study of '"how the artist concei\es and works" 
(1917g: 586). And Sapir wanted to apply the same approach to the 
study of collective, cultural processes. This is evident throughout /.<///- 
giiagc, tor example, or in Sapir's remarks on the e\iilutuM-i i>\' s\Nfcms 
of writing: 

Much can be said ... of the controlling power of the mediiini ... M-l uhcn all this 
and more is indicated and worked out with laborious detail, we are realK no nearer 
the central question of what psychological forces ha\e hurried the natuMial hand on 
to that aesthetic balance which is its ultimate style. ( 192 Id: 69) 

Given his interest in what he called the *how' of aesthetic acliviiy, it 
is not surprising that Sapir was favorably impressed by the new ps\chol- 
ogy of Freud, Jung and their colleagues, particularly as it might be 
applied to the problem of artistic creati\it\. Ps\choanalysis had become 
fashionable in the United States during the teens and twenties, though 
Sapir never succumbed to its mystique, cautioning in particular against 
a too literal belief in the reality of its theoretical entities (see. for exam- 
ple, Sapir 1917b). Nonetheless. Sapir was stimulated b> I teud's msighis 
into psychic dynamics and how those dynamics lead both lo the organ- 
ization of a coherent personality and to the sublimated expression (in 
neurotic complexes, in dreams, in art) o\' the personalil>'s needs and 
drives. Sapir was also excited by .lungs theor> o\' basic personalitx 
types. Taking the ideas of Freud and Jung together (but always skeptical 
of what he considered io he misleading reificalions or ovcrly-schemalic 
theorizing), Sapir looked lo psychoanalysis to shed light on what he 
saw as the key issue for aesthetics, the question of how pers.wi.dnies 
expressed themselves in art. 



740 tit Culture 

In "Maupassant and Anatole France," Sapir proposed a "'personal' 
type o\^ criticism'' made possible, he argued, by "the advent of the 
Freudian psychology": 

In c\cry work oi art, after due allowance is made for traditional forces, there stand 
revealed, iliouuh slill largely unread, a hundred symptoms of the instinctive life of 
ihe creator. In the long run only criticism grounded in individual psychological 
analysis has validity in aesthetic problems. (1921 f: 199) 

Sapir's literary criticism returns frequently to the "instinctive life of the 
creator" and its subliinated expression in art. For example, he suggested 
that Gerard Manley Hopkins could be seen as "an imperfectly sex-subh- 
mated mystic" {1921k: 334), and found "the well-known mechanics of 
over-compensation bustling over [the] pages" of Ludwig Lewisohn's 7^- 
rael (1926h: 215). In addition to this interest in the artist's personality, 
Sapir was intrigued by the realistic representation of fictional personali- 
ties. In "Realism in Prose Fiction" (1917 he advocated narration from 
multiple "inner" viewpoints in place of the "objective" perspective of an 
omniscient narrator. And in his reviews of fiction, he paid particular at- 
tention to the development of character. It is worth noting that Sapir's 
sympathy for a psychoanalytic literary criticism and his concern for the 
portrayal of character coexisted with his talent for structural analysis, as 
developed, for example, in "The Musical Foundations of Verse." How- 
ever, Sapir never attempted a synthesis of the two critical approaches. 

Finally, Sapir was willing to apply psychoanalytic perspectives to 
other cultural phenomena, such as racism, religion, and sexuality. Thus 
he discussed racism in terms of the ego's needs for "psychic security" 
(1924e: 201) and different religious philosophies in terms of their com- 
patibility with different personality types (1925m). Ultimately he saw 
all cultural phenomena in terms of the dialectic of aesthetic patterning 
and creative self-expression; thus he envisioned the application of psy- 
choanalytic perspectives to the study of all cultural processes. As he put 
it in Language, in the celebrated chapter on drift: "A more general 
psychology than Freud's will eventually prove them [the concepts of 
repression and symbolization] to be as applicable to the groping for 
abstract form, the logical or esthetic ordering of experience, as to the 
life of the fundamental instincts" (1921d: 167-168, footnote 12). 



Unconscious Patterning and the Limits of Rationality 

The notion that cultural phenomena are grounded in unconscious 
formal patterns was articulated by Boas in his "Introduction" to the 



Four: Rcfla lions on Contcmporurv 741 

Haiuihook of Anicric nn Iiu/ian L(ini^Uii<^i\ ( l^^l 1 ). I here he suggesled as 
well thai Liiiconscioiis |-)atlcriiinu is more often ralionali/ed ihan ratio- 
nally analyzed. Sapir drev\ a challenging eonelusiiMi Iri^m ihis Boasian 
premise, arguing that a totally self-eonscious or rational eonlrol o\' 
thought is not possible because thought must aluays be based on un- 
conscious categories which are. by detlnition, beyond conscious eonlrol. 
As Sapir put it, 'introspection may be a dangerously elusive method. 
for the moment of consciousness that we set tnil to describe can not be 
strictly synchronous with the moment of i>bser\ation" {I922\: 619). 

Because o( his doubts concerning the possibility o\' purely rational 
analysis, Sapir was skeptical about the role that social science, or any 
other form oi" self-conscious social philosoph\. might pla\ in rational 
social planning. Such skepticism distinguished Sapir from colleagues 
such as Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, who hoped to use the infor- 
mation made available by cultural anthropology as an ingredient in 
what Benedict called "a true social engineering" (1934: 79). In contrast 
to such aspirations. Sapir warned against the dangers of cultural self- 
consciousness, arguing in a famous essay on "The I'nconscious 
Patterning of Behavior in Society'' that "in the normal business of life** 
people needed to trust rather than anal\/e cultural patterning (I928J: 
141). Sapir had elaborated that argument in an earlier re\ieu article, 
where he associated the formlessness of modern culture and the mean- 
inglessness experienced by the modern individual uith the critical self- 
consciousness of modern thought, trained upon itself: 

We are all uneasy, all wondering a little about the whither of life. The insouciance 
of less self-conscious ages, when men could alTord to forget the ends of life because 
they were so trustfully accepted, seems to have gone. J-reed from the shackles of 
positive faiths and superstitions, we now find ourselves clogged by a more mischie- 
vous slavery than we ever knew, a bondage to unpatterned and undirected actiMl> 
masking an inner emptiness. (I*^21n: 2.^7) 

As we shall see, the themes of "slavery." •uiipalierned aclivii\" and 
"inner emptiness" were key ingredients in Sapir's critictil analysis ol 
American culture. 



Culture and the Individual in Sapir's America 

In the final paragraph o\' "Culture. Genuine and Spurious, .s.ipn 
hinted that, given "plenty of time," a genuine culture might at last blos- 
som on American soil (1924b: 429). \cl in general the css;iy pamis a 



742 IJI Culture 

grim picture of American cultural development, and the mild optimism 
of the end remains unconvincing. Indeed, nowhere in Sapir's aesthetic 
and cultural criticism do we find sustained enthusiasm for American 
culture. Though he was frequently generous in his response to particular 
poets and initially hopeful that the new poetry might signal the begin- 
ning of a genuine cultural development, by the mid- 1920s he had be- 
come disillusioned about both modern poetry and the wider culture it 
retlected. "The age and I don't seem to be on very intimate speaking 
terms," he wrote Benedict (29 September 1927, in Mead 1959: 185). 

Though Sapir's disillusionment stemmed in part from his relative fail- 
ure as a poet, he was too good a critic not to recognize his own poetic 
limitations. Rather, his alienation from the culture of his era was 
grounded in a penetrating analysis of certain contradictions inherent in 
American individualism, an analysis facilitated both by his position as 
a professional intellectual and student of society and by his rehgious 
marginality. From the biographical perspective, it is clear that being 
Jewish placed Sapir (and many of his colleagues) somewhat outside the 
American mainstream. But he was also ambivalent about his Jewish 
background and about religion in general. He recognized the richness 
of Jewish tradition but saw also, as his review (1926h) of Lewisohn's 
Israel suggests, that for some at least among American Jewry, assimila- 
tion to the mainstream was an attractive alternative. The same review 
makes clear Sapir's mistrust of Zionism; he knew that nationalism, even 
o{ the downtrodden, could always degenerate into chauvinism and 
worse. His disdain for chauvinism is also evident in his review of Paul 
Radin's Monotheism Among Primitive Peoples (1924), where Sapir 
chided those Jews who proudly but mistakenly claim monotheism as a 
uniquely Jewish invention. (Sapir 1925m) 

Turning to a perspective wider than the biographical, and from the 
critique of minority sensibility to that of majority culture, we can place 
Sapir's cultural criticism in a tradition that includes Matthew Arnold's 
Culture and Anarchy (1868) -which Sapir certainly knew well -as well 
as Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835-1840) and Weber's The 
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905). Like Sapir, all these 
thinkers were troubled by the secularization of Protestant individual- 
ism, which entailed the rationalization of unlimited economic growth 
accompanied by an emphasis on self-development that was ultimately 
self-defeating. Sapir's critique of the culture of self-development grew 
out of his conception of the genuine culture as one endowed with rich 
aesthetic resources, unconsciously anchored in the psyches of those who 



Four: Rcjlcctions on Confcmporurv 743 

participated in the eiiltiire by creati\el> changing n. Sapir's diagnosis 
o( the American ciiUiual malady uas smiplc enough: "the combined 
immaturity and decay of an uprooted culture." as he phrased il in "C"ul- 
ture. Genuine and Spurious" (1924b: 419), could not nourish indi\idual 
growth and creativity. That general proposition led Sapir to find a par- 
ticular paradox in the American case, for American culture, grounded in 
Protestant individualism, had made of self-development a consciously 
valued end. Yet the highly self-conscious individualism of the spurious 
American culture was, in Sapir's opinion, doomed to sterilit\ for .mK 
a genuine culture could give rise to human individualitv. 

Sapir repeatedly presented his critique of American culture in terms 
of a distinction he drew between ''romanticism" and the "classical 
spirit," as, for example, in the final paragraph o\' "The (irammarian 
and His Language," where he likened linguistics to mathematics and 
music: 

But under its crabbed, technical appearance there lies hidden the same classical spirit. 
the same tYecdom in restraint, which animates mathematics and music at their pur- 
est. This spirit is antagonistic to the romanticism which is rampant in America Ivnlay 
and which debauches so much of our science with its frenetic desire. ( 1924c: 155) 

This classical "freedom in restraint" refers, of course, to the genuine 
culture, where the discipline of convention stimulates creatisitv. Bv con- 
trast, Sapir believed that the "frenetic desire" o\' romanticism led to 
abortive art, to misapplications of science and to formlessness and emp- 
tiness in the wider culture. According to Sapir. Americans ucre \siihi>ul 
the moral discipline and bedrock of accepted values necessar\ to cre- 
ative self-development. As he put it in "Observations on the Sex l*rob- 
lem in America," "An individual can create true personal values onlv 
on the basis of those accepted by his societ\. but uhcn nothing is ac- 
cepted, he has no room tor the growth of any values that are more than 
empty formulae" (1928b: 523). Lacking genuine culture. .Americans 
were, in Sapir's view, willing to use any technique or metlu>d to rational- 
ize their prejudices or to create the illusiiin o\ mdi\idual freediMii 

Such an argument is central in "Let Race .Alone," one of a scries of 
articles published in The Nailon during 192."^, a time when heightened 
racism and xenophobia had stimulated liberal thinkers to publici/e a 
critique of such 'scientific' doctrines as those propounded by the eugcni- 
cists. Sapir's essay should be compared to an essay by Boas which pre- 
ceded it. In "What Is a Race'.'," Boas ( 192.*=^) confined himself ti^ a sober 
scientific refutation of the presuppositions of eugenicisi divlrme. Sapir. 
too, debunked racist assumptions, but he was equallv concerned lo pre- 



744 IIJ Culture 

sent a critique of the culture that readily believed in them. Thus he 
framed his argument with a telling analysis of the American religion of 
science. 

We li\ e in an age not so much of science as of scientific application. We are not so 
much possessed of a philosophic criticism that may be supposed to be born of scien- 
tific research as we are urged on by a restless faith in the pronouncements of science. 
Wc have made it a religion. (1925d: 211) 

Sapir went on to point out that Americans had no patience with the 
tempered, even ''dim" and "cryptic" results of scientific research; rather, 
they sought easy answers, "systematically" using science to rationalize 
their prejudices. Thus Sapir found scientistic racism to be "as good an 
e.xample as we could wish of heated desire subdued to the becoming 
coolness of a technical vocabulary" (1925d: 211). 

Here the metaphorical opposition of hot and cold is crucial: scientis- 
tic racism transforms the heat of desire into coolness, but in this case 
the result is not art, but mere jargon. By contrast, in a genuine culture 
rich aesthetic resources are available to the individual who can use them 
to transform his desire into art: in successfully rhymed poetry, for exam- 
ple, Sapir saw "the passionate temperament cutting into itself with the 
cold steel of the intellect" (1920a: 311). But in the spurious American 
culture Sapir found undisciplined desire, without the means to become 
'cold' and 'hard,' yet, enamoured of efficiency, always pretending to be 
so. Sapir stated this argument most fully (and in terms that directly 
recall "The Grammarian and His Language") at the end of his 1938 
review of Thurman Arnold's The Folklore of Capitalism. There Sapir 
described American culture as 

pervaded by an almost morbid fear of formal analysis of any kind. Its urge is the 
manipulative urge of organization, engineering efficiency is its one great value . . . 
This attitude wills "realism" and hence protects itself with a skepticism that is anti- 
intellectualist but that is not proof against all manner of incursions from unacknowl- 
edged realms of wishful thinking. "Hard-boiled" is the ideal, "romantic" is the deed. 
(1938d: 147) 

Sapir was particularly concerned about romanticism masquerading 
as realism in Americans' changing attitudes towards sexuality, a topic 
he explored in "Observations on the Sex Problem in America." Though 
he sympathized with what he called "the anti-Puritan revolt" (1928b: 
527), he believed that the attempt of some to divorce sex from love 
was yet another example of unrestrained desire deceiving itself with a 
materialistic jargon made congenial by the scientific world view. And 
Sapir singled out his own scientific discipline, anthropology, as espe- 



Four: Reflections on Conicmporurv 745 

cially liable to misuse at the hands o\' ihe ■uishtul ri)manlicisls" who 
foLind. "in excited books about pleasure-loving Samoans and Trobriand 
Islanders." proof that in the "primar\ "' experience of **primiti\c man" 
sex existed independently oi' lo\e ( 1928b: 523). 

Sapir wrote in a similar vein m his 1929 review of Boas's Anthntpolo/^y 
and Modern Life. Sapir praised Boas's anthropology for combmmg ded- 
ication to science with a restraint, "a certain tierce delicacy." which 
prevented it "(rom ever declaring more than it manifestly must." Ac- 
cording to Sapir, such qualities were not likely to be appreciated "in an 
age that prizes lazy comfort in lluuight and that prizes rigor only in 
dehumanized action." And he warned that anthropology was in danger 
of becoming "a popular science." useful "to Justify ... ever\ form of 
spiritual sloth" (1929g: 278). Or. as he wrote in a review of Berlrand 
Russell, modern intellectuals sought nothing other than "a high Polyne- 
sia ... built on the unshakeable coral reef of Science" (1929k: 196i 

Like Matthew Arnold and Max Weber. Sapir understood that liie 
American religion of efficiency, which brought together "our etllciency- 
experts and Methodist deacons," as he once put it ( 1922g: 404). was an 
unintended consequence of the secularization of Protestant individual- 
ism. In a review of James Truslow Adams's Our Husincw Civilization, 
Sapir sketched a critique of efficiency as it was coming to be applied to 
personality. Like so many of Sapir's reviews, this begins with a ss mpa- 
thetic reading but develops the implications of the text far beyond the 
author's intentions. For example, Sapir agreed with .Adams's critique o( 
the American "shibboleth of overt success at whate\er cost." but went 
on to attribute it, not to the excesses of the pioneering spirit, as Adams 
had, but to the secularization of Protestantism: 

For there docs seem to be an austere religiosity about the contcmpiuary cuU of 
reckless success which justifies a suspicion that it is both historical!) and r 
cally connected with the zealous avoidance of sin which animated an cai 
tion. (I93()c: 427) 

Sapir also took the theme o\^ the shallowness of American character. 
which Adams had discussed in terms of the .American contempt \'ot ihc 
cultural graces championed by Mattheu Arnold, and transformed it 
into a suggestive discussion of the indi\idual in mass sixricty. Like 
Tocqueville, Sapir pointed out that obsessive individualism led to "ano- 
nymity," since the egalitarianism which is inseparable fri>m il means 
that each person desires only to be like all others: "To be a "regular 
fellow' ... is not important because it expresses the indi\idual. it is im- 
portant because it does not express him." Sapir mourned not "the dtxay 



746 III Culture 

of good speech and good manners," as Adams did, but "their gradual 
dissociation from the inner core of personaHty" (1930c: 428). 

The theme o\^ the dissociation of expression from personality recurs 
frequently in Sapir's critical discussions of modern poets. According to 
Sapir, the formlessness of American culture, combined with a search 
for personal experience that was both too self-conscious and too exter- 
nal, was poor soil for the growth of a genuine poetic tradition. Thus in 
a review of A. E. Housman, Sapir doubted "whether we can truly be 
said to be expressing ourselves until our moods become less frenetic, 
our ideas less palpable and self-conscious, and ... our forms less hesi- 
tant" (1923h: 191). For Sapir, the search for personal development 
through ardent but undisciplined experience -whether in art or in 
love -was doomed to failure precisely because the self-consciousness of 
the pursuit could not coexist with the desired goals of freedom and 
intuitive self-expression. Thus Sapir criticized Bertrand Russell for 
treating "love and art" not as "life itself but as "the 'finer things' of 
life" (Sapir 1929k: 196). Sapir's assessment of modern poetry ran in a 
similar vein: 

The bulk of contemporary verse . . . gives us everything but the ecstasy that is the 
language of unhampered intuitive living. We have shrewd observation, fantasy, the 
vivid life of the senses, pensive grace, eloquence, subtle explorations of the intellect, 
and a great many other interesting things, but curiously little spiritual life. Very few 
poets seem willing, or able, to take their true selves seriously ... (Sapir 1925 f: 100) 

On the other hand, Sapir praised such poets as Edwin Arlington Robin- 
son, "H. D." [Hilda Doolittle] and Emily Dickinson because he felt they 
had achieved self-expression rather than merely expressed their desire 
to achieve it. He found in Robinson's work, for example, "the genuinely 
artistic record of a rigorous personality. Mr. Robinson has not merely 
asked himself to think and feel thus and so; he has taken his sophisti- 
cated, bitter soul for granted" (1922t: 141). 

* * * 

To read the work of Edward Sapir 'across the disciplines' is to read 
it as he wrote it. Such a reading shows that Sapir created not a culture 
theory narrowly defined, but a philosophy of culture that remains vital 
and relevant both for social scienfists and humanists and that deserves 
to be better known to a wider lay audience. It is no accident that the 
linguist, the mathematician and the musician were praised in one breath 
by Sapir. For him, science practiced in the classical spirit or art prac- 
ticed for art's sake represented the finest and most fundamental expres- 



Four: Rcfh-cfions on Contcmporarv 747 

sion o[' cnir luinKiml\. "ihc search o\' ihc luinian spinl for bcauliful 
form/" as he urolc in I.cini^iuii^c { l^)2kl: 244). To carry out ihal search 
with disciphiic and crcali\ ity was ihc rcsponsihihty and joy of indi\id- 
uals who, if their efforts were brought together by the drifts o\ history, 
miglil create a genuine cuUure- those that come along, as Sapir once 
wrote, "every now and then wilhm some ft>itiinale crvstal-drop of lime" 
(1921m: 238). 



CulUirc in ihc Mclling-I\)i 

A paper by Professor Dewey on "American Hducation and Culture,*' 
published in the Xcw Republic tor July I. points to a lundamcnlal 
conllict between the traditional ideal o( culture and the actual condi- 
tions of life in America. A multitude of problems are suuuested by ii. 
but I confine myself to a brief reference to a few considerations that 
have occurred to me in the reading. 1 beg to be understcH>d as bcmg in 
the main entirely in sympathy with Professor Dewey's standpt)inl, i. c. 
the necessity of humanizing our utilitarian civilization on the basis of a 
tYank acceptance for educational purposes of current modes of thought 
and action instead of attempting to inject into educational methods the 
vaccine of discarded classicism. My own remarks are meant rather as 
supplementary than corrective. 

In the first place, it seems to me that Professor Dewey lays too much 
stress, though more by implication than b\ direct statement, on the 
need of a specifically American revision oi our ideal o\' culture. I he 
disparity between tradition and reality is doubtless more glarmg on this 
continent than in Europe, but it is not different in kind in the old coun- 
try. Everywhere education and. in consequence, the kieal of culture are 
largely concerned with the acquirement o\' matter and manner which 
refiect the conditions of past stages, the necessar\ adiusimeni o\ the 
educational heritage to present conditions, the resultants o\' indu- 
strialism, being largely left to the indi\idual in ihc course of his contact 
with the world. Indeed, it would seem that the lack of accord belsscvn 
culture and the demands o( modern life is. if anything, more acute in 
the case of the English university ideal than in its American ci>rresp<>n- 
dent. So far, then, as a thorough revision o\ our ideals of culture is 
demanded, the "American" may well be struck out of Professor IX-wey's 
title. 

Professor Dewey may retort that it is not a question of a rcMsion of 
American ideals, but of their very formation. We cannot revise whal wc 
do not possess. "The beginning of a culture strip|x-d of egolislic illu- 
sions is the perception that we ha\e as set no culture; that our culture 
is something to achieve, to create.' What passes under the name ol 
"culture" in America, Professor Deuey might add. is merely Europe's 



750 III Culture 

cast-otT clothes. Unless I quite misunderstand him, he feels it necessary 
that America should evolve a distinctive culture of its own, something 
that could be truly called "American." The readiness with which Ameri- 
cans deplore the lack of specifically American traits in their culture 
(assuming, for the sake of argument, that we have one) is more than 
irritating, it is pathetic. It rests partly on an affectation of national 
modesty (as provincial a pose as the earlier swagger which it has largely 
replaced among the more educated), partly and more profoundly on a 
geographical fallacy. America is politically and geographically distinct 
from the Old World, hence it must needs have a culture of its own. 
Never mind the fact that our population is almost entirely recruited 
from the countries of Europe, that it is bound to them by a thousand 
ties, that there is hardly a single word uttered or idea thought which is 
not, in the very nature of circumstances, of European origin - we must 
tly in the face of fact and build us a brand-new culture. If we are not 
autochthonous, we must become so. And yet it needs only the most 
casual survey of culture to teach us that culture is not congruous with 
political lines, nor immediately determined by environmental condi- 
tions, but is strictly dependent on its historical antecedents and on the 
foreign influences with which it comes into constant contact. Europe's 
cast-off clothes are our own, though we may be ashamed of them. Life 
and thought in Canada are as like life and thought in the United States 
as one egg to another. German-speaking Austria and Germany have for 
several centuries formed pretty much of a cultural unit, and this in spite 
of the greatest possible political heterogeneity. 

And this leads me to one of the salient points in the "historical ante- 
cedents" of a culture. It is the matter of language. We hear much of 
the psychological foundations of culture (national temperament), of the 
moulding influence of economic conditions and of social organization, 
of the compelling force of the physical environment, but how many 
historians have perceived the overwhelming significance of a com- 
munity of language? It is too trite, too obvious a point to dwell upon, 
hence its importance is invariably missed. All the great spheres of cul- 
ture have been and are dominated through the medium of a common 
language. Give me a group of men who talk my language, whose con- 
versation and speeches I can readily follow, whose books I can read, 
and whose thoughts I can identify with my own, and I am or soon 
become a participant in their culture. As long as America is English- 
speaking, its culture must be fundamentally the same as that of England 
and Canada and Australia, necessary local modifications notwithstand- 



Four: Re flee lions on C'onlcmporurv 751 

ing. This docs luu mean ihal America is condemned to slavish adher- 
ence to provincial Anglicisms of liioughl and habn. hut thai the culture 
it shares in is that of the English-speakmg world as a whole. It is only 
when we Americans fully realize this and all that it entails that we shall 
be able to bring our due inlluence to bear in the world o\' science and 
art. National slogans are o\' no a\ail in the development of culture; 
where they are not justified by the historical nexus of things, thev soon 
become extinct. Is not Walt Whitman's "Americanism" in poelrv a mer- 
ely indi\ idual outburst, and is it not highly significant that its formative 
infiuence in American culture is practically nil? To summarize, I should 
say that if we wish to have in America the sort of culture that Professor 
Dewey dimly foreshadows, it becomes our task not to create an exclu- 
sively American product but to join in the work o\' a general revision 
of the cultural standards of the Occidental world, and more particularly 
of the English-speaking part of it. 

A word in conclusion as to the relations between culture and social 
and economic conditions. Professor Dewey writes: "I am one o\' those 
who think that the only test and justification o\' an\ form o\' political 
and economic society is its contribution to art and science - to what 
may roundly be called culture." And later on: "In short, our culture 
must be consonant with realistic science and with machine industry, 
instead of a refuge from them." Personally. I find I*ro lessor Dewey's 
range of significance of the term "culture" too circumscribed, but I 
would not insist on this, as he has a perfect lighi to gi\e to so Hexible 
a term what definition he pleases. My main difficulty is with the ciMicep- 
tion of art and science as a contribution of a special "form of pi>liiical 
and economic society," as though the essential nature o\' the higher 
aspects of the culture of a definite lime aiul place uere directly traceable 
to current features of the political and economic organism. This is pre- 
cisely the method of approach which is most popular, the meihixi of 
nearly all sociological interpreters of cultural histiMV. the metlu>d muia- 
//.v nnitamlis also of psychological interpreters. \ sociei> is seen to be 
characterized by certain aesthetic and intellectual tendencies; what more 
"obvious" than that their genesis must be sought in the fundamental 
conditions of life of that society'.' Hence arise countless inlerprelaluwis 
- sociological, economic, psychological o\ any aspect o\ the life of 
society you will. They all ha\e this in ciMnmon. that they conceive of 
the vast complex o\^ human activities characteristic of a given lime and 
place as constituting a self-contained organism, the significance ol any 
aspect of which becomes clear from a penetrating study of all or cxTlain 



752 Jtl Culture 

o^ the others. Historical-minded people always have a stubborn diffi- 
culty with this conception, one that meets them at every step. It may 
be that society is gradually evolving towards some such exquisite har- 
mony o^ life and structure. For the present, the student of cultural his- 
tory (and under this term I include the data of ethnology) humbly notes 
that no society is or ever was thus self-contained and self-explanatory. 
Fach o\' the aspects of social life, say philosophy or music or religion, 
is more defmitely determined in form and content by the past history 
of that aspect, by its sequential relation to other manifestations of itself 
in lime and place, than by its co-existence with the other aspects of that 
life. A constant but always very imperfectly consummated tendency is 
present towards the moulding of these more or less distinct strands into 
a tabric; countless modifications and adaptations result, but the strands 
nevertheless remain distinct. In brief, we must allow for distinct levels 
in cultural history, as we allow for them in psychology. We must beware 
o\^ being tricked by our inveterately monistic habit of mind. To apply 
these principles to our quest of an American culture, let us not delude 
ourselves into the belief that a new art and science will somehow de- 
velop from a specifically American set of social and economic condi- 
tions. The art and science, the culture, of America will, let us hope, be 
responsive to these conditions; it will not, for all that, be created by 
them. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Nation Supplement, December 21, 1916, 
1 -2. Copyright 1916, reprinted by permission of The Nation Magazine/ 
The Nation Company, Inc., publishers. 

Sapir comments on John Dewey, "American Education and Culture," 
The New Republic, My \, 1916, 215-217. Dewey (1859-1952), an Amer- 
ican philosopher, psychologist, and educator, developed (with C. A. 
Peirce and William James) the philosophy of Pragmatism. He was a 
leading theorist of the progressive education movement. 



Review of Paul Abclson, 
English- Yiddish Encyclopedic Dicliiffuirv 

Paul Abelson, ed., English- Yiddish Eiuychipahc Dictionurv. u Com- 
plete Lexicon and Work of Reference in All Departments of Knowledge. 
New York: Jewish Press Publishing Company. 1915. 

There are in New York and many others ol^ ouv large cities a va.sl 
number of intelligent and lettered Jewish immigrants who are hampered 
in their educational and other ambitions by the lack of adequate knoxsl- 
edge o\^ the language of the country that they have made their ha\en. 
They have in many cases not only to cope with the intrinsic difficulties 
of acquiring a new language and culture under conditions o\' poverty 
that leave little leisure for study, and at a time ot" life that is past the 
stage of linguistic flexibility, but they have also to contend uith a more 
subtle factor. The tendency of Jewish immigrants to congregate into 
colonies, combined with the rather high level of taste and culture 
brought by a large proportion of them frc^ii the ok! uorkl. fosters the 
development and maintenance in America of a specificall) Judeo-Cjer- 
man (Yiddish) culture (literature, theatre, social and economic endeav- 
our, and so on), which more or less adequatelv satisfies the mielleciual 
and aesthetic demands of the immigrants and renders the ntx'cssily for 
their linguistic and cultural assimilation less immediately imperative 
than might be supposed. Not that the transplantation and further devel- 
opment of this Judeo-German culture is in itself a reprehensible phe- 
nomenon, but, if the rapid and thorough acquirement o\' linglish be 
set as a goal, the conditions outlined must franklv be recogm/cd a> 
constituting an obstacle. [141] 

While the English- Yiddish Encyclopedic Dictu>HLii\ .iuuksscn ii>cii i*- 
all Yiddish-speaking foreigners in America that are able to read their 
mother tongue and are desirous of gaining a knowledge, elementary or 
thorough, of the English language, it is probablv to the more cultured 
type of immigrant that it will prove of the greatest use. it will doubtless 
do much to enable him to overcome the cultural resistance that wc 
have indicated. Dr. Abelson and his collaborators deserve our vvarmcsl 



754 III Culture 

commendation for their successful solution of a unique and difficult 
problem. There is here otTered to the Jewish immigrant a mass of ade- 
quately illustrated information which is hardly inferior in bulk or qual- 
ity to that contained in the native American's Webster. 

In fact, one wonders whether the repast is not a bit too sumptuous. 
It seems fairly obvious that a work of this kind must, in the nature of 
things, be transitional in character. In other words, its raison d'etre 
largely ceases with the fulfillment of its aims, as the scaffolding is demol- 
ished with the completion of the structure. Under these circumstances, 
one is somewhat puzzled to find valuable space devoted to the explana- 
tion in Judeo-German (the entries are English, all the explanatory 
matter is Judeo-German) of such words as heteratomic, quinquefoUate, 
incomhu.stihilify, and hosts of others. Surely, one fancies, the student 
who feels impelled to seek light on the meaning of words such as these 
is bound to have progressed far enough in his study of English to be 
able to consult English works of reference. It seems indeed a pity that 
space so disposed of - and it forms no inconsiderable portion of the 
book - was not rather devoted to fuller information on the bread-and- 
butter topics suggested by the humbler entries. For the greater familiar- 
ity thus gained with the form and subject-matter of American thought 
the inquiring immigrant would gladly, we venture to think, have dis- 
pensed with the frills and furbelows. So far, indeed, is the Encyclopedic 
Dictionary from exercising restraint in this regard that nearly every page 
betrays to the man of normal English speech his depths of ignorance. 
In the face of the editors' authority I [142] should certainly not care to 
dispute the existence of such words as nival, nivous, ort (translated into 
Judeo-German as: 'a remainder, a fragment, that which is left over and 
is to be thrown away'), connexity, incogitantly, and interfenestrcd, but 
I submit that I would have preferred to see these at best nebulous beings 
housed in some such thesaurus as the Oxford N. E. D. than exposed to 
the quizzical stare of the unappreciative foreigner. 

Yet, in view of the magnitude of Dr. Abelson's accomplishment, it 
seems unkind to insist on such shortcomings as these. To make amends, 
he has very commendably devoted considerable space to the explanation 
of idiomatic turns of expression, those bugaboos of all foreigners. Thus, 
It IS refreshing to find justice done to such collocations as come-down, 
come down on, come in for, come out with, come upon, come to the 
scratch, and numerous others. 

In one important point (and this is the only really serious criticism 
that I would make) the dictionary proves a disappointment. This is in 



Four: Reflections on Confcntporarv 755 

the matter oi' pronunciation. True. Judeo-Cjernian. uith its simple vo- 
calic system, is certainly one of the languages least adapted to transli- 
terate a language with so difficult a phonetic system as llnglish. but i 
cannot help thinking that the problem of suggesting an approximately 
correct English pronunciation might have been more satisfactorily 
solved. As it is, the transliterations adopted b\ the editors can only 
confirm those who use the book in precisely those faults of pronuncia- 
tion that are characteristic of the Yiddish-speaking foreigners and uhich 
are apt to render their speech so disagreeable to Americans. I belies e 
that an almost heroic attempt should have been made by the editors to 
convey some idea of the qualitative and quantitative nuances o\' the 
English vowels. If the use of at least certain diacritical marks would 
thus have been rendered unavoidable, no matter. If too great an expense 
would thereby have been entailed, it would have been excellent peda- 
gogy and economy to have greatly decreased the compass o\' the biH>k 
Better half the number of pages and some indication, e. g. o\' the ditTer- 
ence in pronunciation between the vowel of Jan and that o( fen (as it 
is, [143] they are so transliterated as to suggest an identical pronuncia- 
tion, fen, for both). Nor is there anything to show that the /// o\' a 
word like ihis is not identical with the /// o\^ a word like thick. And 
why, of ail transliterations, is one chosen for w that necessarily suggests 
a pronunciation hv (incidentally w is not distinguished from m7;)? But 
this is not the place to analyse the phonetic deficiencies o( the work in 
detail. I wish merely to point out that the handling o\' the phonetic 
problem leaves much to be desired. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Jewish Quarterly Review 7. 140 14^ 
(1916). Reprinted by permission o\^ The Jewish Quarterly Review 



Review of Samuel Butler, 
God the Known and God the Unknown 

Samuel Butler, God the Known and God the Unknown. New Haven: 
Yale University Press, 1917. 

Whatever in the spiritual life of man has the highest potency for him, 
according to temperament or level of consciousness attained, whatever 
aspect of experience is felt to open the portals to the loftiest flights of 
creative imagination, is very apt to be projected into his God. The es- 
sence of God is sought in those concepts that liberate the caged self and 
make it supreme in its own world of chosen goods. God is thus the 
impersonation or source of magic, of power, of immortality, of truth, 
of art, of morality, of ecstatic vision, of annihilation. All gods, at any 
rate all useful gods, are anthropomorphic; in so far as the gods of theo- 
logical and philosophical speculation escape the human mould, they 
reduce to purely verbal formulae. The Jesus of Christian myth has in- 
tense vitality as a symbol of human aspiration, of triumph in degrada- 
tion; the Holy Ghost can found no cult. 

The God of Samuel Butler is no exception to the rule. He possesses 
the attributes of his creator and incorporates his strongest aspirations. 
I had come to Butler's essay fresh from The Note Books, that curious 
congeries of brilliant epigrams, dead-ridden hobbies, far-fetched analo- 
gies, and penetrating analyses; hence I could not fail to observe the 
impress of Butler's personality, as revealed by himself in these notes, on 
his theological speculations. Butler was a man of a very definite, though 
not easily definable, cast of mind, possessed of very clear-cut likes and 
dislikes, and fond of hugging certain thoughts, attitudes, and modes of 
reasoning with a persistency that is occasionally trying to the reader, 
but indicafive at the same time of their high emotional value for Butler. 
Some of the suggestive traits revealed in The Note Books are a prag- 
matic attitude towards truth that must have seemed paradoxical to his 
contemporaries (in one passage Butler directly states that that is true 
which it is most "convenient" to believe); a strong disinclination to take 
account of any factors not directly yielded by experience; a distrust of 



Four: Reflect ion.s on Contemporary 757 

all arguments pushed lo ihcir logical extreme; ;i wcll-nigh amazing reli- 
ance on evidence from analogy (as Butler characteristically puts ii. anal- 
ogy is poor ground for an argument but it is the best we have); and, 
probably most deep-rooted of all, a habit of bridging all sorts of oppi>- 
sites, which Butler's ingrained love of antithesis of expression leads him 
to contemplate [193] with genuine inieresi. inio a continuum, so thai 
all life is seen to harbor death and no death to be altogether lifeless, all 
mind to be associated with matter and no form o( matter to be altoge- 
ther mindless - in short, A to include something of Z and Z something 
of A. One may, indeed, suspect the last two of these traits to have had 
over Butler something of the tyrannical sway of compulsive thought- 
habits. Surely not a little in his theories and fancies is attributable to 
them. 

Through Butler's work runs, further, an earnest, quietly passionate, 
longing for eventual recognition, a longing now rising to calm assur- 
ance, now masking itself in a philosophic humor of inditTerence that 
was but half insincere. For the catchpenny recognition o\' the passing 
hour he had a genuine scorn, though the note o\^ wistful regret is not 
absent from his contemplation of the relative tailure to achieve literary 
fame that was his lot. Few men have had such confidence in the morrow 
succeeding to the day of personal identity, few ha\e had such an abiding 
sense of the reality of the unity, biological and spiritual, uhich binds 
the generations inextricably together. The sense of a personality of flesh 
and spirit transcending that of individual consciousness is, indeed, the 
keynote to much of Butler's thinking. It is at the heart o\' his evolution- 
ary speculations, with his curious identification o\' memor\ and hered- 
ity, as it, in a measure, also pervades his masterpiece. The liliv of All 
Flesh, a novel of four generations. Permanence of a something uhich. 
in the midst of endless dissolutions, unfolds towards an unknown goal 
- the concept is rarely absent from Butler's thoughts, it takes shape in 
innumerable forms. Between the personal fame for which he U>nged 
and the complete submergence of self in a spiniual luinuis alTording 
nourishment to those that follow, Butler found no true opposition. Life. 
organic and psychic, is merely the endlessly ramified career o\ a single 
personality. 

This brings us face to face with Huilcrs conception of (Jod. His Cn^<\ 
will, above all things, be one that we can most "conveniently'" believe 
in as doing least violence to our daily habits of thought and most readily 
following as a synthesis of actual experience. I'here will Iv nothing mys- 
tical about him, nothing that bailies the understanding. He will bo a 



758 lit Culture 

modest God, a God in man's own image, and he will no more hold in 
his hands the key to the riddle of existence than does the least of his 
creatures. Nor will he hold himself austerely aloof in a divine empyrean 
whence issue strange fulminations and prescriptions; he will be our veri- 
est neighbor, squatting on our own domain. He will, Hke any phenome- 
non, be content to fit himself into the analogical scheme of things. And 
he will be as everlasting as life itself, no more and no less. 

In short, Butler's God is identical with that ramified but single per- 
sonality that evolution knows, whose being is the totality of life. He is 
the sum total and synthesis of all manifestations of life, animal and 
vegetable. To be more exact, he is the personalized energy or principle 
that resides and has, for untold aeons, resided in living matter and mind 
- for the two are inseparable. The single cell of the animal organism is 
a perfect and self-sufficient Hfe unit or personality, unaware, or but 
dimly aware, of the larger whole of which it forms a part, yet existing 
only for the sake of that whole. In precisely the same manner, argues 
Butler, each individual in the great sum of animated nature, plant or 
animal or human being, is a hfe unit or personality that is unaware, or 
but dimly aware, of the vast personahty or God of which it forms an 
infinitesimal fragment and which, we may believe, possesses a con- 
sciousness transcending ours as this transcends the consciousness of the 
single cell. Cell, organism, God - these form "three great concentric 
phases of life." The vast personality indwelhng in life is the known God. 
Whether or not there is a fourth concentric phase, an unknown God, 
embracing a multitude of Gods analogous to the only one we have 
direct knowledge of, it is useless to speculate. As the cell knows not our 
God, so we cannot be expected to know a super-God. Butler's theology 
leads to no metaphysical solutions of ultimate problems. 

This conception of God differs radically not only from that of ortho- 
dox theism but from the all-inclusive God of the pantheists. Both of 
these lack the fundamental essential of an intelligible God - personal- 
ity. Nevertheless it is easy to perceive that Butler's conception lends 
itself to a readier approximation to the pantheistic God than to the 
sovereign God of religion. In the present work Butler is at considerable 
pains to dismiss the pantheistic conception as unthinkable; yet we learn 
from his editor's note to the chapter on "The Tree of Life" that the 
separation of the organic from the inorganic, which is at the basis of 
Butler's thesis, was later abandoned [194] by him and that he felt im- 
pelled, in consequence, to reconstruct his essay. This work however he 
left undone. It is difficult to see how Butler could in the end have 



Four: Reflect ions on Contemporary 759 

avoided the pantheism he had tippc^scd. Ii would have had to be. need- 
less to say, a pantheism arri\cd al h\ a series of eoneentrie phases of 
some sort of evolutionary process. 

In his critical study on Samuel Bullcr \\\. (jilbcrl Cannan somewhat 
petulantly remarks: "I cannot believe in his (iod, simpK because he 
does not write about his God with style. He writes not as one passii)n- 
ately beheving, but as one desirous of accounting for a phenomenon, 
in this instance faith. Since there is faith there must be (Jod. pan- 
psychic." This is not akogether fair. There are not a few passages m 
Butler's little book where the dialectic flames into imaginative diction. 
Moreover his God embodies, in the only way possible for Butler, his 
desire tor spiritual perpetuation. Yet. on the whole, there is small doubt 
that the quest of God had not the burning necessity for Butler's ironical 
and eminently level-headed temperament that it has for certain other 
natures. Mr. Cannan could hardly have expected him to write i>f (iod 
with the passionate conviction and the lo\e that are due Mis especiall> 
favored manifestation, Handel. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Dial 64, 192 194 ( 191S). under the lille 
"God as Visible Personality." Reprinted by permission o'i The Dial. 

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was an English essayist, critic, novelist, 
and philosopher, best known today for his two no\els /"/;<• Way oj All 
Flesh and Ercwiion. 



Review of John M. Tyler, 

The New Stone Age, Stewart Paton, Human Behavior, 

and Edwin G. Conklin, The Direction of Human 

Evolution 

John M. Tyler, The New Stone Age in Northern Europe. New York: 
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921. 

Stewart Paton, Human Behavior in Relation to the Study of Educa- 
tional. Social, and Ethical Problems. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 
1921. 

Edwin Grant Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution. New York: 
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921. 

Toward the end of a readable and enjoyable outline of the main facts 
of neolithic culture in Europe Mr. Tyler strikes an anxious note. "The 
elite of wealth, learning, and culture today," he complains, "have gen- 
erally given up the search for ends in life. The old question: 'What is 
man's chief end?' sounds archaic. We are doubtful as to the existence 
or desirability of such a thing. We are, in the language of the broker, 
very 'long' on means, but terribly 'short' on ends, for which there is no 
market. Some day we shall again find a place for end and purpose in 
our philosophy and science, as in the systems of Paul, Plato, and espe- 
cially of Aristotle, with his 'passion for the obvious,' but at present 
these thinkers are back numbers. Yet we must have ends of life beyond 
mere survival, comfort, or luxury, and getting a living. Some scale of 
values, not solely and purely mercantile, would also be useful." This 
note may be nuanced by each and every one of us to suit the require- 
ments of his temperament, but it cannot be laughed away. We are all 
uneasy, all wondering a little about the whither of life. The insouciance 
of less self-conscious ages, when men could afford to forget the ends of 
life because they were so trustfully accepted, seems to have gone. Freed 
from the shackles of positive faiths and superstitions, we now find our- 
selves clogged by a more mischievous slavery than we ever knew, a 
bondage to unpatterned and undirected activity masking an inner emp- 
tmess. Our very keenness of sight has burnt away the significance of 



Four: Rc/la lions an Contemporary 75| 

what \vc look upon. Hence il comes iluit so nuicli o\i our \sriling and 
lecturing is preoccupied, the ventriloquistic utterance of absent souls. 

These three books are no exception to the rule of divided atlcnlion. 
Men sincerely engrossed in the enlbldment o{ neolithic l-.uro^x-an cul- 
ture should not be too anxious to save out of neolithic mentality a 
reassuring spiritual fundament, attributable to the "common man." 
which is to help us forward over difficult ways. The text is too remote 
from the urgency, even though the sermon does not ring whollv false. 
Again, only one that loves his prejudices nuMc than his science can so 
depart from the sober task o^ laying bare ihe essentials o{ "human 
behavior" as to take his cue fiom chapter headings like imperfect Or- 
ganization and Man and the Progress of Civilization for self-relieNing 
diatribes - anti-bolshevist, anti-German, anti-pacifist, anti-futurist. A 
neurologist, no less than his patient, has the right to be ner\ous and 
irascible, but we doubt if his psychology has that right. \lr Paton 
clearly believes that there are weightier presences in the air than sensori- 
motor arcs. But the scientist, the artist, and the lo\er ha\e the momen- 
tary privilege of setting the object o\^ their contemplation abme the 
salvation of humanity. We do not readily forgive them a bungled expres- 
sion because they have been swerved from their idolair\ b\ things that 
matter. Mr. Conklin's distraughtness is not so apparent, swathed as it 
is in the gentle language of Chautauqua. But it is there, insidiously, 
pervasively. We instinctively distrust an e\olution that incidentall> sa\cs 
for us our "democratic" ideal and even takes the teeth out of "religion " 
We would rather it were not quite so accommodating, but uenl cr\pii- 
cally on its way, disdainful of local comforts. Mr. C\Miklin comes to us 
with a message. "The inspiring visions," he whispers. ^\>\' prophets and 
seers concerning a new heaven, a new earth, and a neu humamt) find 
confirmation and not destruction in human e\olution \iewed in retro- 
spect and in prospect, for the past and present tendencies of evolution 
justify the highest hopes for the future and inspire faith in the final 
culmination o{ this great law in 

"one far-off di\ine e\enl 
To which the whole creation nunes.'" 
It is lucky for us indeed that Daiuin's old dragon turns out to be Santa 
Claus incog. 

In spite o'i all the wishful thinking, nou sentimental or chivalrous, 
now stridently eugenic, in spite of all the telescopic, l-darc-you-say-no 
glances into the future, these books, taken together, are useful for a 



762 lil Culture 

philosophy of ends. They atTord a certain basis of fact around which 
thoughts may crystalHze. 

The fully developed neolithic, or "polished stone," culture of Scandi- 
navia and of Central and Western Europe antedates the dynastic period 
in Egypt and is ultimately founded on an Asiatic culture which reaches 
back to 10,000 B. C, if we may trust Mr. Tyler's interpretations of 
recent archaeological researches at Anau (in western Turkestan) and at 
Susa. This culture reached probably its most typical development in the 
Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, but it had many local varieties, exempli- 
fied by the megalithic monuments of Western Europe and by the dif- 
ferent areas of distribution of types of ornamented pottery. Its basic 
and most persistent elements were not so much the many beautiful vari- 
eties of smoothly finished artifacts of stone or the impressive dolmens, 
with their religious connotations, as the domestication of several useful 
animals and the cultivation of cereals. Both of these features are still at 
the root of our modern economy. The importance of the domestication 
of cattle far transcended the immediate demand for beef, milk, and 
leather. The late neolithic use of the ox for wheel-traction and plowing 
was a necessary step in the eventual development of modern machinery. 
Neolithic culture forms the basis of European civilization in a more 
than merely chronological sense, for most of the dominating ideas or 
cultural determinants in our life of today were then present in germinal 
or developed form. Add to this the fact that the basic racial types of 
modern Europe are clearly represented in the skeletal remains that have 
come down to us from neolithic times, and we get a notion of our 
substantial fixity over long periods in the midst of overwhelming 
changes in the apparent run of history. For a philosophy of ends Mr. 
Tyler's book gives us this thought, that if our free quest of ends is to 
concern itself with the basic "substance" of our lives, with the conscious 
manipulation or even creation of specific fundamentals, whether of race 
or culture, we are likely to be smiled at for our pains. Mendelian inheri- 
tance and the historical process have their own ideas about the super- 
man. 

The historical process, the cumulative drift of culture that formally 
transcends the reactions of the individual organism, is not envisaged by 
Mr. Paton. Like most psychologists and neurologists, he is more famil- 
iar with the chemistry of life than with its architecture. Glandular secre- 
tions, so it would seem, are more likely to prove the efficient causes 
of human behavior than the imponderables of tradition. But for this 
obtuseness to the historical sky-line of human conduct Mr. Paton is 



Four: Rctlcctidtis on (\micmporur\ 763 

hardl\ to be blanicd. for each ciiscipliiic creates ils own myopia. In his 
more special pixnince. ihe iiatiiie of luiinaii beha\ior lYom an organis- 
mal slandpoinl. he has much ot" \alue lo give us. It is a piiy ihal his 
book is w rillen m a ueedlessls heavy style and that the argument moNC!» 
in so sluggish a cuneiil. Mr.Paton recognizes the extreme ct»mpleMly of 
the organic delerminaiils ot" human behavior, also the very provisional 
character o{ many o^ our currently held dogmas as lo the nature o{ this 
behavior. Probably the greatest service he renders is his insistence on 
the functional unity of an individual's behavior, physiological and psy- 
chic, at any given moment o\' lime. An 'idea'" rising into consciousness 
is not simply the psychic correlate of neural activitv localized in a cer- 
tain brain "center,'' as is so often held; it is rather one aspect of a vast 
network of activities atTecting the whole body at once. These activities 
include not only sensory stimulations and motor discharges and inhibi- 
tions too [238] complicated to follow in detail, but all manner of muscu- 
lar, visceral, and glandular processes that register explicitly in con- 
sciousness only under unusual circumstances. Overstimulate a sense- 
organ here, or too powerfully inhibit a neural discharge there, and there 
can be little doubt that the intimate texture and coK>r o\ the "idea" 
have in some degree been modified. The more popular and more easily 
apprehended psychology that rigidly localizes states o\' mind and attri- 
butes specific rather than quantitative difterences to them thus relapses 
into a kind of "scientific phrenology." to use an apt phrase of the hehav- 
iorists. Behavior is not a sum of specific activities, each independeniK 
set in motion by a given stimulus in the environment, but the rhvihmi- 
cally fiuctuating register of the "set" of the organism as it is responding 
to all the stimuli, inner and outer, to which it is capable o{ responding. 
So extremely functional a method of conceiving human thought and 
activity, if we choose to adopt it. must color our attitude toward the 
problem of ends. May it not be a vain thing to look for specific ends 
and may it not be a more comforting thing to value life for the rhvthms 
and patterns of its process? 

The Direction oj Human Evolution is a discussion, not valuable but 
lucid, of the commonplaces o\^ evolutionary doctrine. Mr. Conklin 
draws a commendably sharp line between biological heredilv and the 
"inheritance" of social features, winch are acquired characlerislics. The 
distinction once made, however, it is practically ignored. Hie superficial 
formal parallels between the process of organic evolution and the course 
of "social evolution" are made the most o{, and the eventual arrival o^ 
our troubled human ship into a haven of good things and nice feelings 



764 /// Culture 

is said to be the end-point of a single magnificent impulse that began 
with the overworked amoeba. While Mr. Conklin makes no serious con- 
tribution to the problem of the direction of human culture, he makes it 
clear that the tuture of man is essentially a matter of culture, not of 
biology. No significant organismal changes are to be hoped for or 
feared, in spite of the expert breeders, Shavian and other, it would seem 
to be not in the least likely that man will make of himself a higher 
potential instrument than he already is. Man as an animal, as a psycho- 
physical machine, is a fait accompli. He has attained biological fixity 
too long ago to make it worth our while worrying overmuch about his 
points. Something may be done to eliminate undesirable individuals, 
but the serious hope of man can only rest in the cultural process itself, 
not in the nature of the organism that carries culture. 

Mr. Tyler's querulousness as to the present lack of interest in the ends 
of man is intelligible enough. Still more readily intelligible is the lack 
of interest itself A clear conviction of the presence and power of the 
ends which he longs for is possible only if we feel that there is or will 
be an intelligence that must be gratified by the attainment or pursuit of 
these ends. This intelligence may be paternal to man; in other words, 
we may be called upon to do God's bidding. Or it may be projected 
into the dim future as a dream-realizing humanity; in that case our task 
should take the form of parental self-sacrifice. Or, finally, the ruling 
intelligence may be our desire of today; we must then demand the fulfil- 
ment of ends here and now. We are in a sorry way at present about the 
orientation of loyalty. God seems to have died; we are thrown back on 
ourselves. Unfortunately, we were never less clear about the nature of 
the individual, of society, and of the cultural changes that are taking 
place all around us. Is our society but a matrix and a stimulus for 
individual expression, or is the individual merely a thorn in some mas- 
sively flowering process that we can know but dimly? The too system- 
atic restlessness of evolution and a too easy command of the externals 
of our natural environment have conspired to give us the insolence 
named hubris - see H. G. Wells for a passing example of this spirit of 
the nouveau riche which is in us all. We allow ourselves to be hurried 
into frenzied analyses and undertake to map the endless sea of life, not 
caring to make a cosmos of the transient wave we ride. From this hubris 
must proceed, first, disgust, and later, a chastened humility. 

The concluding remarks of this review are framed in the spirit of the 
coming humility, so nearly visible indeed. If, as the more serious scien- 
tists tell us, the fundamental features of our physical and mental endow- 



tour: Reflections on CotUcmporarv 765 

nieiit arc Liiiallcrably fixed, aiul il. more siunillcanlly slill. the waves of 
the hislmical process conrcirm to an unwilled necessity, arc none ihc 
less iron for their seeniingl\ inllnite lluidily, wc may ucll lurn from 
man as an organism and from his culture as a cumulati\c m\enlor>- of 
achievement and speculate on the harmiMiy or disharmony of a presenl 
culture or of an actual pcrsonalits, leaving dneclu>n. the insistenl why 
and whither, to undiscovered gods and vsinds. Such an approach to ihc 
problem of ends is aesthetic and geometric, franklv non-tcleological. It 
goes so sadly against the prevalent American grain that ue ma\ ucll 
try it out as discipline. 

We are often accused of materialism. To defend ourselves from the 
grosser implications of the charge we hasten to build educational insti- 
tutions, compound cultural pellules, and. if we are palhologicall> in- 
clined, embrace thrice material schemes of spirituality - soul nostrums 
of varying hue. Being most patently "material" when we aim to be spirit 
itself, we betray the intimate nature of the maladv, which is a blind trust 
in the specific of life, in the mere subject matter o\' experience. Korm. 
which is so insistently confused with manner, is ignored or rather unfell; 
rhythm is not guessed at. The concept that we need to struggle for is 
the reconcilement of the individual rhythms of desire with the pallcms 
of social life. When such a reconcilement has been elTected. whether in 
the form of a poem or o'^ participation in a war dance or of a beautiful 
set in human relations, an "end of man" has been attained more authen- 
tic than any abstract ideal yet proposed. A society olTering the maxi- 
mum of harmonious reconcilements is the greatest end we need concern 
ourselves with. Such societies or segments o{ society have existed and 
will again emerge. The problem of ends is not one o\' time nor o^ build- 
ing material. It is solved every now and then within stMiie fortunate 
crystal-drop o{ time. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Sution 1 1 .\ 1}! 2.^S (h>:h. muKi i.n. 
title "The Ends o^ Man." Copyright 1^)21. reprinted by jx-rmisMon of 
The Nation Magazine/The Nation Publishing Company. Inc. 

Edwin Grant Conklin (IS63 1952) was an American biologist asso- 
ciated with Princeton I'niversitv. 



Review of Gilbert Murray, Tradition and Progress 

Gilbert Murray, Tradition and Progress. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 
1922. 

[This] is a somewhat curiously assorted group of ten essays, all re- 
prints of papers and lectures previously published. The first five of these 
pleasingly written essays deal with some of the larger aspects of classical 
scholarship, the sixth with Literature as Revelation, the remainder of 
the volume consists of thoughts on social and international ethics. The 
translator of Euripides is at his best in the earlier papers. He does suc- 
ceed in setting such topics as the war-satire of Aristophanes, the bitter- 
ness of Euripides, the Stoic philosophy, and the poetic definitions of 
Aristotle in some relation to our interests of today. The paper on Poesis 
and Mimesis is particularly penetrating in its insistence on the necessity 
of taking due account, in literary criticism, of the formal genius of the 
language in which the artist does his work. Not a great deal is to be 
said of the latter half of the book. Professor Murray oscillates rather 
comfortably between optimism and despair, makes the usual high- 
souled march along the smooth ridge of Enghsh liberalism, animadverts 
feelingly on the elements of wickedness and goodness in contemporary 
politics, and is careful to put in the parentheses needed to prevent a 
charge of excessive radicalism. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published (unsigned) in The Dial 73, 355 (1922). Reprinted 
by permission of The Dial. 



Review of Johannes V. Jensen. 
The Lofii^ Journey 

Johannes V. Jensen. The Lo/ii^ Journey. Translated h\ A. G. Chalcr. 
New York: Knopf. 1923. 

If the literary age is one of lost bearings, lost faith, restless experimcn- 
talism, if it seeks to cover up a corroding skepticism with a thousand- 
fold pursuit of the nuance, the individual gesture, then assuredl> the 
Danish novelist. Johannes V. Jensen, is not of the age. He is either the 
belated representative of a race of epic poets, magnificentl) unaware of 
what lies not in the heart of impersonal man. or he is the harbinger of 
a new, fiery serenity. It is an astonishing task that he sets himself in 
The Long Journey (KnopO, of which the \olumc recently published in 
English comprises the first two parts - there are six in all. In bold, 
plastic form he essays the story of man from the da\s when he roamed 
as a half-simian pack in the jungle down [o the sober yesterday of 
Christopher Columbus' discovery of America. Jensen's work is not his- 
tory ("history" is too dry a word), it is not romance ('"romance" is too 
tawdry a word), it is sheer epos. And for epos, one had thought, wc 
had lost the courage. 

The first instalment, "Fire" and 'ice.'" makes up a relative unity only, 
but a satisfying one at that. To what extent Jensen has nusundersuxxi 
or wilfully misinterpreted the facts of prehistoric archaeolog). to whal 
extent he has used the artist's privilege o\' bendmg the facts to an artistic 
purpose, it would be hard to say. As a grandiose, ideal record oi strug- 
gling man in the stone ages o\' ncMthcrn I iirope the volume is impecca- 
ble; as a proportioned record of what is actually known of man's earliest 
history it will not bear serious criticism. So colossal is the author's 
power of imaginative simplification, so easy and magisterial his disjx»si- 
fion of time and place and sequence, that it is wasted pcdanir) lo in- 
terpose the chapter and \erse o\' archaeology. "So much the worse for 
the facts," we grumble, as we race on from page to page. folKuKing the 
archetypal doings of palaeolithic man with all the absurd engri^ssment 
that is due a contemporary tale of Jack and Jill. Jensen's fundamental 



768 /// Culture 

"error"' lies in ascribing to the remote northerners of the Ice Age an 
in\entiveness that history prefers to deny them. The great and decisive 
achievements of neoHthic man - the domestication of animals, the cul- 
tivation of grain, the invention of pottery, of pohshed stone implements, 
and of navigation - did not emanate from Jensen's chosen people, who 
received infinitely more than they gave. Nor is it demonstrable that it 
was the inhuman rigors of the frozen north that forced man to become 
a progressive being, while it was the fate of those who fled southwards 
before the advancing ice-sheet to stagnate in slothful primitiveness. 

I take it that the most sensible way to read The Long Journey is to 
forget all the evidence and to desist from applying race theories, "Nor- 
dic" or otherwise, to Jensen's chronicle. It may be that Jensen believed 
himself to be writing a quintessential history, and to a very appreciable 
extent of course he was, but the book has too much to lose when judged 
as mere history to make it worth while reading it as history at all. With 
the help of fragments of archaeological science, of floating ideas about 
the nature of early man, of bits of Norse mythology, and of an unflag- 
ging imagination Jensen has forged a complete folk-epos. Were we liv- 
ing in the mythopoeic age. The Long Journey would become our Gene- 
sis. 

How is it that Jensen has succeeded in so unpromising a task as the 
resurrection of Stone Age man? Partly, one ventures to think, because 
he has been able to compress the whole of man into the prefiguring 
movements of his characters and hordes. We are curiously breathless in 
the contemplation of these unpolished ancestors of ours. Uncouth and 
at times revolting as they are, it is never difficult to identify them with 
our modern selves. Jensen is not afraid of an occasional jest or humor- 
ous ferocity but seems to be temperamentally immune from wit or sat- 
ire. This is fortunate, for to suggest the Yahoo would have been fatal 
to the basic significance of the work. A still greater factor in Jensen's 
triumphant success is the care that he has bestowed on the delineation 
of his Titan-like figures. The smoking volcano, "The Man," despotic 
leader of the herd; Fyr, the Prometheus of the tale; the outcast Carl 
who stays behind to defy the ice, his spouse Mam, the restless White 
Bear, mothering May, and Wolf, the horse-breaker, have grown in the 
novelist's hands from obvious cultural symbols into spirits and person- 
alities of no uncertain outlines. We care for their sufferings and victo- 
ries. The backgrounds are powerfully suggested throughout. Jungle and 
rain and ice are actual presences, and the animals, too, wild and domes- 
ticated, move towards us and away from us. 



Four: Rcllcctions on Contemporary 769 

A final \\o\\\ as lo ihc iraiislalion h\ A. (i. Chatcr. It Ci)uld hardi) 
be bctlcr. 1 cioubi ilihcrc is a single passage in this linglish version thai 
is not supremely acceptable in its own right. One never guesses back lo 

an original. 



Editorial Ne^tc 

Originall\ published in The WorUI Tomorrow (^. 221 ( 1V23). under the 
title "The Epos of Man." 

Johannes V.Jensen (1873-1950), a Danish poet and novelist, re- 
ceived the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1944. 



Racial Superiority 

It is a poor son of Adam who does not feel superior to somebody. It 
is not only the "Nordic" gentleman who has this delightful sensation as 
he gazes through blue eyes into that swarthy admixture of inferior types 
which is composed of Negroes, Chinese, Jews, Slavs, Sicilians, Hindus 
and other undesirables. I have heard an Indian half-breed of the plains 
speak disparagingly of the "Chinks" and, when I gently remonstrated 
with him for what I ventured to consider a hasty judgment, he reluc- 
tantly made a show of yielding, but feeling evidently that a scapegoat 
was needed for his balked sentiment of superiority he hastened to add, 
"Well, I guess they're better than the Jews anyway." At another time he 
pointed out to me how much more graceful was the walk of the Indians 
than that of the whites. Imagine the feeling of a prosperous Scotch 
real estate agent in some Western town like Calgary, Alberta, on being 
informed that his energetic, purposeful stride was being considered with 
amusement and considerable distaste by a "dirty, lazy, ignorant, slouch- 
ing Indian" from the nearest reservation! Another Indian whom I knew, 
an old man of the Sacramento Valley in California, was chronically 
indignant with the Negroes - "white shirt-fronts stuck up on a stump," 
as he phrased them. And it is well known, of course, that many a darky 
is profoundly thankful that he is no "dirty Jew." But that many mem- 
bers of the Jewish "race," whether college professors or sellers of old 
clothes, bow to the verdict of isolated "Nordics," Indian half-breeds 
and Negroes has not yet been demonstrated. 

This feeling of superiority of the members of one ethnic group to the 
members of another group or the members of all other groups is per- 
fectly natural and even a little charming, provided it remains a mere 
sentiment and does not translate itself into actively hostile conduct. 
When this happens, the charm which is part and parcel of all kinds of 
naivete disappears, or develops rather into an alarming and dangerous 
stupidity It is generally believed that group valuations of the kind that 
I have instanced are largely due to the evident superiority of certain 
peoples who, not blind to the indulgence with which Nature has smiled 
upon them, feel an answering glow in their hearts and the flush of pride 
m their cheeks. If the Greeks looked down upon all other peoples as 



Four: Reflections on (Onicmporarv 77 1 

harharoi, Persians and Egyptians includccl. ii is assumed thai ihcy could 
not help doing so, blessed as they were wiih ilie finest natural mcntaliiy 
and with the highest culture of their day. What the \arious kuids (201) 
of harharoi thought of the Greeks is generally left out of the reckonini!. 
but we need not doubt that the great majority of them, whether in- 
debted to Greek culture or not, somehow felt themselves superior. If 
they paid Greek art the homage oi^ imitation and acknowledged \Mih 
unstinting words the supremacy of Greek letters, we may rest assured 
that they compensated themselves by contrasting their robust and 
manly virtues with the duplicity and immorality o[' the (ireeks. In all 
probability they saw to it that they themselves were not left behind in 
the scale of ethnic values. And so it is, and must be, today, if the Chi- 
nese and Japanese blandly accept our technical scientific achie\emenis. 
it does not follow - what we are too easily inclined to assume does 
follow - that they are putting us on a pedestal of ethnic superiority. 

Let us try to be clear about the reason for this almost instinctive 
assertion of the superiority of the ethnic group. 1 am purposely avoiding 
the term "race" for the present. There seem to be l\so facets to the 
fundamental reason, an inner drive and an outer defense, lirst o\' all. 
the individual ego seeks to preserve itself in ihc midsi iW'an overwhelm- 
ing environment, natural and human. The readiest method i>f gaining a 
sense of triumph and of psychic security is probably to establish a sense 
of superiority over the other egos in one's immediate en\ironmeni. Pus 
process, however, is crossed almost from the beginning b\ the ncccssits 
of compromise with the socially inherited beha\ ior o\' the group. One 
soon learns that it does not pay to fight bull-fashion for the primac\ o\ 
the ego. There are too many stone walls about in the shape ol other 
egos. The primary drive towards victory, therefore, splinters up into an 
endless number of substitutive reactions, most of which may be reduced 
to the formula of identification of the ego with the human environment 
In other words, in one way or another the ego graduall> surrenders its 
automatic claims to preeminence by incorporating itself to an apprecia- 
ble extent with its object of attack. The ego Ixvonies socially enlarged 
Its thrusts of offense have transformed iheniseKes into tentacles of sup- 
port. 

Thus, a man's desire to show personal ph>Mcal superiority lo his 
acquaintances may be indirectly satisfied b> membership in a fooiball 
team or battalion which does battle with complete strangers Hie fight- 
ing group is more potent than the individual, and by surrendering his 
impulses to personal combat and putiiiiL' tliem at the disposal ol the 



772 tIJ Culture 

group, the individual gets a lien, as it were, on whatever credit this 
group accumulates in the way of prowess. Even if his own share in an 
encounter is nothing to boast of, he is proud of the victory of his team 
or battalion. To an appreciable extent he has won out. Again, though 
a particular Englishman is vastly poorer than the average Italian, he 
feels that he [202] has a right to some measure of pride when he com- 
pares the statistics of wealth for England and Italy. In some obscure 
but perfectly real way he feels that he is wealthier, mightier, grander, 
and this remains true however bitterly he may resent his employer's 
treatment of himself and however jealously he may look upon his neigh- 
bor's prosperity. 

The sentiment of "loyalty" is thus, to the vast majority of men, far 
more than an acquired virtue; it is the reaffirmation of the ego itself, 
for the ego has at no time really surrendered, it has merely diffused 
itself. All this is familiar enough, but what is not so easily recognized is 
the important fact that it makes very little psychological difference just 
how and to what extent the enlargement of the ego takes place. Family 
solidarity, civic pride, national loyalty, race consciousness, religious ad- 
herence and the thousand and one other forms of the feeling of group 
cohesion are but so many historically determined molds into which the 
enlarged ego has run. The basic fact to consider is not the fact of race 
or nationality or family organization as such but of the tendency of the 
individual ego to realize itself in a collectivity of some kind. Not in all 
individuals is this tendency equally strong, but it can be entirely absent 
only in cases of dementia. 

In the second place, if the ego surrenders, or apparently surrenders, 
much of its individual clamor for preeminence, it makes amends by 
resuming its attitude of hostility when it contemplates the more remote 
environment. The group which is different from one's own group, be it 
the opposing partners in a game of cards, a neighboring city, the other 
political party, another nationality, or all those individuals whose hair 
lies straighter and shines blacker, may be safely looked down upon - 
now humorously, now in dead earnest - because the responsibility for 
the hostile attitude and its consequences rests not with the individual 
ego but with its enlarged image. It is not necessary for a bootblack 
recruit to possess military science to feel that he has the right to look 
down upon the enemy force. He can let his general do the incidental 
work of justifying his feeling of superiority in the science of war. It is 
necessary neither for the ignorant peasant nor the enlightened anti-Sem- 
ite to prove that the particular Jew he maltreats is thus and so. It is 



Four: Rcjlcctions on Comcmporary TJ"^ 

enough to know that the particular Jew belongs {o the group ot individ- 
uals known as Jews. The peasant need not e\en teel grateful to be re- 
lieved of the task of proving his personal superiority to Kinsicin. I'hai 
was done long before either of them was born. The morale which results 
from a tacit circuit of "passing the buck"' is well-nigh impregnable. Bui 
all the while the animus of this hostility derives very appreciably, if 
not entirely, from those more intimate home hostilities which society 
disallows and which become subtly transformed or indefinitely deferred. 
Every one knows that the [203] irritation which comes from failure in 
business may be relieved by the discovery o( all sorts of reasons for 
despising one's successful rivals, or anybody else, particularly such 
reasons as put them in an inferior class. It is always relieving to be 
reminded that one is superior to somebody in the nature of things, and 
doubly relieving to be allowed to put one's knowledge into the concrete 
form of hostile action. Hence, one may surmise, the "relief experienced 
when nations are plunged into international slaughter. 

The opposing group is chiefly constituted by its points o\' difference 
from the home group. Almost any such point of dilTerence, ph>sical or 
linguistic or cultural or moral or merely geographical, is a challenge 
and is enough to give the ego and its social counterpart the contrast 
needed to suggest their superiority to the alien group. A striking dilTer- 
ence in physical appearance or profoundly discordant religious faiths 
may be a stronger motive in general practice for the persistence o\' mu- 
tual hostility than differences of costume or o( taste in marital customs, 
but I doubt if they are distinct in kind from these, psychological!) 
speaking. Just as the mere fact of a group with which the ego ma\ be 
identified is of greater consequence than its precise nature, .so it is more 
important to know that there are contrasting groups to which any gi\cn 
group, any type of enlarged ego, may oppose itself than it is to anal\/e 
the differences that may be found between them. This point of view 
seems justified by the curious ease with which hostilities may be trans- 
ferred. There is no doubt, for instance, that a nationality as such oilers 
a more definite challenge to the enlarged ego "looking for trouble" than 
it did five hundred years ago and that it would be far more dilTiculi to 
produce a Catholic-Protestant war today than ii was in the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. In our personal experience too it is a matter 
of common observation that new hostilities tend to take awa> from the 
vigor of old ones. It almost looks as though all that is really needed to 
satisfy the normal ego is, first, the opportunity to swell into a vican- 



774 /// Culture 

ously triumphant entity and, secondly, a foil to help shape this entity, 
to give it the cutting edge of consciousness. 

I believe it is of paramount importance to realize that nearly all dis- 
cussions of racial ability are most powerfully biased by the necessity of 
the individual ego's triumph in the end. The race of any party to the 
discussion must be declared triumphant or, at the least, not incapaci- 
tated by nature for eventual triumph. It is a very remarkable and a very 
interesting fact that in the huge volume of racial controversy it is always 
the race or the supposed race (for it is a wise man who knows his 
ancestor) of the writer which carries off the palm of victory. It is a 
strange "science" indeed in which there are very nearly as many answers 
as there are classes of questioners. When a "Nordic" scientist gravely 
[204] ascertains that the "Nordic" race is the one truly superior variety 
of mankind and, still more gravely, opines that a more than proportion- 
ate numerical increase in other races is a "menace," it is difficult not to 
relish the humor of his position. In a tentative way one sympathizes 
with him in his splendid isolation and impending sterility. Nor is humor 
lacking in the spectacle of the wishful waiting of an enthusiastic Jew 
who is ready to bless the world with his "mission." So long as "Nordic" 
anthropologists fail to discover the racial superiority of the Japanese 
and so long as Japanese anthropologists (the Japanese, by the way, have 
done some excellent work in physical anthropology) remain serenely 
unaware of the racial superiority of the "Nordic," so long may the 
outsider be pardoned for a shrewd suspicion that superior and inferior 
race talk is "thin stuff." 

If we leave the scientists for a moment and return to the prejudices 
of the folk, we find that among them the term "race" is used in the 
loosest possible manner. For all the endless insistence in higher circles 
on the fundamental biological value of the concept of race and on the 
approximate reality of "race instinct," the vast majority of mankind has 
no real interest in race as such. People do not analyze. All they know 
is that such and such groups of people look slightly different or very 
different, as the case may be, from themselves, talk differently, are more 
ignorant, have notions and customs that make it difficult to feel altoge- 
ther at home with them, and live in or come from certain distant places 
mentioned in the geography. If the Negroes form such a "race" by virtue 
chiefiy of their distinctive physical characteristics, the Jews form an- 
other because of their religion and the historical tradition that holds 
them together as a people, while the French, distincfive in language, 
culture, and habitat, are just as certainly a third "race." Negro, Chinese, 



Four: Reflections on Contcmporurv 775 

Jew. and frcnclmian arc \o ilic la\ iniiul and \o the lay feeling rouchlv 
parallel groupings of mankind, differing from its own "race" (say I 
lish or Irish) in very much ihe same way. though in greatly vai 
degrees. In this unscientific ignorance of the dilTerence between bi.. 
cal race and culture the folk shows a healthy appreciation of e>sein;: 
Whethei" the remote ancestors o{' two contrasted groups were noticeably 
ditTerenl in stature, skin color and length o'( head, or whether their 
present differences are the result of purel\ historical and cultural causes 
ha\ing nothing to do with race in its hii-tlogical sense is merel\ of scien- 
tific, that is academic, interest. If. m the former case, the two racial 
strains have become inextricably intermingled, the resulting population, 
if spiritually unified by the possession of a common language and a 
common culture, feels as pure and distinct in a racial sense as the most 
simon-pure "Nordics" (who are, as every honest anthropologist knows, 
a greatly mixed people) or Negroes [205] o\' the (iold Coast If the\ 
need a pure racial pedigree for sentimental reasons, their scientists can 
be trusted to provide them with one. On the other hand, if a raciallv 
unified people breaks up into two antagonistic groups, actuated b\ dif- 
ferent cultural ideals, their separateness has all the psychological \alue 
of a true racial cleavage and the chances are strong, at least nowadays, 
that their scientists will discover that they belong to appreciabh distinct 
races after all. 

In short, the feeling of group superiorit\ which we ha\e tried to ana- 
lyze in its barest outlines may on occasion take the name and coK>r 
of a truly racial feeling, but in its essence it is a far more generalized 
phenomenon. We may call it the feeling of ethnic superiorii>; and we 
may note that it is one of the more public functions of anthropologists 
and of those who quote and misquote anthropological data Xo rational- 
ize this feeling in terms of their favorite nomenclature. .X plain F'ng- 
lishman (whatever that may mean in racial terms) is content to sa>. **l 
am not a Frenchman and, if you ask me. I am rather glad of that fact": 
but the anthropological way of stating the same feeling is as folloM-s: "I 
(\o not at all know what race I belong to indixidualh. not ha\ing K'en 
properly measured, but my people are a blend o\' .Mpme. Mediterra- 
nean, and Baltic or Nordic types, with the accent on Nordic whenever 
it seems expedient to place an accent. The Frenchmen are another blend 
of Alpine, Mediterranean, and Baltic l>pes. but the percentages are dif- 
ferent from those in my country and I am afraid thai I shall ha\e to 
put the accent on Alpine this time. It seems a reasonable inference (and 
if you do not agree with me I shall be obliged to call you by some 



776 iH Culture 

uncomplimentary names) that the superiority of my people, which con- 
sists in greater courage, resourcefulness, steadiness of nerve, tolerance 
and idealism, not to speak of pugilistic ability and poetic genius, is 
mainly due, entirely due, to the comfortable margin of Nordic blood 
which we possess." At the risk of being painfully indiscreet, let me whis- 
per that Prof. R. B. Dixon, an anthropologist with ideas of his own, 
fmds that the "tall, blond, dolichocephalic type which has been termed 
Baltic or Nordic is merely an ancient blend of Mediterranean, Caspian, 
and Proto-Negroid types." 

Understanding now that what the layman is really interested in is not 
the disentangling of the hugely complex and bewildering racial history 
of man but simple ethnic antitheses ("racial," if the scientists will have 
it so) of "superior" and "inferior," we may pass to a brief consideration 
of racial superiority in the proper, biological sense of the term "racial." 
Several remarkable difficulties manifest themselves almost at once. If 
we contrast a "superior" group like a northeastern English village com- 
munity of relatively homogeneous "Nordic" blood with an "inferior" 
group like an African Negro village community of the Nile headwaters, 
[206] we are struck at once by the great disparity between these groups 
in both appearance and manner of life. All in all, we are tempted, if not 
driven, to conclude that the English community is more enlightened, is 
somehow a "higher" type of human development. It is natural also to 
feel, in a preliminary way, that the difference in enlightenment is caus- 
ally connected with the difference in physical type. We crystallize our 
feeling in the statement that "the Nordic type (or, in more general terms, 
the white race) is superior to the Negro race." This inference, naively 
natural though it is, is far from being a strictly logical one. 

As we enlarge our acquaintance with the facts of history, of race 
distribution and of culture and, growing older and more skeptical, as 
we feel less certain about values than when we made our spontaneous 
inference, we begin to see how far from logical this was. The more we 
probe into the facts and into the alleged certainties, the more doubtful 
we become of just what we meant in the first place. A true critique of 
the subject of race superiority would require a volume, would resolve 
nearly all the plausible statements that have been made about it into 
clusters of unsolved problems in which we are as yet ignorant of the 
essential terms, and would leave us with a profound feeling of humility. 
I cannot do more here than indicate in the briefest possible compass 
what is involved in the statement that race A is "superior" to race B 



Four: Reflections on Conicmporarv 777 

and \\h\ il is thai this l\pc i>rsialcincni. in my opinion, is partly ambig- 
uous or meaningless and parll\ unsound. 

The statement that race A is "supenor"" to race B assumes .il Ica^l 
tour propositions: ( 1 ) fluif wc can ilclinc a race" ailcijuuiclx il) thai 
certain JuudaDicnuil psychic peculiarities, for example, native inielli\;i'nce. 
are correlated with such physical features as we call racial. "{}) thai 
culture or civilization is ilefinitely correlated with such mental cmUtwments 
oj the race. (4) that we can {five an uiiamhii^uous or oh/ective nwaninii fo 
the term "superior "Now I belie\e that not one ot these propositions can 
be atTirmed unconditionally and thai the last three are either false or 
contain a highly significant percentage of error. 

As to the concept of race, we ma\ quite safel> adopt the pioposiiion 
that there are several distinct racial strains in the constitution oi man- 
kind, while remaining fully ali\e to the great probability that as good 
as no individuals living today represent pure or even measurabl\ pure 
types. We literally do not know what are the essential races of man nor 
how and in what sequence the primary blends have taken place. iht>ugh 
we can make certain shrewd guesses, such as that the northern Chinese 
and the West African Negro are in the mam recrmied from dilTerenl 
basic types; we do not know just what are the truly essential criteria of 
race, whether head-form, for instance, is as significant as or more signif- 
icant than color [207] of hair; we do not b> any means al\sa>s know 
whether a point of similarity between two types of man is significant of 
kinship or is a mere convergence within overlapping ranges of variation; 
nor, most disconcerting confession o( all. are ue at all clear as to 
whether a given variation is properly attributable to heredity as such or 
to heredity as modified by secondary factors o\' an environmental sort. 
The layman tends to ha\e the same beautiful trust m anlhropi->mctric 
tables and anthropological nomenclature as in an> other array i^f evi- 
dence that has a dry, "exact," mathematical visage, forgetting that ev- 
erything depends on the soundness o\' the interpretation o\ these hard- 
headed data. But it is precisely in method and interpretation that phssi- 
cal anthropologists differ most and the casual reader must be preparctl 
to discover that only too often they Ilatl> contradict each other on the 
most fundamental points, (i ranted, then, that race is a perfectly legiti- 
mate biological concept, we ma\ be absoluteK certain that many of our 
current races and racial features have not at all the significance uhich 
we now attach to them. Anyone who envisages this incMlable de\elop- 
ment of the science of physical anthropology will find it ditficull to gel 
seriously exercised over the "Nordic" race or Alpine shi>rt-headedness 



778 m Culture 

or "Jewish" nose. But let us assume, what we have not yet the right to 
assume, that we know what is what in race and in race mixture. 

The second proposition is of far greater interest to the general public, 
though for a mistaken reason, as we shall soon see. If the average Ni- 
lotic Negro is less enlightened or advanced than the average Eng- 
lishman, it is felt he must have a poorer mental endowment. The naivete 
o( this inference is evident when we consider, first, that the variation 
within the Negro race itself on the score of cultural achievement is enor- 
mous, the finest woodwork and ironwork of some of the most represen- 
tative Negro tribes being superior to what the very best handicraftsman 
in a typical English village of today could turn out, while, secondly, the 
enlightenment of the English, as everyone knows, is a tolerably recent 
acquisition as years go in cultural history - it is only a pitiful handful 
of centuries ago that it was a rare Englishman who could read the 
alphabet and less than that when witches were being done to death in 
England with all the solemnity of an African "Voodoo" ceremonial. 

One of the most important steps in the history of mathematics is the 
invention of a sign for zero. This step was not taken by the Greeks and 
Romans, whose mathematical notation was clumsy. The Mexicans and 
Mayas, of pre-Columbian days, however, had developed a method of 
indicating the zero in their calendric counts. If intellectual advance were 
the same thing as innate mental endowment, we might conclude that 
the Mexican Indian was the mental superior of Pericles and his compa- 
triots. [208] Common sense warns us that such an inference is not likely 
to be sound. But we are not so likely to see that the opposite inference, 
based on the superior enlightnment of the Greeks and Romans in cer- 
tain other respects, may be equally unsound. 

Isolated facts of this sort prove little, but the cumulative testimony 
of all the historical and ethnological evidence we have is overwhelm- 
ingly to the effect that individual intelhgence has little to do with the 
cultural status of a people. It is as preposterous to argue from the gene- 
ral enlightenment and knowledge of the group to individual inherent 
capacity as to measure the height of trees from sea-level and to assume 
that a raspberry bush on a hill is higher, as a plant, than a willow at 
the water's edge. The cultural background of the individual is what his 
mmd plays with or is nourished on, it is not a measure of his native 
mentality, which can only be estimated by independent opinion or re- 
search after elimination of the cultural factor. 

Let It be said at once that we know extraordinarily little about the 
relative native capacities of the different races. If general impressions 



Four: Rcflccfions on Contemporary TJ^ 

arc to couiii for anything, I belicxc iliai ilic average tlcld-workcr among 
primitive peoples would chum thai lie has obserxcd anii)ng them jusl 
such \ariations in intelligence and ui leinperanienl as he is fanniiar wiih 
among his own people and that he has kmuMi indi\iduals who would 
rank high in a superior cultural einironmenl by \irtue ol iheir innate 
ability. I have known a Negro-Indian haH-breed who was tar more alert 
intellectually, though necessarily somewhat less well-intormed on aca- 
demic subjects, than the vast majority of college students ! ha\e mel; 
nor do I consider it in the least paradoxical to assert that a number of 
fme old Indians whom I ha\e known might easil\, in the appropriate 
cultural milieu, have developed into college professors. That I have mel 
among Indians with as keen minds as I have been privileged to knt>w 
among the whites 1 cannot honestly say, but the racial significance of 
this is seen to be nil when it is remembered that the possible range of 
mental variation within a small tribe is \er\ much less than among a 
great nationality. It takes thousands to allow a chance genius to appear 
at the extreme end of a distribution curve which plots the ability ol the 
group. Such exceptional talents do not automatically render a worka- 
day Englishman superior in innate mental endowment to an average 
Haida Indian or Negro of the Congo, though the\ probably accelerate 
in some degree the advance of the culture o\' the linglish people. 

But personal impressions, it will be argued, are o\' no \alue. We need 
objective tests. The average laymen, who is likel\ ti> be as naive m this 
respect as the average experimental psychologist, imagines that it is easy 
to devise strictly objective tests, tests which i.\o not in some insidious 
form or other allow the irrelevant cultural factor to slip in b> the back 
[209] door. When we reflect that e\en the simplest types of response - 
relatively pure sensations or emotional rellexes are heavily condi- 
tioned by the cultural background in the earliest \ears of childhood, ue 
can have some idea of the constant errors which must \iiiaie much o( 
the experimental work on the more exotic peoples - all ot it. in lad. 
that does not limit itself to the most elementar> iy|x*s of psychic activity. 
It is obviously unfair to expect a Somali or a Bontoc Igorot to respi>nd 
as naturally to the conditions of a psychi^logical exfvrimeni as uould 
a Kentucky farmer, for, while these conditions are unfamiliar lo both 
the native and the farmer. the\ caimoi be so m equal degree, tvcn so, 
experiments on sensatii^n have shown surprising!) little racial vanatuMi. 
nothing that we ha\e a right to interpret as significant. When il comes 
lo the testing of intelligence, the dice are sure lo be Uuded against the 
members of all communities whose cultural habits are markedly dil- 



780 m Culture 

ferent from those of the tester. He may believe that he has ehminated 
all disturbing factors from his tests, but he is deluding himself if only 
for the reason that intelligence in the abstract does not exist but needs 
some sort of a cultural heritage to make itself manifest. Add to this 
the \cry serious emotional perturbation of a subject confronted by an 
examiner and a set of conditions that he instinctively feels to be not 
altogether sympathetic to him. I do not consider it in the least far- 
fetched to maintain that the findings of every intelligence or aptitude 
test on such individuals as are notably different in race or cultural back- 
ground or both from the tester are materially affected by a margin of 
error to the disadvantage of the subject. Comparisons of such findings 
with those obtained under better-balanced conditions could be made 
only after a proper allowance for the unavoidable error. While I do not 
think we are justified in saying outright that there are no fundamental 
racial differences in mental endowment, the burden of proof lies upon 
those who assert that they exist. So far no clear case seems to have been 
made for this contention. 

After what we have said of the fallacy of arguing directly from culture 
to the basic psyche of the carriers of culture it will not be necessary to 
enter at length on a discussion of the third proposition. Culture is an 
extraordinarily complex set of habits which is maintained, subject to 
indefinite modification, by a tradition which is partly conscious but in 
great part also unconscious. It possesses the peculiar property of diffus- 
ing easily and rapidly and, so far as we can see, without any special 
regard to race. Given the favorable environmental conditions and the 
proper historical bonds, it passes lightly from one area to another, from 
one race to an utterly alien one. Chrisfianity was not the product of the 
"Nordic genius" nor did the art of using Japanese cannon descend from 
[210] the Shoguns. In a certain elementary, but irrelevant, sense it is of 
course true that no culture is possible without an underlying mentality. 
What is meant here is simply that the culture of a people is not being 
constantly created anew by virginal acts of intelligence but that it can 
be adequately maintained and added to by any normally varied group 
of human beings, provided they are numerous enough to keep up the 
mechanics of the culture - a minimum population is required for any 
given form of culture. Once we have learned to generate electricity and 
to use it, we must, by cultural inertia, hold on to our knowledge, but 
we do not all need to be Faradays to keep this parficular tradition 
going. We continue to be a normally varied group, not essentially dif- 
ferent in fundamental psychic respects, I take it, from the good old 



Four: Rcjlcciions on Coniiniporurv 781 

Europeans who drew the reindeer and die inannnoih on the cave-walls 
of prehistoric France, but widi a vastly more eomphealed leverage for 
the business of life. It is uiierls futile to contrast the "achievcmcnis" of 
the "Nordics'' with the ""backwardness" of the Chinese or Negroes. The 
precise historical antecedents and the en\ ironmental limitations o\ the 
cultures of these peoples differ enormous!}. Ihe contemporary culture 
of the "Nordics" is no more truly their creation or expressive of their 
fundamental, unconditioned mentality than it is the creation and spiri- 
tual expression of the Sumerians o( Mesopotamia, or of the Neolithic 
inhabitants of the Mediterranean region, or of the pie-Hellenic peoples 
of the Aegean, or of the Greeks, or of the Jews o\' Palestine, or o\' the 
Romans. As compared with the cumulative groundwink laid down by 
these peoples the recent development of certain mechamcal devices 
which happened to take place under partly ""Nordic*" auspices is surely 
a minor event. Nor is it necessary to fear that this increment to the 
cultural goods of mankind will disappear u ith any loss in numbers of 
prestige that an unreasonable Providence may have in store for "Nor- 
dics" or European "Alpines." In the fulness of time other peoples (Chi- 
nese, Japanese, Hindus, Negroes - why not?) may ha\e assimilated all 
of it that is worth assimilating and culture will be safe. The indivklual 
slant and color of culture no doubt change from place to place and 
from period to period but the splendid cumulative core is not easilv 
damaged. We have not the slightest reason to believe that the great 
historical process which began with the men who u.sed the crude, unpol- 
ished flints of the earliest Paleolithic times will be interrupted for man> 
weary millennia to come, be the racial history of man what it may. 

The fourth proposition is difficult to dispose o\' in a few words. Cul- 
ture embraces many strands and ii is not necessarily correct to use the 
same concepts of value, improvement, or superiority for all alike. While 
we have every reason to be proud, for instance, of our rapid (21 1 j me- 
chanical progress and of our ever increasing insight into the sc-ieniific 
explanation of phenomena, it dc^-s not lollou that every associated fea- 
ture of our social organization or world o\ imponderables is ol like 
value or significance for future generations. Whv be so sure that our 
legal procedure and parliamentary machinery proclaim the last word in 
an enlightened public policy? Is it so certain that ouv highly organi/ed 
methods of education result in greater good to the individual and to 
the community than the less academic methods o\' bringing up children 
of more primitive peoples? Is it inconceivable that one mav have some- 
thing to learn from Chinese village life, which successfully disconnects 



782 IJJ Culture 

economic from political activity? We see the grosser aspects of popular 
Hindu religion, but how do we know that there is not in the religious 
altitude o^ the Hindu mystic and even of the superstitious sectary a 
certain intensity and spiritual insight which have nothing to learn from 
the more arid and intellectualized dogmas of Christianity and Judaism? 
We do not need to answer such questions with a straight acceptance or 
rejection. It is enough to ask them. 

It is not unlikely that there are germinal phenomena of a cultural 
character among politically "backward" peoples of today that are des- 
tined, when fused with what is most tenacious of life in our own culture, 
to come to vigorous and beautiful flower. We have no warrant for the 
belief that the particular forms of thought and action in terms of which 
we have come to express ourselves are of an absolute or abiding value. 
If we take this long view of things, much of the feverish concern with 
which we contemplate the changing aspect of many features of our 
culture must seem a little paltry, a little weak-kneed. It is a characteristic 
illusion that distant peoples and future times cannot be trusted to make 
over their cultural loans or heritage in what manner they feel most 
adapted to their needs. The form of Greek life is irrevocably gone, yet 
we have managed to retain and make over a thousand elements of 
Greek culture. 

It comes to this, that a vast deal of what we call "superior" in our 
way of life is merely distinctive or different and is, for that very reason, 
so dear to us that it hurts us to think it may ever pass away or become 
seriously modified. There is much in the history of culture to remind us 
of the passing of the generations. We see our children growing up with 
mingled pride and misgiving. We cannot fail to observe that there is 
much that we held dear that seems less sacred to them, much that they 
set store by which is puzzling or even offensive to ourselves. It cannot 
be helped. We must have faith in the history of culture and leave its 
precise conformation to the inevitable drifts that are flowing silently 
and mysteriously under our feet. 

A final word as to racial amalgamation. This is not a practical prob- 
lem as yet and will not be for a long time to come -at least not on 
[212] a large scale. Yet all the while, furtively it may be, it is taking 
place. Nothing can stay its eventual consummation. Nor need we fear 
It. It has often been noted that inbreeding stocks tend to lose their 
vitality. Just why this is so we do not seem to know, but if it is true, it 
is obvious that ever renewed amalgamations of surviving stocks will be 
desirable, as they have been in the past. The fear is often expressed that 



Faur: RcfJa lions on Conicmpitrary 7g3 

if the "supcrit>r" stocks do not keep thcniscl\cs pure li> ihe end of lime. 
it is all up with civih/ation, tor their pecuhar virtue will be lost in ihc 
melange. If our view of the relatiiMi between the stream of culture and 
the psychic peculiarities o\' the incli\ichials who carry it is sound, there 
should be nothing [o fear iVoin amalganiaiion provided, it is hardly 
necessary to add, that the specific external conditions attending amaiga* 
mation are not in themsehes detrimental to the preservation of culture. 
Moreo\er, if there are significant dilferences in, sa>, the ranges of emo- 
tional variation o\' the two intermingling races, the total resulting range 
of variation should be greater than in either o\' the races. The chances 
of temperaments of unusual power or charm arising are then propor- 
tionately greater, for there is reason to belie\e that marked ability of 
any sort is conditional on great potential variation, it ma> then be that. 
from the strictly biological standpoint, culture will need or continue to 
need racial amalgamation to keep up its momentum. Howe\er. these 
are little more than speculations in the present stage of our knowledge. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in The Mcnonih Journal 10. :nn 212 {\')1A). 



Are the Nordics a Superior Race? 

There seems to be a popular presumption: (1) that there is a certain 
very defmile 'Nordic' race; (2) that to this race belong the English and 
the great body of Americans who settled the thirteen colonies; (3) that 
it is a very fine race, in fact the best there is; (4) that the achievements 
of the English-speaking world are due to the peculiar excellence of 'Nor- 
dic" blood; (5) that these achievem.ents are pre-eminent, if not unique, in 
the history of the world; and (6) that the 'Nordic' race loses its desirable 
qualities when crossed with alien blood. In the brief space at our dis- 
posal we cannot do more than glance at each of these assertions in turn. 

{ 1 ) It is unfortunate that, at the very time when serious students are 
more uncertain than ever before as to just what constitutes a 'race', 
there should be so much bandying about of races in the popular press. 
There seem to be no generally accepted principles of racial classifica- 
tion. It is not known if the shape of the head is more stable or less 
stable, more important or less important, than hair color or stature. 
Hence the various schemes of classification proposed by anthropolo- 
gists differ widely. Some see in the Nordic type, with its long head, tall 
stature, blond hair, and blue eyes, a fundamentally distinct type of man; 
others, a comparatively unimportant variation of a more widely repre- 
sented type; and recently a well-known American anthropologist, him- 
self a Nordic, has put forward the theory that the type is a blend of 
three distinct races. But it would be a grievous error to assume that the 
populations generally called Nordic are pure representatives of this 
type, however it be interpreted. A large and important section even of 
the Scandinavians, who show the Nordic characteristics in their most 
pronounced form, are distinctly not of Nordic type. 

(2) The racial constitution of the English people is exceedingly com- 
plex, as we know from both prehistory and historic evidence. Many 
diverse strains, some of them distinct enough to be assignable to dif- 
ferent races, have become inextricably blended in the Brifish Isles. The 
Nordic type is, undoubtedly, one of these strains, but there are several 
million sound Englishmen who do not exemplify it at all. In America 
the conditions are even more complex. The Nordic type was pretty well 
submerged as a pure type from the start, and has become increasingly 



Four: Rcflcctiom on Contemporary 7g5 

more so. It would he misleading, and even absurd. U) idcnlify ihc "old* 
American or •true" American sioek uiih one of ihe strains thai have 
gone to its making. 

(3) No tangible evidence seems lo be torliicommg that iIk- n.-iuic 
race is a superior race. Thai those individuals who believe ihcmscKcs 
to belong to it also believe themselves to be superior to other groups of 
people is natural, and is only u hat may be expected from human nature. 
The 'scientific' evidence for this superiority o\' the Nordics is by no 
means satisfactory, and rests largely on assertion and unwarranted in- 
ferences. The intelligence tests, for instance, which have been said to 
demonstrate it, are vitiated by the failure o\' ihc psychologists to allow 
adequately for the facts of early en\ ironmenl, education, social status 
and esteem, and, above all, for the unconscious bias o{ the individuals 
who select the questions that are supposed to be useful for the lesimii 
of intelligence. 

(4) But it is wholly fallacious to assume that the actual achievements 
o\^ a people, as a collective body, are to be explained bv its average 
native intelligence. We know from the overwhelming evidence of history 
that cultural achievements are mainlv due to historical factors, includ- 
ing favoring environmental circumstances, economic pressure, and the 
whole, endlessly complicated, tradition which leads up \o and serves as 
a springboard for these achievements. An American farmer selected at 
random, for instance, does not do better farming than an average In- 
dian because he is endowed by nature uiih a keener mielligencc. but 
chiefly because he has been brought up in an atmosphere in which the 
development of such aptitudes as lead to successful farming is compara- 
tively easy, whereas the Indian has had to struggle against a traditional 
mode of thought and action uliich reiuler ihe adoption o^ a lamimg 
career far less easy and far less satisfying to his personalitv. In o\\\cx 
words, the dice of success are somewhat loaded in favor ol the .Xmcn- 
can farmer. Generalizing from thousands o\' such simple examples, we 
may say that collective achievement is b> no means the direct result of 
the intelligence of the individuals in the group. If we wish lo know how 
the English have come to produce their wonderful literature, we would 
do better to study the history o^ the city o{ Rome and the manners oi 
mediaeval French knights than to collect answers lo intelligence lesls 
or to indulge in fancies about the innate mental qualities thai go wilh 
Anglo-Saxon blood or Nordic hair color. 

(5) The currents of history have brought it about thai the Lnglish- 
speaking peoples have had an important share in the economic and 



786 III Culture 

cultural development of the civilized world within the last [266] three 
centuries. The successful colonization of large and remote sections of 
the globe, the part that the English and their colonists have had in the 
industrial applications of science, and the impetus they have given to the 
spread of popular representative forms of government are achievements 
which must not be minimized. But too often they are spoken of as 
though they accounted for the whole march of civilization, instead of 
being but contemporary episodes in it. As compared with the domesti- 
cation of cattle, the cultivation of grains, the invention of the alphabet, 
and the development of such monotheistic and ethical religions as Bud- 
dhism and Christianity - all of which are cultural advances that were 
made by peoples now considered 'backward' -parliamentary govern- 
ment and electric traction are of somewhat limited importance. Even if 
cultural achievement were measured by the intelligence of the race — 
which cannot be admitted - there seems, therefore, no valid reason 
to argue for the exceptional intelligence of either the English-speaking 
peoples or of the Nordic race, partly represented by them. 

(6) If there is no special connection between racial peculiarities and 
the development of civilization, the 'danger' of crossing the Nordic 
stock with other strains ceases to be a danger. Moreover, it cannot be 
shown that the offspring of mixed marriages are inferior to the parents 
in either physical or mental respects. It sometimes happens that such 
offspring are looked down upon by the 'purer' populations, and are, 
therefore, handicapped at the start in their moral and intellectual 
growth, but such cases of deterioration are obviously due to social 
causes, and not to the weakening of the native endowment. 

It is too much to expect the average man to be entirely free from 
racial prejudices. Tolerance of any kind comes hard. But, at least, let 
not 'scientists' bolster up the prejudices of the laity with unproven and 
dangerous dogmas. It should never be forgotten that 'science', like un- 
sound statistics, can be made to pander to every kind of ill-will that 
humanity is heir to. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in The Canadian Forum, June 1925, 265-266. 



let Race Akme 

Wc li\c in an age luu st> nuicli of science as i^t sciemillc applicalinn 
We are not so nuich possessed o\' a pliilosophic criticism that may be 
supposed to be born ol' scienlitlc research as ue are urged on by a 
restless faith in the pronouncements o\' science. We ha\e made il a reli- 
gion. It tyrannizes over every moment of our conscious h\es and gives 
us but the most narrow and uncomtbrtable o\' margins tor the exercise 
of deeper-lying, intuitive capacities. No sooner do our scientific stokers 
and manipulators demonstrate the possibility o\' a certain kind and 
speed of locomotion than it becomes our religious duty to sanctify the 
possibility into a solemn, interminable line o\' autcMTii>biles. No sacred 
procession leading its victim to the slake uas e\er imned b\ compul- 
sions more austere than those which dictate to us our pleasures and our 
griefs. 

But the ''scientific" spirit leads to more serious ailments than such 
sacrificial tropisms as these. Man is not so constituted as to he either 
willing or able to submit his dearest problems to the uninspired deci- 
sions of science. One wearies of standing in line in its age-U>ng waiting 
list. And too often, when patience has been rewarded by a hurried con- 
sultation at the oracular wicket, the answer is dim, cr\ptic. even mean- 
ingless. It is doubtful if Delphic maid was e\er more discreet than sci- 
ence. What happens when we cannot ov will not submit our case to this 
deity of ours and are yet persuaded that it is the voice o\' science that 
we should carry away with us is preciseh what hiippens iiula). a thou- 
sand times over. We answer /^;/' science, we take the echo ol our preju- 
dice for its own unprompted opinion, drop ou\ o\' the waiting list, and 
come away exultant with our happy confirmaiu^ns. No age has been 
free from prejudice, no society, primitive or si^phisticaled. can do with- 
out it, but it is perhaps more particularly mir civili/ed society of tixia) 
that systematically directs its thinking to the scientific justification of 
its prejudices. We have neither the firm but pallid cmnage of scu 
with its slender retinue of opinions, nor the robusler ci>urage ot p;..- 
dice, but a mixed behavior which alTects the serenitv o\' the one and 
indulges in the antics o\' the tnher. 

The current wave of race prejudice, which is nowhere more virulent. 
more systematic, and more dangeri>us than m certain scientific circles, 
both real and supposed, is as ^ood an example as v^c could vMsh of 



788 Jit Culture 

heated desire subdued to the becoming coolness of a technical vocabu- 
lary. Race prejudice is no new thing, but it has been reserved for nine- 
teenth- and twentieth-century thinkers, if the word may be applied to 
the Gobincaus, Houston Chamberlains, and their contemporary like, 
to smuggle this variety of prejudice into the cathedral service of science 
and to serve it up with a vigorous Nordic hymnology. 

There used to be a time when a Nordic was a rather undistinguished 
type oi barbarian. His strenuous virtues were of some literary value to 
a Tacitus in need of a cudgel with which to punctuate his moral ideals, 
but there is no especial reason why we should feel more anxiously im- 
pressed by those far-away metaphors and nostalgias than by Chateau- 
briand's exercises in praise of the noble Red Man. Today the Nordic 
stands in no need of Tacitus's condescending voucher. To explain fully 
why so many of us do honestly think that a dolichocephalic Protestant 
of the Ozark Mountains has greater cultural and biological stuff in him 
than a dolichocephalic Catholic from the barbarous shores of Sicily, 
pestered as they are by the ruins of his ancestors' civilization, would be 
a task for a cultural historian, a psychologist (with a psychiatric squint), 
a sociologist, a philosophic biologist, and a humorist rolled into one. 
The tale is much too long and complex for the summarizing. May we 
modestly suggest instead that the fact of Nordic superiority ("Anglo- 
Saxon" version) is one of the afterthoughts bred in reflective minds 
by a chain of events that was set going by the defeat of the Spanish 
Armada and culminated in the growth of English-speaking America 
and the development of sea-power and industrialism in England? 
(Not that the English and their colonial derivatives can be fairly said 
to represent the Nordic race with measurable purity. This does not 
greatly matter, for it is essential to the peace of the latter-day scientific 
conscience to square, with what approximate accuracy it may, a unit 
born of collective pride, say "Anglo-Saxondom," with a scientific unit 
suggested by the measuring rod, say the "Nordic race.") The scientific 
proof of the "fact" of Nordic superiority would seem to lie in the infer- 
ential application to selected chapters of history of certain technical 
ideas on the nature of biological heredity. These were given form by 
researches on the cross-breeding of different varieties of peas under- 
taken by Abbe Mendel, an Austrian Catholic, it is true, and presumably 
a member of the somewhat inferior "Alpine" race - but one can always 
learn from one's inferiors. 

Let us, for a perilous moment, overlook the fact of Nordic racial 
superiority and content ourselves with the mere concept, or whim, of 



Four: Reflections on Contemporary 7g9 

racial superiority in the abstract. Whal diK-s this concept rc>l on? On 
the obvious fact thai ihcrc arc pli\Mcall\ cmiirasling groups of people 
(the races and sub-races of man), on the presumption thai their physical 
difterences are more or less closely associated with significanl niciiial 
differences, on the observation thai cerlain groups o\ people (classes, 
nationalities, or even whole races) ha\e a more highly evolved culture 
than others, and on the inference that these dilVerences of culture arc 
but expressions of the presumed innate differences in menlalily which 
go with the physical differences. Ihus. we obser\e that a Chinaman is 
appreciably different in his physical constitution from an l:nglishman. 
It is therefore hard to believe that he has essentially the same innate 
mental endowment as the latter. Moreover, we see, as a matter o\ fact, 
that he behaves quite differently from a sensible F.nglishman. He is not 
nearly so clever in handling machinery, he has absurd beliefs about his 
ancestors and rather unappetizing tbod habits, he has not the right ideas 
about God, and his music can be called such onl\ by courtess. Who 
can doubt that his conduct, both as an indi\idiial (212J and as one i>f a 
group, stamps him the inferior of the Englishman'.' And is there an\ 
particular reason to doubt that the chromosomes, endiKrine glands. 
and other biological things to swear b\ that are responsible for his 
yellowish skin and oblique eyes are also to blame for his un-F-nglish 
and un-American behavior? Books on race do not often present this 
line of argument quite so baldly or childishly, but I cannot see that I 
have essentially misrepresented the typical argument l\>r racial infenori- 
ties. 

Let us see what happens when substaniialls the same notions are 
applied to individuals within a supposedly homogeneous group, say to 
A and B, both residents o\^ one o{ our more expensive suburbs, both. 
in fact, of pure Mayflower stock. A is rather short oi stature, has a 
shortish head (mesocephalic. we will say, with a dangerous leaning to- 
ward brachycephaly), and has brown eyes which are habitualK ani- 
mated by a shrewd twinkle; as for his cultural attainments there is little 
to say except that his chief recreation is pt>ker and the telling of obscene 
jokes, that he believes the Kaiser caused the great war. and that he is 
useful to society because he sells hats. B is ver\ dillerent in KMh ana- 
tomical and cultural respects. He is a fine example of a six-footer, has 
a head that any physical anthropologist would spot at once as dolicho- 
cephalic (index 50), and his eyes are as blue as the sky. He seldom st' 
- whether because his ideas are too weighty or because, as his Uk 
suggest, he cannot bring them into action quickly enough to sec the 



790 /// Culture 

point of a joke. He is very cultured, reads only literature above the level 
of the Saturday Evening Post, and, if the truth must be told, teaches 
one of the "ologies" at a major university. A and B rarely speak to each 
other, though the bosom of each swells to the same pride of nationality. 

Now for method. It is easy to see that these individuals belong to 
utterly distinct types of humanity. Dare we call them "races"? Why not? 
A belongs to a short, brachycephalic, brown-eyed "race," the technical 
name of which is left to the reader's imagination. This "race" is rather 
poorly endowed, not merely because we can hardly believe that any 
brachycephal is capable of prolonged mental concentration but because 
the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Any man that wastes his 
time on poker, has patently childish notions about the mainsprings of 
contemporary political action, and gets no higher in the world than 
selling hats (we forgot to mention that A sells hats on a moderate scale) 
is distinctly inferior to a professor who plays chess, who knows that the 
Kaiser was not the only one responsible for the war, and who confines 
his reading to the very best that this weary world has produced. A's 
"race" is inferior to B's. If observation is worth anything it tends to 
prove that short, brown-eyed brachycephals (even mesocephals) cannot 
expect to rise above the poker-playing, hat-selling stage, while the diz- 
zier heights are reserved for tall, blue-eyed dolichocephals. If eugenists 
had their way we fear that they would not hear of A's children marrying 
B's. 

And now A's friends and the higher critics of the philosophy of race 
rush to the rescue and let loose a furious volley of destructive remarks. 
It is not possible to set down all of these remarks, but here are some of 
them. A is as good a man as B; in fact, his is the keener intellect by 
nature. There are plenty of brachycephalic professors and any number 
of dolichocephals who sell hats. The attempt to associate A's and B's 
physical appearances with their respective innate mental endowments 
and these in turn with their cultural tastes and habits is all rubbish. The 
human gamut of moron to genius can be recruited equally well from 
the totality of sellers of hats and from the totality of professors, nor 
does this gamut fail to appear when the principle of selection is dolicho- 
cephals or brachycephals or tall or short people or blue-eyed or brown- 
eyed people or any combination of these physical traits. Furthermore, 
we are told that A sells hats and plays poker not because he was born 
wrong but merely because his breeding was not as well-baked an under- 
takmg as B's. It is the old story of cultural setting as the all-important 
factor in the external development of the individual; and the equally old 



Four: Reflections on Contcmporiirx 791 

story, less often rcnicinhcicJ. ol ihc inclcxancc o\ the external cultural 
beliaxior of an iiulixRlual toi close inferences as to his niherilcil menial 
endowment. On due retlection we find cunseKes mmed by the argu- 
ments of the higher critics. We are so much drawn to them, in fad, ihal 
we forthwith declare the following principles to be sound and, so lo 
speak, self-e\idenl. I'irst. that it is \aiii lo loi^k for correlations between 
the major physical characteristics o{ man (such, in fact, as are being 
habitually used to defme '"race") and mental endowment; sectnid. that 
any selection o\^ indixiduals on normal physical grounds will include 
samplings o[^ all grades o\' innate ability; third, that what is ordinarily 
called "culture" is the result of historical and cinironmental factors that 
are in essence independent o\' race, in its prc^per bii^logical sense, and 
that it does not proceed, in any intelligible fashion, from inherited men- 
tal qualities as such. 

At this point some of the higher critics lake alarm and raise protests. 
It is all very well, they maintain, to pooh-pooh the physical and cultural 
ditTerences between A and B, but you can't be so generous when >ou 
are talking about a Negro or a Chinaman. There the physical dilTerences 
do count and the cultural ones too. But why'.' What dilTerence dt>es it 
make to Nature and the machinery of chromosomes if we pull A under 
cover of the "Nordic race," say, and announce that he is merel> iit the 
tail-end of a distribution curve and not reall\ a racial alien \o B at all. 
but deny that statistical privilege to an "Alpine" from southern Ger- 
many or a Jew or Hindu or Chinaman or Negro'.' There are greater and 
less differences in physical and cultural respects between indi\iduals and 
groups of individuals, but if the kind o\^ leap that is i\ pitied by the 
passage from A to B is declared non-significant for inferences as lo 
natural endowment, then I cannot see thai ihe greater leap from the 
group that includes both A and B to the mass of indi\iduals known as 
Jews or Chinamen does justify such inferences. To find that Nature 
makes racial correlations (as to physical appearance, mental endow- 
ment, and culture) but thai it refuses to make closely parallel sub-racial 
correlations after a certain point can hardly be explained otherwise than 
on the principle of the "projection" in nature of what has formulated 
itself in the observing mind and desiring heart. 

At best we know tantali/ingly little about huiiKm heredity. Tlie selec- 
tion of particular trails, both physical and. es{x-ciall\. mental, as "desir- 
able" is hopelessly subieclive. The attempt to make of such "desir.j''':-" 
traits a matrix for the de\elopment i>f a culture prejudged as "dcMi.i- . 
is unphilosophic and uninformed b> the facts of history. In dealing with 



792 /// Culture 

nature we are always arguing without our host; in deahng with culture, 
scarcely less so. [213] If human culture has shifted its geographical cen- 
ter so frequently without serious loss to mankind as a whole and if the 
ph\ sical history of man is crowded with, indeed consists of, wholesale 
amalgamations of varying types, we would seem to be needlessly 
alarmed about the racial and cultural future. It cannot have been such 
a bad regime that for a few hundreds of thousands of years has man- 
aged to bring intact to us of today both man the animal and his steadily 
evolving culture. Why should we try utterly new methods because a 
number of well-meaning and patriotic scientists are in the habit of philo- 
sophically misinterpreting the larger bearing of some Mendelian experi- 
ments? 

A little learning is a dangerous thing. The reasonable man will feel 
about all the race talk that it is an exceedingly muddled affair. He will 
adopt for his practical policy the maxim, "Let race alone." That is, he 
will try to act as though, for cultural purposes, race did not exist. He 
will do his level best to act courteously to individuals of all races and 
he will pay them all the compliment of assuming that they are essentially 
similar in potentiality to himself and his like. A healthy instinct will tell 
him that whatever be the alleged facts about race, it is ethically debilitat- 
ing to raise it as an issue, because in so doing he shifts the emphasis 
from the individual to collective chimeras of one kind or another. If he 
is in some measure mistaken about the matter, he will be robust enough 
to prefer to go wrong with the classical and outmoded thinkers of the 
Age of Enlightenment than further wrong with the truculent and ro- 
mantic race-mongers of today. And if the worst comes to the worst, he 
can always fall back on those childhood prejudices which, he may be 
sure, he has never wholly eradicated and which, if he is an unmarried 
Nordic, will probably prevent him from dragging the first Negro woman 
he meets to the hymeneal altar. Even the reasonable man is irrational 
enough to hang on to what stores of prejudice he possesses under cover 
of philosophic innocence. Only, being reasonable, he much prefers his 
prejudice "straight." He does not like the adulterated scientific variety. 



Editorial Note 

Originally pubHshed in The Nation 120, 2n -213 (1925). Copyright 
1925, reprinted by permission of The Nation Magazine/The Nation 
Company, Inc. 



Four: Reflations on Contemporary 793 

This article was one of a series on the "Nordic niMh" uhich appeared 
in volume 120 of The Nation in 1925. The others include: Franz Boas. 
"What is a Race?," 89-91; Melville Herskovits, "Brains and the Immi- 
grant," 139-142; Konrad Bercovici. "You Nordics!," 288-290. Hen- 
drik Willem Van Loon, "Our Nordic Myth-Makers," 349-350; Albert 
Goldenweiser, "Can There Be a Human Race?. " 462-463; Harry Elmer 
Barnes. "The Race Myth Crumbles," 515-517; Manuel Ugarie, "A Latin 
Looks North," 568-570; and Herbert Adolphus Miller. "Race Pride 
and Race Prejudice," 622-623. 



Notes 

1. The German version has to read a hiilc dilTercntly. 

2. Still less the Germans. 



Undesirables - Klanned or Banned? 

It is a good thing tor a man to get shaken up a bit in the course of 
his travels. It does him good to be thrown together with strange and 
uncomtbrtable bedfellows, provided they are but human. "I think noth- 
ing human to be foreign to me," was said wisely in ancient days. And 
he must be a poor sort who can chaff a Negro, exchange notes on the 
weather with a Chinaman, and get poked in the ribs by an Irishman 
without coming away from these random contacts a slightly saner, more 
tolerant, and more human man. For what divides man from man and 
race from race is not color of hair, nor shape of nose, nor even the 
opinions of one's ancestors, sacred as these are, but that stubborn pride 
of the soul that is somehow not proud enough to throw open its gates 
to all chance comers of the highways but must needs seize upon any 
stick of an excuse to bar the way to as many intruders as it dare hold 
off. Thus is a fundamental fear turned into a spurious pride. 

It is not easy for the soul to come out of its hiding place and battle, 
unprotected and gleefully in the open, with other souls. It is so much 
easier to devise formulas of the body, so that the soul may slumber on 
undisturbed, dreaming of triumphs which it has never been called upon 
to win. If it can somehow be assumed that all hook-nosed individuals 
who bear the name of Cohen have been assigned by nature to an "infe- 
rior" category, then, clearly, all stub-nosed individuals who bear the 
name of Sweeney have a good chance to secure a valuable victory with 
a minimum of soul effort. Everybody knows how convenient it is to 
have certain people know their place. It is only a shade less convenient 
to know their place for them should they be so uninstructed as to have 
any doubts about the matter. 

Those who are more interested in the spirit of man than in the dimen- 
sions of his shell have every reason to be grateful to the noble order of 
the Ku Klux Klan. These gentlemen have been urged on by some secret 
and glorious light of the imagination. With a Quixotic earnestness wor- 
thy of our applause they have set themselves the task of welding to- 
gether mto newer and nobler unities heterogeneous masses of men hith- 
erto eyeing each other a little askance. Driven into each other's arms 
by the magnetism of a slogan, the Jew, the Negro, and the Catholic are 



Four: Rcllcctious on Contemporary 795 

now citizens o{ ihc same Republic ol the I nJeNndlile. Ihis is u negative 
kind of republic, one might objecl. unattended b\ the blare ol" periodic 
elections and united by no attempted adherence to a consiiiulion. 

But it is possible that the thinkers o\' the Ku Klu.x Klan ha\c subtler 
heads than the unsympathetic portion of our press give them credit lor. 
It is possible thai they understand that communities ol mind are not 
necessarily vouched for by conscious accords or other explicit ma- 
chinery. They may grow up in a thousand indirect ways, through com- 
mon interests only dimly felt or through a common griesance but 
vaguely realized or through a mere negation llaunied m the face. 

What have the Jew, the Negro, and the Catholic in common that the 
statesmen of the Ku Klux Klan are so insistent on creating a touching 
and almost Utopian community of feeling'.' The Negro is a (.iark-skmned 
individual who. through no fault t>f his own. has had a remarkably 
tough time of it. Deprived of his due share o^ the opportunities for 
training and advancement extended by a civilized regime, he has turned 
out rather fewer doctors, lawyers, and journalists than would be suHl- 
cient to impress a statistician of the Ku Klux Klan as presumpii\e cm- 
dence for his inherent fitness to have much to sa\ in the direction oi 
this civilized regime. Some maintain that this proves thai he has turned 
out too many doctors, lawyers, and journalists as it is. 

The Jew rarely resembles the Negro in physical appearance. Ranging 
in color from light to swarthy and exemplifying a considerable variety 
of cephalic indices, nasal forms, and statures ~ it is necessary to men- 
tion these details, for this is the day of the "'science" o^ race - the Jew 
is a little more difficult to spot than the Negro. A careful attention to 
details, however, such as his habit of talking above a whisper at summer 
resorts, will generally enable those who desire to detect him to do so. 
though we must hasten to add that a deplorable percentage o'( Jeus 
tend to be taken for what they are not. Mr. Belioc has some moving 
pages on this subject. 

Having had a reasonable share in the oppi>rtunities alread> referred 
to, the Jew has not been behindhand with his quota of doctors, law 
and journalists. Indeed, if we understand the statistical phiU>sophci ^ «•■ 
the Ku Klux Klan rightly, he has had far too man\ o\ them. Hut. in 
truth, the occupations of the Jew are quiie \aried. Some are known to 
pick rags, while a very small percentage of this |>eople has been repi^ried 
as picking fiaws in the orthodox thei>ry of gra\ilatuMi. 

The third section of our brotherhood o[ undesirables does not seem 
to be clearly marked otT by any insignia or stigmata of a physical char- 



796 III Culture 

acter. Even the anthropologists of the Ku Klux Klan would be disposed 
to admit that the average cephalic index of the Catholics of America is 
a figure of dubious significance. They would probably prefer to take 
their stand on a higher moral ground. Nor would they allow themselves 
lo be either intrigued or repelled by the poetic oddities of the Irish 
Renaissance, being for the most part blissfully ignorant of mere beauty. 
Thev would go straight to the mark and, with ominous voice and sly 
wink, appall themselves with the contemplation of the dire conse- 
quences to our land of an access of Catholic power or, to speak more 
accurately, of an access of power in such individuals as are enrolled in 
the Catholic columns of our statistical books of reference. 

Should the American people be so misguided as to allow one of these 
Catholics to slip into the White House, be he ever so merely statistical 
a Catholic, there is little doubt, dream the prophetic patriots of the Ku 
Klux Klan. that this fair land of ours would at once become an annex 
to the colossal domains which are so stealthily ruled by that dreadful 
Italian gentleman known as the Pope. Merely to contemplate this possi- 
bility is to fall into abyss upon abyss of horror. 

The Negro, the Jew, and the Catholic are a symbol — of what? Of 
dark and misguided humanity? But this vast mass of human beings, 
differing so radically among themselves in color, in faith, and in their 
historical backgrounds, embracing all conditions and varieties of men 
and women, from the moron to the philosopher, is humanity itself. Can 
it be that the self-denying philanthropists of the Ku Klux Klan have 
desired, by some desperate implication, to leave themselves out in the 
cold, in some outer realm that but grazes the confines of humanity? 

But it is high time that we ceased to trifle and that we recognized 
the fact that the historians, the moralists, the anthropologists, and the 
mythologists of the Ku Klux Klan agree in upholding an ideal. It is 
those who correspond to this ideal, and they only, who are truly predes- 
tined by nature to occupy and to rule the United States, a land origi- 
nally settled by English-speaking Puritans, Quakers, Cavaliers, and 
Catholics, by Dutch and Swedish Protestants, and by French and Span- 
ish Catholics. (The Negro share of the settlement was largely involun- 
tary; most of the Jews came when the settling was well over.) 

Forgetting the important share that the Catholics and various conti- 
nental European peoples have had in the opening up of our country, 
taking the preliminary sentences of the Declaradon of Independence 
and of the American Constitution with a heavy dose of salt, and aided 
by the light of inward contemplation, many thinkers have constructed 



Four: Rcjlccthms on ConwrnporurY 797 

as their ideal o{ American cili/eiisliip an iiuii\idual of "Anglo-Saxon" 
descent. o\' "No\\\\c" race (preterablN \\\\\\ blue eyes, fair skin, and a 
long or dolichocephalic skull). o\' Protestant faith, of tremendous re- 
sourcefulness in coping with natural difficulties, and (^^ preal moral 
integrity. These traits are said to cohere with remarkable uniformily. 

Negroes, too, are dolicln>cephalic. but then- dolichocephaly does not 
count for much. "Nordic" dolichocephaly does, because it contrasts 
with the "brachycephaly" or short-headedness of central iiuropean peo- 
ples. The artistic genius displayed by Greeks. Italians, and Chinese is, 
or was. all very well in its way, as was the bravery and idealism of the 
Greeks, the genius for political organization o\' the Romans, and the 
psalm-singing o'i King David, whose Hebrew contemporaries are now 
safel\ dead. 

But all such accomplishments of mind and bod> tediously set forth 
in the histories (was it Mr. Ford who said that history was "all bunk"?), 
somehow pale into insignificance when put beside the deeds and the 
potentialities of, let us say, the "Anglo-Sa.xon" dolichocephalic Protes- 
tants of the Ozark Mountains, Missouri. Jews. Mohammedans, Bud- 
dhists, and even Catholics have been known to gi\e up their all for the 
mere sake of a moral conviction. In vain. The onl\ con\iction that really 
deserves God's hundred-per-cent rating is such as is held b\ Protestant 
dolichocephalics of English speech. 

It does not really matter that no intelligent person can define the term 
"Anglo-Saxon," which has no heavier conicni \o an anthropologist or 
historian who is not also a Klansman than the term "antedihuian" has 
to a geologist who goes to church infrequently. It does not matter m 
the least that the "Nordic race" is little more than an anthropometric 
formula and that its claims to ha\e iincnicd the steam-engine, the typo- 
writer, and representative government are as intelligible as an endtvnne 
gland's boast to have founded the world religicMi known as Christianity. 
Nor does it seriously matter that Klansmen and tlu>se viKMJerous gentle- 
men who do the thinking for them ha\c no greater knius ledge oi the 
incredible debt that American culture owes, at last analysis, to the Me- 
diterranean, central European and west Asiatic peoples than, as the 
Russian Jews have it, a cat may carry away on the up o{ its tail 

The idealists of the Ku Klu.x Klan are too admirabl> stubK>rn to be 
dissuaded by the facts o^ observation and o^ history. Ttie> bum for an 
ideal and they have found it by looking inti^ a mirror Some mirrors 
have a distorting curvature, it is true, but when \ou lv^ huntine for an 
ideal you have to take a chance. 



798 /// Culture 

How long can ilie human variety, real or supposed, which has been 
honorably segregated by the military experts of the Ku Klux Klan af- 
ford to look down from their mountain fastnesses on the lesser varieties 
o\' humanity which people the plains? Is it not conceivable that these 
Supermen will become "'fed up" with their splendid isolation and will 
yawn in the very faces of their leaders? When that day comes, a new 
generation will have been born, the humorists of Ku Klux Klan, who 
will declare the philosophy of their forebears to have been a hoax born 
of a teasing desire to swashbuckle with mask, shirt, tar, and feather. 
They may well add as a postscript that this philosophy was made in 
Germany anyway, in the days when toys used to be imported from 
Niirnberu. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in The American Hebrew 116, 286 (1925). 



The Race Problem [-. Ci. C'rookshank. 

The Mongol in Our Midst: A Study of .\ fun und I lis 

Three Fciees. New York: H. P. Duiit)n, 1^;24. 

Hermann W. Siemens. Race Ilvi^icnc aiul Heredity. Translaicd by 
Lewellys F. Barker. New York: D. Applclon, 1924. 

Jean Find. Race Prejudice. Translated b> Florence Wade-Fvans. New 
York: E. P. Dutlon, 1907 (reprinted 1924). 

J. H. Oldham, Chri.stianitv and the Race Pro/^lem. Ne\s York: George 
H. Doran, 1924. 

A good meal generally begins with a nibble of celery and so vve can 
hardly do better in plowing through some nineteen hundred pages of 
race matter, now minatory, now pacificatory, than to start with Mr. 
Crookshank's fantastic brochure on the Mongol in our nndsi. It is as 
light as the vegetable, but it is completeh de\oid o\' \ itamuis. Hie au- 
thor's thesis need only be stated to be refuted with a laugh. .\lr. Crook- 
shank is a man of considerable literary taste who kniuvs hou to tjui>ie 
aptly from Sir Thomas Browne, and one would like to believe that his 
interest lies in the whimsicalities rather than in the truth o\' his race 
theories, very much as Charles Lamb is kiunsii to ha\e relished the 
manner of his Hooker and Burton without being in the least disquiclcd 
by their ponderous matter. Our guess. ho\\e\er. would be that he is 
serious. Should it appear, in the wash, that Mr. Crookshank has been 
holding a huge chuckle in reserve, we should be the first [o lake oil our 
hat to him as one oi^ the most brilliant hoa.xers in contemporar> s^Mcn- 
tific literature. 

The thesis may be summarized as follows. Man is derucd Ironi three 
distinct apes, the orang, the gorilla, and the chimpan/ee. Ilic descen- 
dants of the orang are the peoples o\' Mongolian race and the so-eailed 
''Mongolian" imbeciles among the uhiies. whose resemblance lo ihe 
true Mongolians is generally regarded as superficial. Hie gorilla is the 
ancestor of the negroid peoples. From the chimpan/ee stem the uhilcs. 
particularly, it would seem, the Semites, rhe chief e\idencc for ihoe 
genetic theories is furnished by instinctive posture and by charactenslic 



800 /// Culture 

lines of the palm. The Mongolian or "orangoid" posture is the one 
illustrated by the sitting Buddha, who, one may irrelevantly remark, 
was a Hindu invention. Orang, "Mongolian imbecile," true MongoHan, 
and sitting Buddha form a series. Chimpanzee, cases of dementia prae- 
cox. and whites form another. It all works out rather neatly and we 
learn many curious bits of information by the way. The temptation to 
quote a number of charming passages is great, but we must limit our- 
selves to two. 'it is ... singular," says Mr. Crookshank, "that the Mon- 
golian imbeciles should not only love to sit like a Buddha but to sway 
the head, backwards and forwards, like a porcelain Mandarin, whilst I 
have seen a baby Mongolian idiot prostrate himself in his cot, for hours 
at a time, doing the kotow. Now, when an English idiot of Mongolian 
physique performs in his cot the symbolic act of humiliation practiced 
by the Chinese race, and does it instinctively and persistently, it is idle 
to declare that no real homology is involved!" Cultural anthropologists 
to the rescue! But they are probably too busy to take up light skirmish- 
ing. Further on we read: "Mongolian imbeciles speak late, and it is 
remarkable that they alter many consonantal sounds, saying 'lellow' for 
'yellow' and so forth, like a stage Chinaman, whilst they never construct 
long sentences. They tend, in fact, to employ only monosyllabic and 
asyntactic forms of speech." Chinese monosyllabism, one infers, is an 
instinctive reaction of the Mongolian-orangoid-imbecile stock. The fact 
that English has more and more tended to a Chinese-like structure 
must, we fear, be construed to mean that Anglo-Saxon civilization is 
going to the orangs. 

Why such books are published it would be hard to say, but it is 
undeniable that they are delightful interludes in the grim and weary 
drama that we are in for these days. Mr. Siemens's book, to which 
the translator has appended a very useful bibliography and a technical 
glossary, is of a very different sort. It consists of two parts, an admirable 
and not too technical introduction to the theory of Mendelian heredity 
and a far less closely reasoned section on the degeneration which he 
believes to be threatening the more valuable strains in German society 
- and in European society generally. His fears for the future of Euro- 
pean culture are grounded in biology pure and simple, not in a philoso- 
phy of culture such as a liberal anthropologist or historian could 
honestly follow. The gist of his thesis - for the sober chapters on hered- 
ity merely pave the way for a thesis - is probably contained in the 
following passage: "Now the threat of extinction of all existing Euro- 
pean culture lies precisely in the fact that the leading circles, which 



Four: Reflections on Contemporary gOl 

include with rcspecl to bolli bodily and nicnlal make-up ihe grcalcsl 
number oi" ihc best heredilar\ stocks, are succumbing in ihc struggle 
for existence with those that they lead, because then tertilily is nol grcal 
enough even to maintain their present numbers. Thus, gradualK. all 
those hereditary stocks that are capable ol preser\mg and ad\ancnig 
our civilization are being exterminated from the earth by a progressive 
'prolctariatiization of our risini^ youth.' The disappearance of so many 
noble and patrician families is only one symptom o\' that great "dMng 
out" which, more frightful than the most terrible war. demands its sacri- 
fice from the peoples of European culture.'" And "the first task." he 
proceeds in italics, "of the racial hygiene o\' today seems to me. there- 
fore, to lie in an attempt to arrest the dying out of the sociallv higher 
classes which seems now to be in full suing." The conservative wing of 
eugenist opinion could hardly be stated more bluntly. In other passages 
of his book the author takes it quite for granted that the mingling of 
German and alien, particularly East European, blood is tantamount to 
the introduction of biologically inferior strains into the (ierman-s|X'ak- 
ing dominions. 

Like so many biologists concerned with the problems of society. Mr. 
Siemens sees in cultural achievement a direct indication of the working 
out of the physical and psychic traits of the hereditar\ endowment, lie 
suffers from the characteristic illusion of the biologist, who is persuaded 
into accepting his genetic technique as a sulTicient interpretative guide 
to the cultural behavior of man. It requires but little consideration of 
the data of history and of the social sciences to realize that the levels of 
culture, both within the national group and as between nationalities, arc 
the complex and cumulative product of historical factors which pv>sscss 
continuity not on the biological plane but on that of social inheritance. 
Now the process of social inheritance is simply the continuous imita- 
tion, both consciously and unconsciously, of socialK. that is convention- 
ally, significant reactions of an acquired. non-instincti\e. and indefi- 
nitely plastic sort. The cultural process is carried b> human organisms, 
to be sure, but it is no more trul> explainable in terms o\ biologv than 
the ever-changing aspect of the wind-blown sea is evplainable as .! — 
cific resultant of the chemistry of sea water. Such terms as ""i^ur ci\ 
tion," "noble and patrician families." and "backward jx-oplcN 
highly derivative concepts of a cultural, historical order. Tlicy have no 
relevance for the biologist whatever, and if the bioK>gist. as b ' - t. 
does nevertheless insist on being interested in them he induli: -.n 

application of his science which is not in essence dilTercnl from the 



802 Itl Culture 

astrological labors of the early astronomers. It is very remarkable that 
in the earlier part of his book Mr. Siemens is at the greatest pains to 
prove that the acquired or "parakinetic" features of the organism are 
o^ no intlucnce on its properly hereditary or "idiokinetic" features but 
in the later chapters forgets or misapplies his own principles. The colos- 
sal assumption that the conventional values ("higher" and "lower") that 
we assign to different types of cultural behavior are at the same time 
intelligible as [41] corresponding biological differentia can only be "ex- 
cused" if we remember the average biologist's contempt of history. 

Race Prejudice is a reprint of a work that appeared in the first 
decade of the present century, but it may still be read with profit. Finot's 
manner is rather that of the eloquent and ideahstic publicist than that 
o'i the scientist who has the air of examining his data without knowing 
until the last chapter what conclusions they lead to. This is not to say 
that there is not in his book a great deal of telling criticism of the claims 
made by Gobineau and his tribe for the cultural significance of race, of 
the supposed differences in the basic psychology of different peoples, 
of the "Aryan" and "Latin" legends, and of many other exercises in 
mythology. It is only fair to say, however, that Finot unduly minimizes 
the biological importance of race. 

Mr. Oldham's book is in many ways the most interesting of the four. 
It is lucid, sympathetic, and admirably free from any taint of bitterness 
or polemic heat; it exhibits familiarity with the practical aspects of race 
contact and race conflict and a sufficiently firm control of the biological 
and anthropological background of race theory - indeed, the chapter 
on The Significance of Race is the best untechnical summary of the 
fundamental facts of human heredity that we have seen; and it combines 
a willingness to see the unpleasant or disturbing facts of the rough- 
and-tumble world with an obviously sincere and determined Christian 
idealism. 

If anything, Mr. Oldham understands too clearly what are the obsta- 
cles that seem to make impossible a simple, sweeping application of the 
Christian ethic to contemporary and impending race problems. He has 
no spiritual insight to offer that can burn away prejudice, injustice, 
political tyranny, and commercial exploitation. The communion of 
saints in whom color of skin is invisible is hardly more than a verbal 
formula; it certainly is not a flaming vision. This Christianity of Mr. 
Oldham's - and we believe it is as sincere a variety as our parliamen- 
tary. Protestantized world has to offer - is an exceedingly modest, pa- 
tient, and well-behaved faith. It is at least as familiar with the interroga- 



Four: Reflect Urns on Conicniporary 803 

tory gi\e-and-takc o\' the lhmiiiiiiiicc lomw as il is wiih ihc ihundcr of 
the pulpit, ihc madness of ciiisaclc. ov the ecstasy of revelation. Perhaps 
it is ungenerous to expect rer\ or and the courage o\' paradox from the 
guardians of the subhmest and most paradoxical of religimis m 
the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a "reasonable" age. a iriinnic; 
in which courage has been surrendered ti^ the limbs and to the ai 
heart while faith sits fro/en and ashamed. The gi^spel of Christ is not 
concerned with the philosophy o\' the germ plasm, nor does it wait on 
the statistics of intelligence tests for its mandates to become operatise 
A conditional Christianity will not bring conviction to a ui>rld alreads 
riddled with inner conflict and skepticism. 

"In a church which is conscious of its mission to the world." sa>s 
Mr. Oldham, "there can be no exclusion or separation on the ground 
of race. This does not mean that as a matter of con\enience members 
of different races living side by side may not worship in separate congre- 
gations. If there are differences of disposition and aptitude between 
races the geiiius of each will doubtless find its best expression if the 
religious life of each is allowed to de\elop on its own lines. Ihere is 
nothing in this contrary to the catholicity o\' the Church of Christ." To 
quote only this passage, we hasten to add. is not entirel> fair to the 
spirit in which Mr. Oldham's book is written; but the passage is omi- 
nously indicative, none the less, of what has happened to the essential 
gospel of Jesus. A too insistently instrumental habit o\' thought has 
tortured this gospel into the semblance of a program buttressed by sci- 
ence and expediency. The gospel itself, smothered b\ these kindly minis- 
trations, lies either dead or in a state of indellnitel> prolonged coma 
Only the humblest of incidental services may be expected from its tradi- 
tion in the solution of race problems. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in ///c Xaiion 121. 40 41 (1^)25). Copyright 
1925, reprinted by permissit^n o\' Ihe Nation \laga/ine/Tlie Nation 
Company, Inc. 



Review of Paul Radin, 
Monotheism among Primitive Peoples 

Paul Radin, Monotheism among Primitive Peoples. Seventh Arthur 
Davis Memorial Lecture, delivered before the Jewish Historical Society 
at University College on Sunday, April 27, 1924. London: George Allen 
and Unwin, 1925. 

Even the most sophisticated Jew is proud of at least two things. While 
he may have no personal use for a Savior, it pleases him to think that 
his ancestors gave one to Christendom; and though comfort and en- 
lightenment may long have disabused him of the necessity of a God, he 
takes satisfaction in the thought that his remoter ancestors invented the 
purest kind of a God that we have record of, the God of monotheism. 
Such a Jew has one of the keenest of known pleasures, which may be 
defined as the art of endowing others with a priceless boon that one 
finds it more convenient to dispense with for one's own part. 

The slightly less sophisticated Jew has still other spiritual vanities. He 
is likely to believe that ritual circumcision arose among his people as a 
prevision of the hygienic surgery of today, that the dietetic laws known 
as Mosaic were formulated out of the spirit of sanitation. Such minor 
delusions as these have been sadly exploded by our busy muck-raking 
friends, the anthropologists. If primitive tribes in Australia and Africa 
and South America practice ritual circumcision, obviously without the 
slightest knowledge of or concern for physical hygiene, and if there is 
hardly a group of savages on earth that has not its rigidly enforced 
food taboos, often strangely analogous to the food taboos enumerated 
in the Pentateuch, it is difficult to maintain with any seriousness that 
these old Jewish practices owe anything to scientific insight. The disap- 
pointed Jew may be congratulated on being taken down a peg, which 
is generally considered a good thing for one's soul. 

The little brochure before us might almost be described as blasphe- 
mous, were it not so modest, so gentle, so disarming in its simplicity of 
style and in its unobtrusive array of facts. If it does not take the sophis- 
ticated Jew down a peg, it should at least deflate him sufficiently to jog 



Four: Reflections on Conicmporary g05 

him down Haifa peg. Dr. Paul Radin is one of our best known Amcn- 
can anthropologists - his researches on the Winnebago Indians are 
already classic - and is so far from wishing to make express havoc with 
the Jewish claim to have alone developed the monotheistic conccpiu>n 
of religion that he hardly so much as mentions the words "•Jew" and 
"Judaism." The mischief he does is all by implication, lor if he is correct 
- and why should he not be? - monotheism ceases to be a distinctively 
Jewish idea. Nay more, and worse, it ceases to ha\e quite that unique 
value in the evolution of religious conceptions which has generalis been 
assigned to it. 

The first of these two theses is the one which more particularly inter- 
ests the Jew. Unfortunately it is the easier to demonstrate, for a compe- 
tent anthropologist like Dr. Radin has merely to go through his ethno- 
logical monographs, glean his facts, and set them before us with as little 
comment as possible to make it disconcertingly evident that monothe- 
ism is sufficiently widespread among the less advanced peoples of the 
world. So long as monotheism was lightly assumed to ha\e been de\ el- 
oped only in the highly complex and institutionalized forms in which 
we find it in Jewish, in Christian, and in Mohammedan belief, it was 
not difficult to show that the Jews had a very special claim on the 
historian's [525] attention, for the monotheism of both ChrisiianitN and 
Mohammedanism are clearly but derivatives o\' the monotheism o\ the 
latest phase of the Old Testament tradition. The existence o( Supreme 
Beings or High Gods among various primitive peoples has been recog- 
nized for a long time but the significance of this fact has been loo often 
denied by the unwarranted assumption that these deities are mereK 
late borrowings, merely suggestions picked up fri>m native contact with 
missionary teachings. This question-begging type o\ criticism is on a 
par with the glib and once popular method of "proving." that is. baldly 
asserting, that any primitive Flood legend that happened to be noted 
by an ethnological student was simply a distorted bit o\ biblical lore. 
We know better now. Flood legends, both o^ the Noah type and of 
other types, are well nigh universal. Their distribution is so defmiiely 
continuous and they are so heavily integrated with the culture o{ the 
natives that the theory of biblical origin is in nu>si ca^es mU-i! iUii o\ 
court at once. 

Dr. Radin briefly but skilfully analyzes the different types ol Supreme 
Being that the primitive data acquaint us with. He disimguishe- 

degrees of explicitness in the recognition o\' the principle ot n.. 

ism, shows how a conditional monotheism may well )^o hand in hand 



806 /// Culture 

with a belief in the existence of less puissant but humanly more accessi- 
ble divinities or spirits - very much as Mariolatry may coexist with an 
otllcial monotheism - points out the "otiose" character of many primi- 
tive High (iods, who may be projected by thought but never actively 
approached by prayer, and discusses the relationship, which is some- 
times an identity, between the concepts of Supreme Being and Transfor- 
mer or Culture Hero, the legendary benefactor of mankind. The illustra- 
tive material is culled from a very wide range of reading and first-hand 
knowledge, though a natural emphasis is placed on the aboriginal peo- 
ples of North and South America. 

In some cases the native formulation of monotheistic behef is singu- 
larly pure, as among the quite primitive Kagaba of South America, 
whose Supreme Being is an All-Mother. Dr. Radin quotes the following 
interesting passage from his source. Dr. K. T. Preuss: "The mother of 
our songs, the mother of all our seed, bore us in the beginning of things 
and so she is the mother of all types of men, the mother of all nations. 
She is the mother of the thunder, the mother of the streams, the mother 
of trees and of all things. She is the mother of the world and of the 
older brothers, the stone-people. She is the mother of the fruits of the 
earth and of all things. She is the mother of our younger brothers, the 
French and the strangers. She is the mother of our dance paraphernalia, 
of all our temples, and she is the only mother we possess. She alone is 
the mother of the fire and the Sun and the Milky Way. She is the mother 
of the rain and the only mother we possess. And she has left us a token 
in all the temples, a token in the form of songs and dances." This is 
fully as elevated in spirit as some, at least, of the early biblical passages 
that might be quoted in reference to the Hebrew Yahweh. Very interest- 
ing, too, are the esoteric beliefs of the medicine-men among the Dakota 
(or Sioux) Indians. The commonalty believes in a large number of dis- 
tinct deities but to the properly initiated medicine man all these gods 
are but so many aspects of a single Great Mystery, the Wakan Tanka. 

Monotheism, then, is by no means absent or even rare among primi- 
tive folk. Everything goes to show that this religious conception was 
arrived at not once but many times in the history of man. The monothe- 
ism [526] of the Old Testament is not a unique contribution to the devel- 
opment of religious ideas, though it remains, of course, by far the most 
important historical embodiment of the High God or One God concept. 
The next point to take up, and the one that more particularly interests 
Dr. Radin, is whether or not it is necessary to consider monotheism as 
a more evolved stage in religious expression than the polytheism which 



Four: Rcllcctions on Contcmpurury 807 

we are generally in ihc habil (A lookint' upDii as nu)rc prinmivc or 
as less pure. Quite aside Worn liic question o\ the intrinsic saluc of a 
monotheistic view of the supernatural world and of man's guidance m 
that world, a number of unorthodox anthropologists have fell them- 
selves driven by the facts to assume that nu)iioiheism is one of the vcrv 
earliest types of religious thinking, thai ii lends to antedate, rather than 
to follow, a full-Hedged polytheism. Andrew I.ang held to this vlcv^ 
as, more recently, did the famous Austrian anthropologist and linguist. 
Father Wilhelm Schmidt (see his Ur.sprmii; dcr (ioticsiiU'c). \o such 
speculative students it is the plastic variety of the (ireek and Roman 
pantheons and the pluralistic complexit\ o\' Hindu belief and ritual 
which are the "evolved" or more highly ci\ ili/ed forms o{ religious life. 
while the Hebraic monotheism and its modern Christian deri\ati\es are 
specialized and intensified forms o^ a far more typicalK pristine reli- 
gious impulse. 

Dr. Radin thinks - and rightly, I cannot but think - to take direct 
issue with any ironclad theory of religious e\olution. To him both mo- 
notheism and polytheism are primaril> the relleciions of fundamentall) 
distinct temperaments, the one concerned with the subjecti\e. simplify- 
ing world, the world of the introvert, the tnher u nh ihe objecli\e appre- 
hension of experience, the world o'i the e.\tro\eri, who is not satisfied 
unless he has grasped a given class of reality at as many points and 
under as many symbolisms as experience makes possible. 'Hie historical 
problem of monotheism then becomes not one o\' place in a schematic 
religious evolution but of the unraveling of the particular factors. en\i- 
ronmental, it may be, or economic or social or all or none o{ these, that 
gave the victory to one rather than another temperamental expression 
of the religious impulse, with a resulting \iolence, one may suppi'>se. !o 
those temperaments that would more naturally have found ihemseKes 
expressed in other forms. As Dr. Radin puts it. "" The historical problem 
connected with monotheism, implicit and explicit, is, as I see it. not 
how monotheism arose but what made it the prevailing and exclusive 
official religion of a particular people." 

The cultural philosophy which ser\es as Dr. Radin s naeKgi.'inui i.-i 
the development o{ his ideas on the monotheistic "slant" in religuMi 
primitive and sophisticated alike is well put in his concluding senten- 
ces. ''It must be explicitly recogni/cd ihai \n !em|x*rameni and in capiic- 
ity for logical and symbolical thought, there is no dilTcrence between 
civilized and primitive man." Monotheism "is de|X-ndent not ujvmi the 
extent of knowledge noi upon the elaboration o{ a cerlain lypc of 



g()g /// Culture 

knowledge, but solely upon the existence of a special kind of tempera- 
ment. When once this has been grasped, much of the amazement and 
incredulity one inevitably experiences at the clear-cut monotheism of so 
many primitive peoples will vanish and we shall recognize it for what it 
is - the purposive functioning of an inherent type of thought and emo- 
tion." So frank an anti-evolutionary attitude towards the history of 
religion, towards cultural history in general, will not prove congenial to 
all o( Dr. Radin's readers, but it is an attitude that has been making 
itself increasingly felt in anthropological thought. The day of plausible 
but loo [527] easy theories of necessary sequences in cultural history is 
gone. More and more we are getting to see that all cultural phenomena 
need for their ultimate explanation a psychology of personality and an 
understanding of what expressions are most appropriate to a given type 
of personality. A cultural form, such as a type of religious thinking or 
a literary method or a political ideal, is at last analysis suitable only to 
a portion of the individuals who make use of it, though the rest may 
be hardly at all aware of their subtle opposition. A complete theory of 
cultural phenomena must, then, first aim to disentangle the psychologi- 
cal factors which make them intelligible as human expressions; and, 
secondly, it must show why and how a certain psychological slant rather 
than another becomes institutionalized as the normal conduct of the 
group - over the heads, as it were, of personalities which are funda- 
mentally hostile to the triumphant slant. 

Returning now to the sophisticated Jew with whom, rather flippantly, 
we began our comments on Dr. Radin's brief but very far-reaching 
study of monotheism, we can see more clearly that it means little or 
nothing to be proud, or to refrain from being proud, of the supposedly 
distinctive contribution that Judaism has made to religious thought and 
feeling. Psychologically, monotheism is not a Jewish trait, no more than 
it is any other kind of national trait. Historically, it so chanced that the 
particular form of monotheism that had been developed by the Jews 
proved stimulating in the further development of other forms of mono- 
theism in alien lands. The cultural and spiritual significance of mono- 
theism, as of every other pattern of conduct, is not implicit in itself 
but depends altogether upon what sustenance living human beings may 
derive from it, or, to speak more accurately, may put into it. Monothe- 
ism as such is neither good nor bad, neither high nor low, precisely as 
a sonnet as such is neither good nor bad or as parliamentary govern- 
ment as such is neither high nor low. And surely a dead monotheism is 



Four: Reflections on Contemporary 8119 

not a greater spiritual loree tlian a li\e pi)l\ theism ox animism or olhcr 
type of religious belia\ior thai the simphtving theorists choose lo call 

"low" or "primiti\e." 



Editorial Nolo 

Originally published in Ihc Skuoiah .loiirmil II. 524 ■^'*'' ''^''^•^' 
under the title ""Is Monotheism Jewish?."' 

Paul Radin (1883-1959), an Ameriean anthropologist, pioneered 
(with Sapir) the Held ot studies in culture and personality, and the use 
ot^iutobiography in anthropology. 



Review of Ludwig Lewisohn, Israel 

Ludwig Lewisohn, Israel. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1925. 

Mr. Lewisohn's Israel is one of those books that it is almost impos- 
sible to judge without bias. There are very few readers, Jewish or Chris- 
tian, who will be able to see the author clearly, as he presents himself 
in this volume; fewer still, one suspects, who will be in a position to 
consider his evidence and his thesis apart from their own favorite read- 
ings of the Jewish question - or, if one prefers, absence of a Jewish 
question. Those who find their prejudices or benevolences confirmed by 
Mr. Lewisohn will deem this an important and even a great book and 
will dismiss its shortcomings as of no account. Just as surely, the reader 
whose attitudes are questioned in Mr. Lewisohn's pages will not lightly 
absolve him from the charges of unfairness, or an emotionally impelled 
misreading of the facts, perhaps of insincerity. Conversations that I 
have had with a number of readers of Israel have disclosed a gamut of 
opinions ranging from enthusiastic acceptance, through stolid indiffer- 
ence, to condemnation and rage. Jewish and Christian opinion are at 
one in being divided. Obviously Mr. Lewisohn has precipitated a cause, 
however much he may have desired to give us a book. In this review I 
shall try, with however little warrant of success, to see the book as a 
purely individual production, not as a jumping-off place for the airing 
of a question. 

The first thing that one notes about Israel when one has got well 
into the volume is a sHght, but none the less persistent, hollowness of 
style. The book is far from being badly written -indeed, there are many 
glowing and beautiful pages in it - but it has nowhere the very personal 
excellence of Up Stream. That book flowed along with a resistless cur- 
rent of its own; its passion so convinced that our private misgivings 
washed back as so many irrelevant chips floating beyond the main 
channel. There the coolness of criticism could not easily penetrate; here 
it is quite otherwise. Under the passionate phrases of Israel a sensitive 
reader may sometimes discover a spirit not utterly convinced of itself, 
needing to egg itself on in its predetermined course. In Up Stream one 
rushed down current despite the title of the book, in Israel one paddles 



Four: Reflections on Contemporary %\\ 

up CLincnl much o\' ihc lime. Ai its uoisi tins book uululges in sheer 
propagandism, and an ungenerous critic miiiht excerpt a great many 
passages which have the labored brilliance ot pri>clarnaluMis. In short, 
one is made aware of some tlaw in the impulse which directed the uril- 
ing of Israel. 

It may be thai Mr. Lewisohns inability to quite convmce us through 
the medium of his style is merely the reader's unwillingness to trust his 
own eyes and ears. It is difHcult to believe that one brought up in the 
essentially non-Jewish way that Mr. Lewisohn has so caret ull\ e.xpiaincd 
he was brought up in can adequately assimilate (215) the spirit of Jewish 
life on the wave of a personal protest. For there can be no reasonable 
doubt, after Vp Stream, that the fire o'( Israel owes much i>f its illumi- 
nation and certainly all of its heal to the inlenser fiame of a th\sarlcd 
personal ambition. I think Mr. Lewisohn would ha\e been less open to 
the charge of an insidious and perhaps eniirel\ unconscious insincerity 
if he had spoken with a more troubled con\iclion. The dubious, wistful 
note would have given his declarali\e enthusiasm the warrant that it 
somehow needs. Yet it would be manifesil\ unjust to prod too insis- 
tently under the surface texture of the book. It is enough to say that its 
manner is a little disquieting and that one wishes one were not con- 
stantly being induced to see the well-known mechanics of o\ercompcn- 
sation bustling over its pages. 

Mr. Lewisohn is very bitter about the assimilationists. Assimilation. 
he thinks, has been tried and found wanting, in America no less than 
in Germany. But he seems to overlook some \er> simple facts and lo 
refrain fiom certain very simple retleclions. In the first place, when in 
the history of mankind has ethnic assimilation been a comfortable and 
easy process? Had Mr. Lewisohn taken a bird's eye \iew o( human 
relations, instead of seeing the Jewish problem as the utierK unique 
thing which it is not, he would have realized the ine\itabilit> of conllicl. 
now overt and sanguinary, now peaceful but insidious, between any two 
cultures or religions or peoples that offer as man\ points of di (Terence 
as do the Jews and the tiadiiions aiul peoples ihe\ ha\e come into such 
close contact with. But instead ol eiuisaginii this conllicl as a perpetu- 
ally insoluble one, as a sort of fatal conundrum o\' histi>r>. he would. 
furthermore, have made the less dramatic but far more sober obser>-a- 
tion that the psychological distance which .separates the Jew from the 
non-Jew today is, by and large. perceptibK less great than it has ever 
been. Ku Klux Klans and pogroms and the stilTemng of Jewish disabili- 
ties here and there do not prove that assimilation is impossible, but 



812 /// Culture 

they prove that it is a far less easily consummated process and a more 
tortuously winding one than some idealists would like to have it. They 
reiterate, in short, one of the annoying truisms of history. Mankind has 
never been unyielding, it has merely been stubbornly disposed not to 
yield. 

Mr. Lewisohn is quite wrong, I believe, in ruling out assimilation as 
a solution of the Jewish problem. It is, patently, a very possible and a 
very excellent one in thousands of individual cases - in spite of the 
embarrassing fact that many highly educated Jews or very many weal- 
thy Jews are debarred from membership in clubs that are deemed desir- 
able of entry. But he is perfectly correct in finding also another solution, 
for there is no reason whatever to believe that but one solution was 
preordained. For one thing, it is altogether likely that large masses of 
Jews will continue to lead a somewhat distinctive Hfe in the midst of 
other peoples. This too is a "solution," as such things go in that flux of 
human affairs which always refuses to reach the particular equilibrium 
desired by those who decide upon the course of events. For another, 
the Zionist experiment to which Mr. Lewisohn pins his hopes is an 
admirable solution insofar as it satisfies the aspirations of many thou- 
sands of courageous Jews, inspired by a number of distinct motives. 
One gains nothing by closing one's eyes to facts and by declaring, out 
of the rhetorical fervor of one's preference, this or that turn to be the 
right and only solution. For there is not one Jewish problem, there are 
many - keenly personal ones of all [216] sorts, and varying group prob- 
lems conditioned by local circumstances, economic and cultural. Mr, 
Lewisohn would not have hurt his plea for Zionistic support if he had 
frankly recognized the possibility of some measure of assimilation, for 
assimilation on a grand scale is obviously not possible in the immediate 
future. 

Most books about the Jew have an unpleasant flavor of the apolo- 
getic about them. Israel is free from this taint. It presents the case for 
the Jew as a creator of cultural values with pride but not with partisan- 
ship. Mr. Lewisohn knows too much about the cultural history of 
Europe to indulge in a rhapsodical cataloguing of Jewish exploits in the 
arts and sciences. He puts most of his emphasis on the peculiar, narrow, 
over-intellectualized, yet always intense and vital Jewish culture of east- 
ern Europe and has it meet the more comfortable but also the more 
flabby and fragmentary culture of Anglo-Saxon America with outward 
deference and an inner awareness of a half useless superiority. In all 
this he is doing both Jew and non-Jew an immense service. No Ameri- 



Four: Rcjlcciiom on Ciinicmporary 8I3 

can, after reading Mr. Lewisohns bimk. can cDniinuc lo led ihal ihc 
uncouth Jewish immigrant tVi)ni IVilaiui m 1 iihuania comes lo this land 
as a spiritual mendicant. Most Americans, one tears, had rather taken 
tor granted Just that. A clearing of the atmc^sphere makes for health all 
around. 

"House of Bondage," the chapter in which the bases of Jewish life. 
its historical background, and its peculiar problems are well described. 
is probably the most important in the book. I cannot refrain from quot- 
ing a passage on the psychological significance of the Jewish faith and 
legends as viewed by a non-believer. "I ha\e come to see," says Mr. 
Lewisohn, "that the relation of Jews to their faith and legends and 
traditional wisdom is not like the relation o'i the peoples o)^ the West to 
their religion. Primitive Christianity is Jewish and has ne\er con\ cried 
the Gentiles. The pomp of Rome and her gods is in the South; (jermanic 
festivals and legends and epics rule the North. Hence the Christian 
world whose religion is divided from its national culture has lost the 
conception of an autonomous, national faith. We Jews need not belie\e 
in our religion even as enlightened Greeks did not believe in gods or 
oracles. It is the still veracious symbol of our national character and 
history. The Torah and the Prophets, the wisdom books and legends oi 
later ages - these are our Iliads and Nibelungen Lays; they express our 
national character, our essentially eternal traits. The chivalric vsarlike 
Gentile does not find himself in the Gospel. He has to be con\ cried 
again and again. When it suits him he abrogates the teachings of his 
faith, and preaches hate in the name of Jesus. The Jew need believe 
nothing. But when he reads of Joseph asking concerning the old man, 
his father, and weeping; when he reads that the ground must lie fallow 
every seventh year for the poor and nuisi not be held m perpeluiiy since 
it is God's; when he reads of the Jubilee year in uhich all wrongs arc 
to be righted and every man returned unto his oun; when he reads o^ 
Gideon's refusal of power; when he reads that a young poet and musi- 
cian was chosen to be king; when he reads in Isaiah of a golden age not 
in the past but in the future, a golden age uhi^se name for all peoples 
shall be peace - when he reads these things he comes home lo his 
people and himself. For these ideas and e\enls express his innermosi 
self; they are today, as they have been in the past, the exact image of 
his innate character and modes o\' thought." 

Some of this sounds, perhaps, as though righteousness and idealism 
were [217] Jewish inventions but it is ncMie the less interesimg lor the 
light it throws on the necessity o( ha\mg a cultural background if one 



814 /// Culture 

is to be oneself. Personalities seem to differ in the degree of this neces- 
sity and Mr. Lewisohn, individualist more in will than in the essential 
form of his mind, has a greater cultural necessity, it may be, than the 
average. It is natural, therefore, that when his non-Jewish European- 
American background failed him he must at all costs discover the Jew- 
ish background he had not even abjured but to which his unwelcoming 
American hosts implacably referred him. 

There is much excellent descriptive matter in the book - a graphic 
account of the unspeakable conditions in Poland, many splendid pas- 
sages on the work the Jews have already done in Palestine. Unfortu- 
nately Mr. Lewisohn has to confess - albeit his humility seems to be a 
proud one - that he knows little of statistics. Now colorful impressions 
make splendid reading but they do not always establish a case. It may 
be that the Palestinian chapters of Israel have a wealth of factual mate- 
rial behind them and are not builded mainly of personal glimpses and 
of roseate hopes. One comes away with a disquieting feeling, however, 
that not all the objective facts have been properly evaluated. 

One is particularly disturbed by Mr. Lewisohn's persistently idealistic 
glasses. Granted that the fundamental drive of Zionism is strongly tinc- 
tured by idealism, it can hardly be maintained with any show of serious- 
ness that there is a natural probability of the effective continuance of 
the sheer spirit of idealism among the colonists and their successors. 
Insofar as the Jewish community in Palestine is to hold its own in the 
workaday political and economic world, it will be forced to insist on 
values and on methods that are more practical than ideal. Mr. Lew- 
isohn's conception of the Jewish task in Palestine is that it is not to 
institute a new nationalism, another mushroom growth of prejudices 
and localisms, but it is to introduce a polity animated by the ideals of 
internationality and pacifism. It is just a Httle difficult to see how such 
a movement as Zionism, actuated as it is by the reawakening of the 
spirit of Jewish nationalism, is to keep itself unalloyed by the necessities 
and foibles that attend any nationaHst undertaking. Perhaps Jewish na- 
tionalism, as Mr. Lewisohn would have us believe, is a permanently 
broadminded and self-sacrificing faith, perhaps there is an abiding 
something that is different and finer about the temper of Zionism, an 
idealism made local through necessity rather than through choice. But 
the gentle sceptic, fed on history and on a sad belief in the essential 
sameness of human psychology in every nook and cranny of the world, 
can only shake his head with that bitter-sweet smile that is at least as 
Jewish a symbol as the clear-eyed confidence of the nationalist. 



Four: Re licet ions im Contemporary 8|5 

It seems to me thai if ihere is anything distinctive about the temper 
t>r Jewish (houLiht iinlax, ii is that it has hirgcly transcended the hmits 
of any locahsm, lunvever vast or powerful. This temper has been as 
often the subject of abuse as o\' fa\orable comment. Je\Msh ".' " •y" 
and "negativism," however, are but terms of disparagement iv . .. ...jril 

thai is abroad in the world today and which it is the "mission" of ihe 
Jew if the romantic philosopher o[' hisit>rv must give him a mission 
- to foster as best he can. This spirit runs counter to the current nation- 
alism which is perhaps more articulate than trul> vital. It is not so much 
a destroyer of folk values as a solvent o\' them. It refuses to make a 
fetish of any localism or lineage but [218] insists on utilizing the cultural 
goods of all localisms and of every lineage for a deeply personal synthe- 
sis. It is this spirit which Mr. Lewisohn has most trulv at heart, unless 
I misread all the signs. But, bafHed as he is bv the dilTiculty of living 
such a life of personal values, unequal to the task and privilege of seren- 
ity in the face of injury to pride, he has sought to find this spirit in 
Zionism. Zionism has its own justification but I cannot but think that 
Mr. Lewisohn is in error in identifying its philosophy with the critical, 
transnational philosophy that so many Jews have helped to create. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in The Mcnorah Journal 12. 214 218 (1926). 



Review of Frank H. Hankins, 
The Racial Basis of Civilization 

Frank H. Hankins, The Racial Basis of Civilization: A Critique of the 
Nordic Doctrine. New York: Alfred H. Knopf, 1926. 

Professor Hankins' book on race and its significance is admirably 
free from the excesses of the usual writers on the racial determination 
of culture. He is as hard on the Gobineaus and Houston Chamberlains 
and Madison Grants as any cultural anthropologist of the "Boas 
school," but he differs radically from this school in his insistence on the 
reality of the racial factor in the origination and intensification of cul- 
tural values. Dr. Boas, impregnably cautious in the face of evidence and 
lack of evidence, has never committed himself, to be sure, to the direct 
denial of the presence of importance of such racial factors. He has never 
said, in so many words, that the psychic potentiality of the average 
Negro or of the average Australian native is equal to that of the average 
white, but the general feeling has been that his verbally non-committal 
attitude masked an emotional "slant" in favor of the theory of substan- 
tial racial equality. The manifest differences in cultural achievement 
have always been explained by environmental and historical factors of 
various sorts. At no time has race itself - that is, the psychic limitations 
or advantages of one race as against another - been invoked as an 
efficient explanation of the vast differences in degree of cultural devel- 
opment. 

All the while, the conviction has been growing that there are signifi- 
cant correlations between bodily structure and psychic disposition. 
E. Kretschmer's observations on the relation between physical types 
and certain forms of insanity, including temperamental types tending in 
the direction of such forms of insanity, are not quoted by Professor 
Hankins, but they would not be irrelevant to his discussion. Granted 
that the definition of significant differences of temperament is far from 
clear, that Kretschmer's correlations are only an exceedingly rough ap- 
proximation to the truth, at best, and that it remains to be proved that 
the bodily variations - within a homogeneous group -which he deals 



Four: Reflections on Contemporary 8|7 

with are strictly analogous to race tliHcrciKcs, jt must be admiilcd thai 
the culturalist and the emiroiinieiiiaiist can no longer throw the uholc 
burden of proot\^n those who anjue lor at least some measure of racial 
determination. 

Yet one may not be willing to ^o nearl\ as far as i*rolessor llankms. 
who, though sensible of the importance of historical factors in the devel- 
opment of civilization and of the absurd lengths to which the race pro- 
tagonists have gone, is very much a eugenist - not a glib eugenisi nor 
a rough and ready one, but still a eugenist. He too is haunted b> the 
specter of what ominous things are happening and of what still more 
ominous things are due in the blind shutting o\' Mendelian trails. One 
cannot allay his fears, for one neither knows whether there are true 
fears to be allayed nor, if true they be, just where the enemy is to be 
scotched. Truth to say, one cannot even be sure w hich genes in a given 
individual are to be welcomed and which deplored. Vxom a practical 
point of view. The Racial Basis oJCiviliiafion advances us no further. 
Theoretically, the culturalist may still ask whether individual and racial 
differences of a psychic order are really as important determinants of 
the main lines of culture as they are currently assumed to be. l-"urihcr, 
are these differences to be lightly disposed o\' in accordance with the 
convenient but possibly naive categories o( "superior" and "inferior"? 
If only because the righteous. Spartan dream of the sterili/mg eugenisi 
is such a nightmare to the rest o\'' us. wc nuisi hope - we dare believe 
- that the time will come when the questions we now ask o( race and 
culture will be "solved," because no longer asked b\ an abscin-innulri! 
posterity. 

For one thing we must be grateful lo Professor llankms Me holds 
no brief for racial purity. On the contrary, he advises mixture, being 
merely concerned about the respective qualities o\' the blending races. 
or rather of the specific individuals concerned. The spectacle o( .Anglo- 
Saxon intermarrying, say, with Jew he watches with equanimity, even 
approval - always provided the genes are in order and one can 
readily forgive him the few very slight shafts o\' anti-Semilic raillerv 
with which he relieves the tension o\' the amalgamating process and of 
an exceedingly earnest book. 



EditiMKil Nine 

Originally published in Ihc .\cu Rcpuhlu 53. \M^ t '^'^'•' under the 
title "A Reasonable Hugenist." 



Observations on the Sex Problem in America 

If the writer ventures to make a number of analytical suggestions on 
the sex problem which is agitating so many men and women in America 
today, it is not because of any very special knowledge which he pos- 
sesses of the subject, but merely because some acquaintance with an- 
thropological data and with the anthropological approach to social 
data, fertilized by such observation of American facts and tendencies as 
has come his way, has given him a point of view which is perhaps a 
little personal. At any rate he cannot hope to give much cheer to either 
the radicals or the conservatives and he suspects that he may be accused 
of having tried to please both. It is peculiarly difficult to keep prejudice 
and sentiment out of a problem of this nature, and he cannot flatter 
himself that he has succeeded in attaining true objectivity. Some of his 
readers may even suspect, and no doubt with some justice, that there is 
little herein set forth which is not a rationalization of personal bias. In 
the present state of ethical unrest and of limited knowledge of the facts 
one can perhaps do little more than make articulate the peculiar nature 
of one's prejudice and the rationalizing process by which he hopes to 
make that prejudice acceptable to others. 

There are two measurably distinct aspects of the sex problem which 
are constantly being confused, though nothing seems more obvious 
than that every attempt should be made to keep them apart. [520] The 
purely practical problem of sex, physical and psychological, is absorbing 
so much attention that the ideological or cultural problem of sex is 
likely to be lost sight of. That every human being, as an organism desir- 
ing health, needs and has the right to demand sex gratification is, stated 
baldly, pretty much of a truism, though it is a truism which it has 
taken us much labor to convince ourselves of But what is by no means 
evidently true is the assumption that the full content, or the major por- 
tion, of the question of sex is merely a matter of individual satisfactions. 
Sex, like every other natural function which is not purely vegetative, 
brings with it many intimate questions of personal adjustment, of the 
adjustment of the individual to society, and of the fulfillment or flouting 
of ideals of conduct that have grown up about the organic nucleus. All 
of civilization is, in a sense, an elaborate screen which humanity has 



Foitr: Ri'fh'clion.s on C'ontcniporarv g|9 

pul between ilselfand naluie, wiih Us i\rannieal iiisisicncc on the neces- 
sities of biological functioning and with its sovereign disregard for ihe 
sentiments, the peculiar preferences, which men ha\e chosen lo develop 
out of a primordial chaos o\' instinct and emotion. Any philosophy of 
sex that begins with the feeling that it constitutes its own peculiar class 
of individual and social phenomena starts with an illusion. The problem 
of se.x is fundamentally like an\ (Uher social problem in that it deals 
with the attempt of human beings to reconcile their needs with cultural 
forms that are both friendly and resistant to these needs. It is necessary 
to stress this point, simple as it is, because so large a proportion of 
modern psychiatric writing seems almost deliberately to ignore the cul- 
tural point of view. 

It is strange how readily we tend to believe that if onl> we can under- 
stand sex in terms which are applicable to the individual we have noth- 
ing further to worry about. We are constantly assuming for the field of 
sex conduct what it would never occur to us lo accept as natural in any 
other field of human conduct. Much of human life has grown up around 
the necessity of preserving the organism, oi^ securing suHlcieni food, 
clothing, and shelter. Yet these problems, urgent as they are. can never 
be viewed from the standpoint of the behavior o\ the indi\idual organ- 
ism alone but must be seen in their historically determined cultural 
setting. It is only in times of extreme crisis, when sociel> and its mecha- 
nisms tall to pieces, that we can actually see the individual hungering 
and [521] thirsting as a natural organism, and even then he is more 
likely than not to give some hint of the restraining and molding influ- 
ences to which he has been subjected by society. Around the simple acts 
of eating and drinking has grown a vast economy, with an accompany- 
ing symbolism of power, of comradeship, and o\' other significant hu- 
man relations that go tar beyond the organic necessities o\' food and 
drink. And the ritualism of meals, meaningless from a mereK physii>log- 
ical view-point, has come to seem so natural to the average civili/ed 
man that he would feel acutely uncomfortable if he were doi>med for 
the rest of his life to supply his bodilv needs wiilunit its ceremonial 
sanction. Why should the sex impulse, which is cerlainK o\' no more 
urgency in the life of the individual than the satisfaction of hunger and 
thirst, escape from the historical law of the conditioning of fundamental 
impulses into forms that take on the character of social values? 

We are told by man\ modern thinkers that we have at last discovered 
the startling fact that sex is a "good"" in itself and that, being such, lis 
demands must be satisfied sooner or later It would be far more correct 



^20 IJI Culture 

to say that sex is neither a good nor an evil. It is merely a fact of nature. 
The concept o'i a good cannot be associated with it except in so far as 
human beings in society have come to look upon certain modes of con- 
duct and certain stales of mind which lead to and from the satisfaction 
o{ the sex impulse as good or valuable conduct or attitudes. To the 
extent that people withdraw from it their evaluating attention and leave 
it to the exigencies of nature, they reduce it to the unconditioned pri- 
mary le\el to which belong the purely instinctive satisfactions of hunger 
and thirst and the random and unevaluated forms of motor conduct of 
an untaught child. The truth of the matter is, that to say that sex is a 
good in itself has as much or as little meaning as to say that it is good 
to breathe or to eat raw flesh. For men organized in society goods or 
\ alues come not from a consideration of the simple satisfaction of im- 
pulses but from the heightening of the meaning of such satisfactions 
through the symbolisms of social intercourse. 

A rather artificial divorce has been made between the sex impulse 
and love, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the modern 
chafes at the supposedly unnecessary accretions which the sex impulse 
has received, that he wishes to free this primary value [522] from those 
trimmings which make love of it. If anything were needed to prove the 
inveterate romanticism of the present age, which never tires of the boast 
of its hard-headed realism, it would be this very unwiUingness to recog- 
nize the naturalness and the universality of the emotion of love. One 
hears it said that among the truly enlightened love, in so far as it exists 
at all, is merely the casual association of the sex impulse with certain 
warm feelings of companionship or friendship and that nothing is more 
natural than that this fortuitous association should be constantly in- 
terrupted or broken up. 

There is, of course, a reason for the present emphasis on the legiti- 
macy of sex as such, as contrasted with the sentimental justification for 
sex relations on the basis of love. This reason is not far to seek. The 
old Puritan morality which looked upon the sex act as inherently sinful 
IS still too painfully near to us, and the revolt which was bound to set 
in sooner or later has concentrated all of its energies on the annihilation 
of this notion of sin. Naturally enough, it has had little patience with 
the arduous task of retaining that in the inherited ideology of sex which 
was psychologically sound or, at any rate, capable of preservation as a 
value without violence to nature. What has happened is that the odious 
epithet of sin has been removed from sex, but sex itself has not been 
left a morally indifferent concept. The usual process of overcorrection 



Four: Reflections on Conicniporarv 821 

has invested sex with a factitious vakie as a romaiuic and glorious thing 
in itself. The virus of sin has passed into love, and the imagmaiivc 
radiance of love, squeezed into the cramped quarters formerly occupied 
by sin, has transfigured lust and made it into a new and phosphorescent 
holiness. Love, a complicated and inevitable sentiment, is for the mo- 
ment sickening for lack of sustenance. 

We are in the habit of complimenting ourselves on the healthy atti- 
tude which is coming to prevail in America toward questions of sex. 
There is some justification for this, for it is obvious that an attitude 
that looks upon sex as intrinsically evil, and that seeks to rescue it from 
condemnation by confining it into conventionally fixed and appro\ed 
channels, is a repressive and unhealthy one. But I am not willing to 
grant, for all that, that the present excited and puzzled attitude, shifting 
back and forth in a single individual's [523] mind all the way from 
orthodox acceptance of the restraints of Puritanism to a reasoned reli- 
gion of promiscuity, is a healthy attitude. The very notion of health 
implies the presence of a certain balance and o( a fundamental suret> 
of the significant outlines of behavior. The most that one can say for 
the sex mind of radical America is that it is in a state o( transition and 
that a certain willingness to experiment dangerousl\ is in the long run 
a safer thing than a premature striking of the balance. This may be a 
just interpretation of the few; of the many, who bless you for a formula 
for noble weakness, it is but psychology gulled. A realistic view of actual 
sex opinion and sex behavior leads to the feeling that on every hand 
life is being measurably cheapened by an emotional uncertamt\ in 
matters of sex, matters that no healthy society can long brook uncer- 
tainty of. An individual can create true personal values only on the 
basis of those accepted by his society, but when nothing is accepted, he 
has no room for the growth of any values that are more than empty 
formulae. The ''enrichment of personality" by way of multiple "e\|X'n- 
ences" proves to be little more than a weary accumulation o\' pi>\ertics. 
These shibboleths are given the lie b\ the uneasy eyes o\ the bored 
adventurers who drawl them out. Human culture, it seems, is so consti- 
tuted that the individual dare never face his own organisinal responses 
skeptically. These fundamental responses must somehow be taken care 
of, by implication, in the patterns of social conduct, and the individual 
who is constantly being called upon to create such patterns anew never 
gets beyond the point of struggling with iialurc. His "freedom" is but 
the homelessness of the outlaw. 



822 ^^^ Culture 

The present sex unrest has been nibbhng at more or less reliable infor- 
mation reported by anthropologists from primitive communities. Any 
primitive community that indulges, or is said to indulge, in unrestricted 
sex behavior is considered an interesting community to hear from. Such 
a community is at once equated with "primitive man" in general and 
has the great merit of bringing us back to that primary and glorious 
man that wishful romanticists have always been dreaming about. 

It does not seem to occur to the readers of excited books about plea- 
sure-loving Samoans and Trobriand Islanders that perhaps these com- 
munities are not as primitive as they seem, that there [524] are perhaps 
other primitive groups that have developed an ideology of sex that is 
not so very different from that of our happily extinct Victorian ances- 
tors, and that in any event there may be social determinants in such 
societies that make the question of value in sex conduct of lesser ur- 
gency than among ourselves. It is true that many primitive societies 
allow of erotic and marital arrangements that shock the sensibilities of 
our conservatives. But what should be denied is that sex conduct is 
truly unregulated even in these societies. A closer examination shows 
that the community has certain very definite ideas as to what is allow- 
able and what is not allowable. As the native ideology of the permitted 
and the illicit, however, in such groups is rarely calculated to interest 
us unless we happen to be objective students of primitive culture, it is 
not so obvious why we should think of the license, or approximate 
license, that we read into their sex behavior to be of special concern to 
us. If we cannot sympathetically understand their sex taboos, why do 
we pretend to understand their freedom from our sex taboos? Obviously 
they are in no better case than we ourselves. Historical factors have set 
certain specific bounds to the expression of the sex impulse in these 
societies, as they have set more or less specific bounds in our own, and 
a primitive reformer who attempted to break down every possible bar- 
rier to the free play of sex would receive small comfort from his fellow- 
men. 

But it is simply not true that sex freedom is the norm for primitive 
societies. It is, as a matter of fact, very much the exception, and the 
presence of sex taboos, of institutionalized deferments of sexual gratifi- 
cafion, and of all manner of sex ideals, so far from justifying us in 
wrmging our hands at the perversity of mankind, might more rationally 
be expected to lead to a psychological inquiry into the reason why hu- 
man beings have so persistently gone out of their way to put obstacles 
m the way of the immediate satisfaction of the sex impulse. A certain 



1 



Four: Rcjlcciions on Coniemporary 823 

type of historian is rcad_\ with his answer. He iclls us ihal ilicsc restric- 
tions have merely come in as a by-protiiict o\' the conception that 
women are a form o'( property. This is one of ihosc liieories thai arc 
too plausible to be true. The institutionalizing of marriage in terms of 
property can be amply illustrated in both primitive and sophisticated 
societies - this no one doubts - but we are far from (525] having the 
right to take it for granted that ideas of ownership are the root of sex 
restrictions. We know too little as yet about the psychological causes of 
sexual modesty and secrecy, of the universal dread of sex squandering, 
of the irresistible drive to hedging sex about in one way or another, but 
we may be certain that these causes are not of a trivial nature and that 
they are not to be abrogated by a smart and irixial analysis o\' sex b\ 
intellectuals who have more curiosity than intuition. For reasons which 
can only be dimly guessed at, man seems e\erywhere and always to 
have felt that sex was a quintessential gratification that it was not well 
to secure at too easy a price, that it held within it sources o( power, of 
value, that could not be rudely snatched. In short, mankind has always 
known that sex needed to be conserved in large part and made over 
into more than sex. Freud's theory of sublimation has always been 
man's intuition, and sex has always restlessly striven to become lo\e. 

Nothing seems more difficult than to convince the all-wise modern 
that the emotion of love, quite aside from the nii>nieniary fulfillment o^ 
desire, is one of the oldest and most persistent o\' human feelings. It is 
far from being the secondary or adventitiously superimposed thing that 
it is so often said to be. On the contrary, much that is generally interpre- 
ted as primitive, because unromantic, may well be interpreted iis a su- 
perstructure imposed upon the sex life by ccMisideraiions of a relati\el\ 
sophisficated nature - economic, social, religious, or political. 

It may be well at this point to relate a brief story which I collected a 
number of years ago from the Sarcee Indians of .Alberta. C"anada. Flic 
story goes back to the early days, before the Indians were seriously 
bothered by the white man's moraliiy or his license It will seem all 
wrong to some, for it is nothing more nor less ihan an old-tashioncd 
love story from anywhere and anytime. 

Here, once upon a time, they were camped in a circle. Hies were 
putting up the Sun Dance.' This one \oung man was making love to 
her; he and the [526] girl had lo\e U^r each other, tvery lime that she 
came in she would sit down close to where the people were singing and 
her young man would peep in between the lodge-poles which were lean- 



824 ^t^ Culture 

ing against each other. And so it was that his face paint would always 
be left on the poles. 

After a while it was said that they were about to go on the warpath, 
so this young man went to his sweetheart and said to her, "Do not get 
lonesome for me. We shall see each other again." And then the girl gave 
him a little of her hair which she had cut off and she tied it up and they 
kissed each other and parted. Now they went off to war and the girl's 
heart dropped.- When the Sun Dance was over, the people broke up 
camp; they were to come together again at this place and at a stated 
time. They moved off in different directions. Now, as to these people 
who had gone off on the warpath, they were sighted by the enemy, who 
sat down in ambush for them. When they got in sight of the enemy, 
they were attacked and all of them were killed. 

When a long time had elapsed the people came together again at the 
place that had been mentioned, and when they were all assembled the 
news was brought that those who had gone off to war had all been 
killed - so it was said. This girl heard about it. And then she went to 
the Sun Dance lodge and came here to the place where her sweetheart 
had been in the habit of peeping in. She saw his face paint on the pole 
against which he used to lean. And then she returned to her people's 
lodge and, having arrived there, she took a rope. And then she went 
back to the Sun Dance lodge and climbed the pole which stood in the 
center of it. She tied the rope to the pole and looped the other end of 
it about her neck. And then she sang the song which her sweetheart had 
been in the habit of singing. After a while a certain one discovered the 
girl and what she was doing, how she was singing while seated up there 
on the pole. He spoke of it. They rushed out to her, but before they 
could reach her she had jumped off and strangled herself with the rope. 
Though they cut the rope off at once, she was already dead. That is 
how the girl strangled herself. 

This story proves nothing, but it gives pause for thought. It contains 
all the elements of romantic love and it subjects that romantic love to 
the final test of all values, which is the test of tragedy. It is not an 
isolated instance, by any means, though I should not like to be mis- 
understood as claiming it to be an average or even a typical incident of 
primitive life or of any other form of life. It is one of those compara- 
tively rare but basically typical examples of the form that a natural 
value will take in almost any culture if it is supported by an underlying 
passion which is both pure and intense. To speak of frenzy or madness 



i 



Four: Reflections on Contcmporarv 825 

is useless, for, as [527] the psychialrisl knows belter ihan anvtMic else, 
frenzy is the cHmactic test of any \akie. 

What is the meaning of this strange passion o( love, which crops up 
at all times and in all places and which the modern rationalist finds it 
so difficult to allow except as a superficial amplification of the sex drive 
under the influence of certain conventional ideas and habits? It is as 
difficult to state clearly what the emotion consists of as it is easy, if one 
is willing to be but honest for a moment, to comprehend it. Tlie sex 
nucleus is perfectly obvious and no love that is not built up around this 
nucleus has psychological reality. But what transforms sex into love is 
a strange and compulsive identification of the loved one with every kind 
of attachment that takes the ego out of itself. The intensity of sex be- 
comes an unconscious symbol for every other kind of psychic intensity, 
and the intensity of love is m.easured by the intensities of all non-egoistic 
identifications that have been transferred to it. it is useless to argue that 
this is madness, for in a sense it is, but we have yet to learn of a \alue 
or an ideal that is not potential madness. 

Why is it, then, that a sentiment which is as much at home in our 
despised Victorian yesterday as in the obscure life of a remote Indian 
tribe needs to be discussed with so much apology toda\'.' FIkmc is a 
complex of factors which explains the present temper and ue need onl\ 
mention them to make us realize how transitory is likel\ to be thai 
temper. I have already spoken of the anti-Puritan revolt, uhich is much 
more than a revolt against sex repression alone but is a generalized 
revolt against everything that is hard, narrow, and intolerant in the old 
American life, and which sees in sex repression its most potent s\mbol. 
Many young men and women of today who declare themsehes sexually 
free are really revolting against quite other than sc\ restrictions. The> 
glory in the reputed "sin" because they see it as a challenge to the Ncry 
idea of repression. 

The revolt complex is powerfully strengthened b\ an insidious inllu- 
ence exerted by modern science. It has been one o\' the cheerless, yet 
perfectly natural, consequences of the scientific view of life that nothing 
in human conduct is supposed to have reality or meaning except in the 
ultimate physiological terms that [52S] alone describe life or are said to 
describe life to its scientific analyst. If life is nothing but physiology. 
how can love be other than sex, with sucli immaterial reinierpreiations 
as no hard-headed modern need take seriously? 

Even more important, at least in America, is the great ps\chological 
need of the modern woman to extend and make firm her s\mbols of 



826 itl Culture 

economic independence. Every attitude and every act that challenges 
the old doctrine of psychic sex difference is welcomed, no matter where 
it leads. The most obvious differences of motivation between the sexes 
are calmly ignored and a whole new mythology has been evolved which 
deceives only the clever. The virulence of this reinterpretation of the 
significance of sex differences is tending to die down, but the psycholog- 
ical aftermath of the feminist revolt is still with us. Every psychiatrist 
must have met essentially frigid women of today who have used sex 
freedom as a mere weapon with which to feed the ego. And this all too 
common sacrifice of love and the possibility of love on the alter of 
an ambition which is essentially insatiable, because it is so much of a 
compulsion, is met by the complementary need of "fair-minded" men 
to accept the free woman at her word. Hence the cult of pseudo-nobility, 
what Wyndham Lewis so aptly calls the new "sex-snobbery," which 
makes an intellectual fetish of "freedom" and abolishes jealousy by a 
fiat of the will. 

The psychological falsity of these attitudes and Hberations is manifest 
enough and leads to a new set of most insidious repressions which owe 
their origin to the subordination of impulse to reason. It is questionable 
if these new and hardly recognized repressions, these elaborate maskings 
of the unconscious by the plausible terminologies of "freedom," of "cu- 
mulative richness of experience," of "self-realization," do not lead to 
an even more profound unhappiness than the more normal subordina- 
tion of impulse to social convention that we hear so much about. 

The truth of the matter is that in the life of the emotions one can 
make too few as well as too many demands, and the life of love is 
naturally no exception to the rule. Men and women who expect too 
little of each other, who are too nobly eager to grant each other privi- 
leges and self-existences that the unconscious does not really want, in- 
vite a whole crop of pathological developments. First of all, the chronic 
insistence on the notions of freedom and [529] self-expression is itself 
contrary to the natural current of the sex life, which flows away from 
the ego and seeks a realization for the ego which is in a sense destructive 
of its own claims. Sex as self-realization unconsciously destroys its own 
object by making of it no more than a tool to a selfish end. There can be 
no doubt that much modern sex freedom is little more than narcissism. 
Applied narcissism, in our particular society, is necessarily promiscuity. 

A further consequence of an uncritical doctrine of sex freedom is the 
lack of true psychological intimacy between lovers or between husband 
and wife. Abstract freedom is poor soil for the growth of love. It leads 



I'Dur: Rcflc'cflon.s on Coniini/xtrury 827 

lo an LiiiacknowlcdgCLl siispicii>n aiul ualchtulncss and a nevcr-salisficcl 
longing which in ihc cn^\ l\\\ o\T ihc rmcr and the more sublimated 
forms of passion. Ihc niodcrn man seeks lo sa\c the siiualion by ana- 
lyzing sex attachment intt) the rulllllmcnt of sex desne plus such inii- 
macy as constant companionship can give. This is, of course, lolally 
false psychologically, it is merely a feeble synthesis of dissociated ele- 
ments arrived at by an inadequate analysis. Ihe easy accessibility of the 
sexes to each other at an early age, the grtnvth o\' the "'paf' spirit be- 
tween them, with sex itself thrown in as a bribe or as a reward all 
this, so far from bringing the sexes together in a liner intimac>. has 
exactly the opposite effect o\^ ieaxing them csscniiall\ strangers \o each 
other, for they early learn to know just enough [o put the more intuitive 
seeking stupidly to sleep. Is it a wonder that tiie sexes unconsciously 
hate each other today with an altogether new and baftlmg \irulence'.' 

In extreme cases - one dreads to acknowledge lun\ appallingly fre- 
quent these extreme cases are becoming - the constantly dampened, 
because never really encouraged, passion between the sexes leads to 
compensation in the form of homosexuality, which, if we are reliabh 
informed, is definitely on the increase in America. This surely is a 
strange point of arrival for a gospel of dcli\ci\ from repression, but it 
is a perfectly explicable one. Love having been squeezed out o\' sex, it 
revenges itself by assuming unnatural forms. The cult o\' the "natural- 
ness" of homosexuality fools no one but those who need a rationaliza- 
tion of their own problems. 

In estimating the significance of the social and psychological currents 
which are running in the sphere of sex toda\. it is important [530) lo do 
justice to both cultural and personal factors. It is dangerous to ignore 
either. Our culture of today is not the creation o\' the moment, but the 
necessary continuation of the culture of \csicida\. wiiii all iis \alucs. 
These values need revision, but they cannot be overthrown b\ an\ scien- 
tific formula. The intellectuals who declare them dead are \er\ much 
more at their mercy than they care to know. It is not claimed that all 
individuals can or should make identical adjustments, but m an atmo- 
sphere in which no norms of conduct are recognized and no values arc 
maintained, no man or woman can make a truly satisfacti>r\ individual 
adjustment. 

It is peculiarly dangerous in dealing with the sex problem lo lei prelly 
verbal analogies do the work o\' an honesl analysis. Hie pri>blem of 
jealousy is an excellent illustration of this. Owing lo the highlv indnidu- 
alistic and possessive philosophy o( so much o\' our life, the image of 



828 i^t Culture 

possessiveness has been plausibly but insidiously transferred to the mar- 
ital relation, finally to the relation of love itself. Sex jealousy is therefore 
said to imply possessiveness. As one emancipated young woman once 
expressed it to me, it would be an insult to either her or her husband 
to expect fidelity of them. Yet what is more obvious than that jealousy 
can no more be weeded out of the human heart than the shadows cast 
by objects can be obliterated by some mechanism that would restore to 
them an eternal luminosity? Every joy has its sorrow, every value has 
its frustration, and the lover who is too noble to be jealous has always 
been justly suspected by mankind of being no lover at all. It is not the 
province of men and women to declare out of their intellectual pride 
what emotions they care to sanction as legitimate or admirable. They 
can only try to be true to their feelings and to accept the consequences 
of their fulfillment or denial in whatever terms nature sees fit to impose. 

The supposed equivalence of sex jealousy to the emotion of resent- 
ment at the infringement of one's personal property rights is entirely 
false. Sex jealousy, in its purest form, is essentially a form of grief, 
while the combative feeling aroused by theft or other invasion of one's 
sovereignty is of course nothing but anger. Grief and anger may be 
intermingled, but only a shallow psychologist will identify them. Per- 
haps the linguistic evidence is worth something on this point. It is re- 
markable in how few languages [531] the concept of sex jealousy is 
confused with the notion of envy. Our use of the English word "jealous" 
in two psychologically distinct senses has undoubtedly been responsible 
for a good deal of loose thinking and faulty analysis. It is an insult 
to the true lover to interpret his fidehty and expectation of fidelity as 
possessiveness and to translate the maddening grief of jealousy into the 
paltry terminology of resentment at the infringement of property rights. 
These crowning psychological absurdities were reserved for the enhght- 
ened mentality of today. 

The psychiatrist understands better than anyone else how much we 
are swayed in the unconscious by obscure but potent symbolisms. There 
is a certain logic or configurative necessity about these symbolisms 
which it is very hard to put into words, but which the intuitively-minded 
feel very keenly. Sex conduct offers singularly potent examples of the 
importance of such symbolisms and of their arrangement in a series of 
cumulative values. I refer to the general symbolism of human intimacy. 

Every normal individual is unconsciously drawn toward or repelled 
by another individual, even if the overt contact is but brief and superfi- 
cial. These feelings of intimacy and withdrawal have their symbolisms 



Four: Reflections on C\>nieniporary 829 

in gesture and expression, which dilTer from individual lo indiNidual 
but tend none the less to take typical tornis under ihc intlucnce of social 
forces. Of necessity, the most potent symbols of intimacy are those that 
lead to the touching and handling of bodies. To put the mailer crudely, 
we are not in the habit of embracing people to whom we are indilfercnl 
and of standing frigidly aloof from those that we are psychologically 
intimate with, unless, of course, there is a conllict that paralyzes e.xprc»s- 
sion. Now, of all known forms of intimacy among human beings ihc 
sex relation is naturally the most far-reaching. It necessarily takes its 
place in the unconscious series of symbolisms o[' intimacy as the most 
valued and the final symbol of all. I do not claim that all human beings 
are equally sensitive to symbolisms of this sort, but there is enough of 
a psychological common ground in most oi" us to make it impossible 
for the normal person to transgress the unformulated laws of s\nibolic 
expression beyond a certain point. It is exceedingly likely, it seems to 
me, that the obscure, though of course unacknowledged, feeling of 
shame felt by prostitutes and by those who indulge in promiscuity is by 
no means entirely due to the [532] fact that the\ transgress the social 
code, laying themselves open to a conventional censure. It is likely that 
this shame is also in large part the resultant of an clusi\e feeling that a 
natural scale of values is being transgressed because the expressions 
which are their symbols are, by implication, arranged in a psychologi- 
cally impossible sequence. In a deeply symbolic sense, then, the prosti- 
tute is "illogical,'' and her only psychological escape is to refuse lo 
identify herself with her body. And it is no mere accident that so many 
of the protagonists of sex freedom despise their own bodies. 

In sober fact the erotic landscape in contemporar> America is b> no 
means as depressing as these observations may lead one to belies e. I 
have wanted rather to point out the psychological fallacies in the con- 
temporary cult of sex freedom and the ultimate implicatuMis o\' those 
fallacies than to give an accurate description o[' contemporary se.x life. 
Sex irregularities, while numerous, are not necessarily as indicative as 
they seem to be of the deeper-lying set of our erotic philosophy. I'nlcss 
I sadly misread the mores of America, there are many reassuring signs 
that the reign of so-called Puritan morality is noi likeh lo ciMne lo a 
sudden end even among the sophisticated and that, while the negative 
elements of that morality are sure to be cast aside by the mielligenl and 
their rigor mitigated by all. its essential core will survive, fcurofx* may 
laugh and shrug its shoulders but .America can be shockingly stubborn 
on what she feels to be the fundamentals o\' life, it would be nothing 



330 IIJ Culture 

short of a cultural disaster if America as a whole surrendered to conti- 
nental European teeling and practice. With religion in none too healthy 
a state and with the aesthetic life rudimentary and imitative, America 
needs an irrational faith in the value of love and of fidelity in love as 
perhaps no other part of the occidental world needs it today. 

The moral atmosphere in America is only superficially similar to that 
of continental Europe. One of the surest signs of the essential difference 
in outlook is the rapidly increasing divorce rate. Bewailed by domestic 
moralists and deplored by our European visitors, the ease of obtaining 
divorce in America is actually an indication of our restless psychological 
health. Were the institution of marriage and the family actually divorced 
in sentiment from [533] the sphere of sex indulgence, there would be no 
reason why a tolerance of marital infidelity should not come to be ac- 
cepted in America, as it has long been in France. But any one who 
imagines that America can with a clear conscience settle down to the 
reasonable and gracious distribution of individual pleasures and famihal 
ceremonies that seems to suit the French genius knows very little about 
the American temper. The very intellectuals who are clamorous in their 
determination to "go the Hmit" are unable in practice to "play the 
game." for they cannot learn the rules. Do what one will, sex relations 
in America have a way of calling up romantic images and implications 
of fidelity that make this country seem a mysterious, an incredible, 
realm to the emancipated foreigner. Incompatibility of husband and 
wife of necessity leads more speedily to divorce than in sophisticated 
Europe. I am leaving Russia out of the picture, for we know too little 
about the psychological realities of contemporary Russia to speak of it 
with profit. 

Closely connected with this stubborn unwillingness of the typical 
American to save marriage and the integrity of the family at the cost of 
erotic honesty is his peculiar unwillingness or inability to make a fine art 
of sex indulgence. The "kick" of sex freedom in America lies precisely in 
its being "sin," not an honest way of life. Americans make poor Don 
Juans. Nor does the graceful and accomplished hetaira of French life 
seem to flourish on our stubborn soil. Many young women have tried 
the part but even the most successful of our amateurs in the erotic arts 
seem compelled by the very nature of the culture in which they have 
been reared to pay a heavy price. Our intellectual mistresses of sin play 
a sadly pedantic part, their ardors are in the head rather than in the 
heart or even the "erogenous zone." To put it bluntly, the "free" woman 
of sophisticated America, whether poetess or saleslady, has a hard job 



Four: Rcflcciion.s on Contcnipotiirv 831 

escaping from the uncomforlablc feeling ihal slie is realh a safe, and 
therefore a dishonest, prostitute. The charge seems unreasonable to the 
mind, but the spirit cannot wholly thrt>vv off the imputation. 'Ilie balllc 
shows in the hard, slightly unfocused, glitter o{ the eye and in the hol- 
low laugh. And one can watch the gradual deterioration o\' personahly 
that seems to set in in many of our young women with premature adop- 
tion o\^ the new sophisticated sex standards. Psychiatrists have often 
burned their [534] fingers in this matter and perhaps there is nothing 
they need to keep more steadily in mind than that in proflering advice 
in matters of sex they are addressing themselves not merely to intelli- 
gence and to desire but to certain obscure and unacknowledged \alues 
that cannot be fiouted with impunity. If they are o\' foreign birth and 
culture, it would be well for them to take a little more seriously some 
of the "resistances" they encounter and to ponder, on occasion, the 
possibility that in exploding a personal "complex" they may incidentalK 
be shattering an "ideal." That American men and women coarsen on a 
fare that seems to agree with the sophisticates o\^ the Old World is both 
a warning and a reason for optimism. It points the way to a reaction 
of feeling that Europe will not understand. 

Americans tend, in the most disconcerting wa}, to be both realistic 
and conservative in the matter of sex. That psychological health de- 
mands sex satisfaction at a much earlier period than the general post- 
ponement of marriage makes possible is coming to be generally recog- 
nized. It is clear, however, that a true tolerance for illicit relationships 
of a promiscuous sort is not likely to become prevalent. Such suggested 
institutions as the companionate marriage lead one rather to suspect 
that America is feeling its way toward a loosening o\' tlie institutional 
rigors and responsibilities of marriage by the growth o^ new types of 
sex relationship. It is difficult to say just w hat is likely to emerge from 
the present period of unrest and experimentation, but one thing seems 
certain. America will not be a docile pupil o\^ Europe, and the sophisti- 
cates of this country who are taken in b\ the apparcntl> easy solutions 
of their European brethren, whom they so vainly admire, are likeh to 
find themselves in a strangely unsympathetic clime. That new institu- 
tions of an erotic and marital nature are slowly maturing is obsious. it 
is my belief that it is no less obvious that these institutions, whatever 
their forms may be, will not mean a surrender to license but will have 
for their object, however obscurely and indirectly, the saving of lo\e and 
the perpetuation of the romantic intiniac> and of tin- ulcil o\ lidelil) b> 



832 ^tt Culture 

those who are capable of this intimacy. And it is more Hkely than not 
that the average American, for a long time to come, will have the delu- 
sion, if it is nothing else, that he is capable of just this experience. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in the American Journal of Psychiatry 8:519-534 
(1928), with the following note: 

Prepared by request. This study is the first of a series of contributions 
from outstanding authorities in the various social sciences which The 
Journal will publish from time to time. 

This article was reprinted under the title "The Discipline of Sex" in 
The American Mercury 16:413-420 (1929), with minor changes and the 
first five paragraphs omitted. The American Mercury version was re- 
printed in Child Study, March 1930, with seven passages deleted and 
several subheadings added. 



Notes 

1. The Sun Dance is the most important communal ceremonial of the tribes of the Plains, 
and the most sacred object in the ritual is the center pole of the Sun Dance lodge. 

2. The native equivalent for "she was broken-hearted." 



Review of Waldo Frank, 
The Rc-Discovcry of Anicrii n 

Waldo Frank, The Rc-Discovcry of Anicricu: An Inlrodiiciion to a Phi- 
losophy of American Life. New York: Charles Scribner's S(M1s. 1929. 

It is not easy to give in a tew words ihc ihoiighi of this book, which 
originally appeared as a series of articles in the New Republic and which 
may be looked upon as a sort of philosophical follow-up to Mr. F-'rank's 
Our America. The author would be the first to admit that his approach is 
not strictly scientific, that metaphors weight) with pregnant symbolisms 
are made to do much of the work that is ordinarily assigned to logical 
analysis of facts and figures. Mr. Frank is at once philosopher, artist, his- 
torian, and prophet. The complete absence of either humor or modesty 
in this diagnosis of American civilization makes it somewhat laborious 
reading but it would be too easy to dismiss the book as useless. 

It is, as a matter of fact, informed by a very earnest -though not 
necessarily altogether sincere - awareness of the fragmentariness of our 
culture and by a passionate desire to see American life come through 
unscathed, well integrated, and free o[^ European intellectual domi- 
nance. Much in the book is obviously little more than a hieratic and 
unctuous projection of personal turmoil, yet something o^ \aluc re- 
mains. I believe that Mr. Frank is at his best when he speaks o\' the 
artistic currents in America. When he leaves the \~\c\i\ o\' literaiurc and 
art, concerning which his observations are always sensitive, houescr 
grandiosely expressed. [336] and turns to those wider cultural problems 
which should be, but never are, adequately handled by the anthropolo- 
gist and the sociologist, he becomes at once lyrically porienious. We arc 
then shoved into a hot jungle of psychoanalytic images in \shich bio- 
logy, psychology, and social science are melted down into some strange 
alloy o'( the fancy. In Mr. Frank's thought all the colors run. c\er> 
outline is blurred, every content is charred aiui diinined. It is a pity ihal 
he disdains lucidity and courts the "\atic"" pose, for I diuibi whether 
most Americans are quite as romantic as Mr. Frank belie\es them lo 
be and, in any event, as he himself uiidoubiedl> still is m spile of all his 
attempts to be hard and "modern." 



834 /// Culture 

Editorial Note 

Originally published in The American Journal of Sociology 35, 
335-336 (1929). Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago 
Press. 

Waldo D.Frank (1889-1967) was an American writer, and the 
founder and editor of The Seven Arts magazine. 



What is the Family Slill Good For? 

Is it really true that the family is about to disappear.' is it really true 
that parents have been tbund wanting and are about to resign their 
sovereignty into the hands of the commonwealth? That children have 
found out their elders and are about to declare their independence? That 
the sex relation has been discovered freed from a matrimonial frame? 
That mothers have no further claim for the rearing of children than a 
useless affection and had better resign themselves to the up-to-date pre- 
school nursery and devote themselves in the absence of their children 
to the ever-growing necessities of club life? 

Now these things are more than a flippant jest. Perhaps never before 
in the history of mankind has the family been so lightly regarded as in 
contemporary America. Twenty-five years ago the family seemed as se- 
cure as the rocks both as institution and as sentiment. And now we 
hear it said that it is a shaky, unwilling institution and a begrudging 
sentiment at best. The family seems to be literally up with its back 
against the wall, faced by an immense crowd known as "the young," 
aided and abetted by the figures of the sociologist, the revelations of 
the psychologist and the sneers of the anthropologist. This picture of 
opinion about the family is confessedly inexact. It is a lurid one. but 
surely it is of some significance that it is possible to draw the picture 
without too great a show of shame or hesitation. 

It would be interesting to go fully into the reasons for this threatening 
dissolution of the family, if we could. [32] It is an invoi\ed business, 
very much mixed up with the tangled question of sex relations and with 
the industrialization of society. To understand the family is to under- 
stand all of modern life, intimate and public. It is siifricient lo mention 
four of the more obvious causes of the weakening o\' the modern lamily. 
These are: First, the multiplication of labor-sa\ ing devices; second, the 
cramping of living quarters; third, the auttMiiohilc; foiirih. the grouniii 
economic independence of woman. 

The family as an industrial unit, as a self-contained. niechanicall> 
bound group which works toward definite ends of a practical nature, is 
pretty well a thing of the past. There is no use pretending that ii is not. 
There are still husbands to be found who will lake olT a Sunday morn- 



836 i^J Culture 

ing to shingle the roof or lay down a concrete floor in the basement, as 
there are wives who keep a crowded apartment in uncomfortable abey- 
ance while a particularly elaborate birthday cake is in progress in the 
kitchen. Common sentiment applauds such efforts, common sense de- 
plores them. No elaborate statistics are needed to prove that family self- 
help on a large scale is out of date. If sentiment did not lag perceptibly 
behind the cold judgment of mechanical prudence, there would be even 
less to keep the family at family work than there is today. For better or 
worse, large scale industry has invaded the family, and the family must 
readjust its habits and its sentiments as best it can to this cool and 
obliging stranger who enters without knocking at the door. A thousand 
threads bind the family to agencies of effective adjustment, and these 
ha\e rarely the desire or the opportunity to humanize the mechanical 
relations between the family and work done for the family. The most 
that we can hope for is that the milkman talk politely to the maid. [33] 
The most significant by-product of the industrialization of society, so 
far as the family is concerned in its outward aspects, is the cramping of 
its quarters. As there is less and less for the family to do, less and less 
room is required to do it in. This growing discouragement of the need 
for room is powerfully supported by the growth of land values, the two 
being indeed nothing but the negative and positive aspects of a single 
process. The modern family does not arrange itself commodiously in 
space, it tucks itself away in corners of greater or lesser snugness. A 
relentless system of hinges folds up space into a nicely delimited design 
of little compartments, which are merely the minimum containers of 
buttons, knobs, lines, cabinet doors and a score of other strap-hanging 
devices. The family no longer dwells; it occupies quarters. What this 
shrinkage in space means psychologically is that the members of the 
family suddenly discover that they are but a limited number of individ- 
uals, who have to make doubly sure of their apartness from each other 
by escaping into vast hinterlands of space. Thus, the street, the lecture 
hall, and the hotel lobby become the necessary backyard of the modern 
home. 

Family quarters are inadequate not merely in the physical sense, in a 
more intangible and symbolic sense, too, they fail to correspond to the 
traditional family ideals. The spatial symbol of an institution has much 
retroactive influence on the dignity of the institutional concept itself. 
Thus, It IS difficult to feel strongly about a university degree obtained 
m a correspondence course, for scholastic pride seems to need a tangible 
habitation to which it can point its finger. Again, a god worshipped in 






Four: Reflections on C'onicniporarv g37 

a mean, pinchbeck house oi' worship may be \erballv noble, but wc 
may suspect that he assumes mean, pinchbeck proportions (34) m the 
hearts of his worshippers. It is not otherwise with the family. If iis 
home is insecure, casual, cramped, external lo the personalities of its 
members, these attributes of the symbol infest the ihmg symboli/cd, 
and so we need not be surprised that the familv itself lends to become 
insecure, casual, cramped, and external to its own personalities. 

The American family is not only cramped and insecure in space, it is 
also unstable in time. Travel is constantly absenting one or other mem- 
ber of the family from the rest. Such absences were once considered 
events in the history of the family; they are now part of its kaleidoscopic 
texture. It is easy to make light of the rapidity with which the actual 
personnel of the family changes from day to day. In the long run these 
rapid shifts must have a profound symbolic intluence on the indi\ idual's 
conception of himself as a member of the family. A family which is 
constantly breaking up and reassembling is like a rule which has too 
many exceptions - such a rule ends up by ceasing to be a rule. In all 
this coming and going, the automobile is of course the most potent 
factor. Under certain circumstances and in certain localities the auto- 
mobile, enlarging the confines of the home and giving its members new 
avenues of escape from the home's dullness, tends to have something 
of a unifying force, but it seems to me that its infiuence is on the whole 
more disruptive than stabilizing. This is of course particularly true of 
the wealthier families, which own more than one car. E\en where the 
automobile does not directly act as a disruptive force, it tends to do so 
indirectly because it affords a ready means of escape from the visible 
home, thus aiding materially in the weakening of the symbolism o\' the 
home. 

[35] The increasing economic independence of women owes much of 
its destructive power to the model which has long been set in .America 
by the husband. Gainful occupation and home have come to be anti- 
thetical concepts, and woman, herself long debarred from economic 
activity, has come to be dangerously identified with the home. It is often 
said that the home is losing its character because women are finding it 
possible to identify themselves with objects of interest which lie beyond 
the family sphere. It is of course biologically true that the home clusters, 
in a very special sense, about the woman, but ii seems thai we have 
dangerously overshot the mark in America and have allowed ourselves 
to drit\ insensibly into a position which considers the husband as an 
economically powerful visitor to the house. The proud indilTerence of 



g38 ^^^ Culture 

most American husbands to their homes and everything that beautifies 
the home, the assumption that domestic affairs are, after all, things for 
women to worry about - all this has a note of tragedy in it. Now that 
modern life has shown women how they may enter upon gainful pur- 
suits, the implied stigma which had attached to the stay-at-home, carries 
over to the women of the household. If it was possible for the husband 
to be a bit disdainful about domestic details, however carefully his light 
contempt was guarded from himself, it is the sheer logic of the uncon- 
scious that the economically emancipated woman too should accept 
man's symbolic indifference as a badge of her freedom. To be sure, this 
is not the whole story. Where both the husband and the wife are bread- 
winners, there cannot but be some divergence of interest and associa- 
tion, and this adds its important share to the loosening of family bonds. 

There are no doubt still other forces which make for [36] this loosen- 
ing, and perhaps none of them is really as important as certain far- 
reaching changes of opinion in regard to the relation between men and 
women, husband and wife, parents and children, which modern experi- 
ence and speculation have brought, but the four trends that we have 
picked out will serve as a convenient formula to make intelligible to us 
what seems to be happening within the family. Putting ourselves into 
the traditional attitude, let us now see what seems to have been lost in 
the course of development of the modern family. We should say, first 
of all, that the family is no longer a self-going concern, no longer a self- 
sufficient castle in a semi-hostile world. Furthermore, parental authority 
has perceptibly lessened. There are other factors than those we have 
mentioned that are responsible for this, but it is implicit in them. In the 
third place, personal relations within the family, the atdtude of brother 
to sister, of sister to sister, son to mother, daughter to father, have no 
longer quite that self-evident or pre-ordained quality which seems to go 
with defined kinship status. One assumed, for instance, that brothers 
and sisters were friends, though one knew from sad experience that they 
were not necessarily so. Finally, we can no longer lightly assume that 
woman is the sacred guardian of the domestic hearth. She may or may 
not be that, but she is likely to be a great many other things as well. 

Are these truly losses, or are they really gains in disguise? They are 
certainly not unmixed evils. That the family is no longer a self-going 
concern is part loss, but it is part gain as well. The traditional family 
tended to be a little ingrown, rather selfish in its outlook upon life. Its 
happiness tended to be smug; its unhappiness bred all the poisons of 
secrecy. That the family is now more [37] directly plunged into the gene- 



Four: Reflections on Contcniponnv 839 

ral economic scene has at least this advantage, thai the a\cragc man 
and woman of today develops a greater concern tor the rundamcntal 
mechanisms of society. He loses something of his dignity as a personal- 
ity because he is rarely a primary economic agent, yet the indirect and 
even fictitious part which he plays in life does bring him significantly 
nearer to his fellowmen. There is an altogether new willingness to see 
the family as but a unit in a larger whole. 

Few are so held by the illusions of the past as to claim that the 
lessening of parental authority is nothing but evil. There was a time 
when to be a father was to know what was good for one's children, in 
those days the word "mother" connoted an all-wise aflection and was 
as mysterious and as immutable as the law of gravitation. And, recipro- 
cally, to have a father and a mother was construed as equivalent to 
doing what you were told and being thankful therefor ever after. We 
have traveled a certain distance from these dull mythologies. Thanks to 
Shaw, to psychoanalysis, and to liberated common sense, we now know 
that a devoted mother can be silly and pernicious; that an idolatrous 
affection for the son may and often does go v\ith a corroding hatred o\' 
the husband. It is well that we tend to take little for granted in the 
parental relation. It is well that fathers and mothers arc beginning to 
discover that it is hard work making their children's acquaintance and 
that before they have done this it would be just as well not to bank too 
heavily on the innate love and wisdom which the mere fact o\' parent- 
hood is supposed to give them. There is no reason \\h\ parents and 
children may not be the best of friends, but it is getting to be believed 
that frankness is a [38] better preface to such friendship than the nnsii- 
cism of blood. 

It is not merely that much of the mythology has been squeezed out of 
the parent-child relation, but the greater independence o\' the individual 
within the family has brought with it the necessity o{ taking some elTorl 
to establish valuable relations instead o^ taking them lor granted as a 
priori necessities. Brothers and sisters have to earn each other's esteem. 
Temperamental differences disqualilN ihc close o\' km for long-enduring 
friendship as they disqualify complete strangers in the world outside the 
family. That the younger brother fags for the older is no longer felt to 
be a law of nature, nor need one make it a point of honor to distribute 
his deferences evenly between the maternal and paternal kinfolk. 
Grandparents are no longer semi-divine. Kinship is a glorious opportu- 
nity for the meeting of minds and hearts. In itself it constitutes neither 
an obligation nor a privilege. 



340 III Culture 

Finally, who can regret that woman has become a real person, not 
merely the imprisoned symbol of an institution? That there are as many 
kinds o'i mothers and as many kinds of wives as there are kinds of 
women is a little disconcerting but should no longer shock us. It used 
to be possible to say to a woman, "You are not behaving like a real 
mother" or "You are not behaving like a real wife." Nowadays it seems 
more appropriate to find other terms in which to couch the sentiment 
back of the antique terminology. It would be wiser to say, "I am afraid 
we don't agree about the bringing up of the children" or "You have 
every blessed right in the world to behave as you do, but I want to tell 
you frankly that I don't like it a bit." On the whole, the latter method 
is a technical improvement. Normal men and women will [39] often do 
as individuals what they are not so keen on doing as "fathers," "moth- 
ers," "husbands" or "wives." It is not well for any human being to be 
identified with an institution. The normal woman will want to discover 
wifehood and motherhood through the flesh and the symbolisms of the 
flesh, which lead to the deepest sentiments we know of, rather than be 
reading the breviary of family duty. 

Do these changes in the constitution of the family and in the psychol- 
ogy of family relationships mean nothing more than a negation of ev- 
erything that is significant in the family, or are they but a killing off of 
useless symbols and attitudes in order that the ground may be prepared 
for a new family? Is it too much to hope that this new family may prove 
to be all the more significant because little is expected of it officially? Is 
it possible that the weakness of the present-day family in America lies 
not so much in certain destructive tendencies as in our persistent at- 
tempt to combine a verbal loyalty to the traditional family with a sneak- 
ing acceptance of its loss of integrity? Perhaps the American family 
seems insecure not because the father's authority is little, but because 
we still secretly believe that it ought to be great but that he is too 
cowardly to act out his wishful tyranny; not because the love of a hus- 
band and wife cannot in the nature of things be a sufficient basis for 
family life, but because our inherited sense of the sinfulness of sex has 
made us unwilling to believe that love is sufficient; not because a 
woman's career outside of the home is really inimical to its preservation, 
but because a sense of daring sin still lingers about her choice of an 
mdependent career. The inertia of social sentiment is stronger than the 
inertia of social form. Long after the family has changed its form men 
and women still [40] continue to think and feel that its older implica- 
tions of sentiment are still extant, or that if they are not, they ought to 



Four: Rcjlccilon.s on Contcntporarv g4| 

be. I think one may contend, with no sense of paradox, thai the family 
is likely to remain as important a psychological factor as it has ever 
been, that we are mistaking surgery for murder, that we have been 
thinking too much about institutional and therefore secondary aspects 
of the family and too little about the biological and psychological foun- 
dations of the family institution. 

It is possible for an institution to become so top-heavy, so accreted 
with secondary features as to cease to answer to the very determinants 
that originally brought it forth. A government may become so corrupt 
that there is nothing to be done with it except to destroy it. The relief 
which follows such destruction, however, is always brief and illusory. 
One always builds a new government, hoping that it may be better than 
the old. Those who have suffered from the maladjusted famiK seek 
some measure of relief in the hope or fancy of its decline. It is an illusory 
hope and a vain fancy. The continuance of the family does not depend 
on the continuance of its old solidarity, nor on the authority o\' the 
parents, nor on keeping woman within the home. Guaranteed as the 
family is by certain biological and psychological necessities, we shall 
not be able to indulge ourselves in the luxury of seeing it \anish before 
our eyes but shall have to submit to the psychological reinterpretation 
of a family preserved against our perverse will. The family is not being 
killed off. It is being scraped clean of irrelevances and fitted to become 
the bearer of richer meanings than it has ever had. 

Sex desire alone is no secure basis for the family. Sex acii\ii\ plus 
children may be biologically sufficient to gi\e [41] us the nucleus of a 
family, but our modern mentality is not satisfied w ith a family so consti- 
tuted. A sociology which treats of the family merely in terms of sc.x 
desire, mating, economic security, care of otTspring. always carefully 
avoiding the word "love" as though it were a sentimental bugaboo, is 
not a realistic sociology. Such a sociology is stupid. howe\er accurate 
its fragmentary analysis, for it is of the very essence o\' the modern 
American mind that it is gropingly trying lo establish the only kind of 
a family that it still believes in, namely a man and a woman who, losing 
each other, do not wish to live apart. Whether such a union is blessed 
by offspring or not is immaterial. Whether or not it has been sanctified 
by civil or ecclesiastical authority is immaterial. This intimate compan- 
ionship, which dare never be confused uiih ilie casual exercise of sex, 
is a minimum and all-sufficient definition o\ the fimiK. I-Aeryihing else 
is incremental, however importantly so. Of this new .American lamii) 
we are barely conscious, for its image is clouded by memories of "sin" 



^42 tJJ Culture 

and, among certain sophisticates, by the correlative defiance of "sin" 
which is promiscuity. The ease, not say the waywardness, with which 
the young now enter upon marriage is significant because it shows, first 
o\' all, that the growing American ethos is wilHng to base the family on 
mutual atTection and understanding, unaided and unhampered by any 
other consideration; and, secondly, that the mere satisfaction of the sex 
impulse is not enough to satisfy the deeper erotic craving of the normal 
voung man and young woman. This purely psychological marriage, as 
it might be termed in contrast with the older marriage institution, is too 
llimsy a thing for the conservative mind, too burdensome a thing for 
the mere sex-monger. It is the cornerstone of the new family. [42] 

Normally a married couple will want one or more children. Ineffec- 
tive as the family has often proved to be, we are not likely to find a 
more satisfactory matrix for the rearing of the young than the family. 
Where marriage has been on the basis of love, the arrival of children, 
whether consciously desired or not, is not so much a new biological 
sanction for the continuance of the family, as an affirmation of the old 
sanction. In the older family, which tended to put an undue emphasis 
on the child because it looked upon itself as a holy institution rather 
than as a psychological necessity, the erotic relationship between the 
husband and the wife not infrequently suffered because of the very ar- 
rival of the child. In the new family the attention on the child is oblique 
rather than direct, and this is excellent both for the mental health of 
the child itself and for the continuance of a sound relation between the 
husband and wife. The old family was always doing things "for the 
children," even to the extent of strangling itself in unhappiness. In the 
new family the child is the symbol of a true marriage and a charge to 
be carefully nurtured that it may eventually be delivered to society. The 
child does not need to be smothered with a love which is half stolen 
from husband or wife. It requires an undemanding affection which 
fiows over, as it were, from the primary love which built the family. For 
this healthy and necessary atmosphere of unobtrusive affection, there 
is, so far as I know, no institutional substitute. 

The truly effective family has more than one child. Whatever may be 
the merits of the practice of limiting offspring - and surely certain 
superficial merits are obvious enough - it would seem psychologically 
unsound voluntarily to limit the number of children to one. After [43] 
the years of infancy, the normal relationship between human beings 
should be a relationship between age mates. In a healthy community 
the contact between the older and the younger generation has always 



Foiif: Ri-flc'i [ions on C'oiiuniporary ^3 

something tangential about it. I lie cliiUl needs other children wiih 
w honi he can learn to iron mil his dirficiilties and share the alTcclion of 
his parents. The important thing about the brother-sister relation is ihal 
it trains the child tor social participation in an unobtrusive manner. 
Where the relations o\' the parents are sound and (\o not mterlere \Mlh 
the growth o{ their children, a group o\' brothers and sisters will uncon- 
sciously develop an understanding o{ ctmiplex alTectional bonds with 
tolerance all round ot indi\idual dilTerences of taste and temperament. 
The importance of this as an image of later adjustment to lite is incalcu- 
lable. It is a commonplace that children who grow up without brothers 
and sisters develop certain very real and peculiar problems of behavior. 

The psychological family is important not only for the maturing of 
the erotic relationship of the parents, it is important also as the back- 
ground image for the development of the child's own future love life. If 
one's own erotic life is to be sound, it would seem that a background 
of parental happiness is essential. We are only beginning to understand 
the importance of the family as a sort of nursery o^ images which are 
later to come to potent fruition in the lives of the children. .Surel> it 
is not the family as such which forms an unfortunate matrix for the 
development of the child. It is the frankl\ unhapp\ famils. whose poi- 
son he carries with him through lite; or, e\en worse, the onl\ superfi- 
cially contented family, which masks intricate maladjustments that do 
not escape the intuitions of the child for a minute. (44] 

To conclude, we are not confronted with the threatened dissolution 
of the family, we are promised a clearing away o\ institutional clogs of 
all sorts which do not correspond to modern mentalit> and o'i in- 
dulgences in sentiments which we are beginning to see are harmful. 
All this does not mean chaos, rather the emergence o\ clearly defined 
psychological patterns which have intimate relevance for the life ol the 
individual at the expense of superimposed institutional patterns which 
take little or no account of individual psycholog>. We ma\ sa\ that the 
family is needed for the following primar> purposes: First, to give the 
sex relation its greatest emotional \alue; seccMid. to rear children m an 
atmosphere of intelligent alTection; third, to prepare the mdi\idual for 
the give and take of society; and fourth, to prepare ilu- . Inld n\\^\m- 
sciously for satisfactory mating in the future. 

The current dismay at the apparent weakening o\ the lamily is no 
more justified than the dismay of men when they discovered with Dar- 
win that they were descended from lower forms o\ life. I or a lime il 
looked as though they had ceased to ha\e the right to feel human, for 



844 III C'ltliiirc 

they learned that they were not only human but animal as well. In this 
wider kinship we have since learned to feel a nobler pride than in the 
old biological snobbery o( isolation. The old family institution, walled 
about by a make-believe psychology of status, ignored the elementary 
truth that the individuals within the family were essentially the same 
people as the self-same individuals outside the family. A belated re- 
cognition o( this truth creates some dizziness, but when the gasps have 
subsided and the eye is opened again, the family will be seen to be still 
there, a little cleaner, a little more truthful, a Httle happier. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Family: Proceedings of the One-Day Con- 
ference hcldin Winnetka, at the Skokie School, October 28, 1929, 31-44. 
This article was reprinted, with minor changes, in The American Mer- 
cury 19, 145-151 (1930). 



Review o\^ Fran/ Boas, 
Authropoloiiy anil Moilcrn Life 

Franz Boas, Anf/iropo/oi^y (ind Moilcrn Life. New York; \\ W. Norlon 
and Company, 1928. 

In spite of Dr. Boas' undisputed eminence in e\er\ phase of anthro- 
pological inquiry, it is difricull to point to any general work o\' his (usn 
writing which aptly summarizes the methodology o\' his science. Nor is 
it easy to gain a clear view of his philosophy o\' culture. Students of 
anthropology have had to be satisfied with short but pregnant papers 
on a variety of theoretical topics and. more important still, with the 
implications of his technical volumes. Perhaps only such a mind as 
Boas' could pack away so much honey of wisdom in the crevices of a 
forbidding landscape as may be found in the paper uhich bears the 
unconsciously whimsical title of "A Study of Alaskan Needlecases." and 
which is more for the hard-thinking theorist than for the appraiser o\' 
Eskimo knick-knacks. 

It is clear that Dr. Boas' unconscious long ago decreed that scienlit'ic 
cathedrals are only for the future, that for the time being spires sur- 
mounted by the definitive cross are unseemly, if not indeed sinful, thai 
only cornerstones, unfinished walls, or even an occasional isol.iied por- 
tal are strictly in the service of the Lord. It is as though his unseen 
structure were compacted of such intense feeling that it needed, for Dr. 
Boas himself, but little formal exteriorizing. oiil> so much as a massive 
accumulation of data on this or that point nnght force him to. Those 
who find Boas' thinking not to their taste are likely to call it inconse- 
quential because incomplete in expression, while those \sho know him 
best feel it to be both rigorcuis and cmotuMially \ilal. >et pre\ented by 
a certain fierce delicacy Worn c\cr declaring more than it manifestly 
must. 

Boas is not the man to articulate implications, and there is no use 
expecting him to. Only such readers as do actualK e\|X'ci the impossible 
of him have a right to be disappointed in Anihropoloiiv unJ Modern 
Life. These may find much in it too rcmi>te or t.mgenlial or marginal 
or academic - let them use \shat adjective they will to fructif> iheir 



846 ^^^ Culture 

sense of life. There would be no quarreling with their judgment except 
to demand of them that they meet Boas at least half way, probably 
more, with what they have themselves gathered of life and its meaning. 
But this, again, is an unreasonable demand in an age that prizes lazy 
comfort in thought and that prizes rigor only in dehumanized action. 

It is a great pity that Boas cannot give himself more passionately and 
more completely, for he has much to give. A hint of the deeper meanings 
o( Boas' cultural philosophy is given in his chapter on eugenics, which 
is healthily impatient of the tinkling heavens which our fashionable ro- 
mantic biologists are roughing out for us. Unfortunately Boas is too 
little accustomed to integrate his feelings with his intellectual doctrines, 
so that his dislike of mere comfort will seem hardly more than petulant 
and sentimental to our nimble Utopians, who have spent far more of 
their lives than Dr. Boas in proving black white. It should, of course, 
have been the other way round. 

Dr. Boas' book brings home the fact that anthropology is in a some- 
what dangerous position at present. It has become a popular science, 
which does not necessarily mean that a deeper understanding of the 
relativity of human values will be acquired by its camp followers, rather 
that its data and its varying interpretations will be chosen ad libitum 
to justify every whim and every form of spiritual sloth. Anthropology 
and Modern Life is a brave warning against [279] such misuse of the 
comparative study of culture, but the warning is vain. Already a genera- 
tion of "applied anthropologists" has begun. What we have been wait- 
ing for is already on sale. It is brilliant now and then, like Malinowski's 
Sex and Repression in Savage Society; more often it will be cheap and 
dull like Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The New Republic 57, 278-279 (1929). 

Franz Boas (1858-1942) was a pioneer in the professionalization of 
anthropological studies and founder of the American school of anthro- 
pology. He established rigorous standards of methodology in physical 
anthropology, archeology, linguistics, and cultural analysis, emphasiz- 
mg cultural relativism, and influencing several generations of anthro- 
pologists, including Edward Sapir, one of his students at Columbia Uni- 
versity, where Boas served as the first chairman and professor of 
anthropology from 1899 to 1936, 



Review of Bertrand Russell, 
Sceptical Essays 

Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays. New York: W. W. Norton and 
Company, 1928. 

These seventeen essays once again give evidence o'( Mr. Russell's inci- 
sive mind, freedom of outlook, and splendid lucidity of style. Their 
content is just about what we might expect from an acquaintance with 
the previous writings of that part of the philosopher which is a publicist. 
Only one of the essays, an excellent survey of philosoph\ in the twenti- 
eth century, is in any sense technical, and that is onl> mildly so. The 
rest of them discourse clearly, sometimes entertainingly, always simpl>. 
on such topics as the temper of science, rationalism, the machine age. 
values, ideals of happiness, freedom of thought, the stupidities of poli- 
tics, the probabilities on the cultural horizon o'i tomorrow. 

In short, we have a logician and a mathematical philosopher o{ the 
highest rank turning his restless mind to the maddening human scene 
to which he too must somehow reconcile himself. Again and again Mr. 
Russell takes a deep breath, that he may for the moment hold back the 
weariness and disillusionment which somehow manage none the less lo 
seep through the words of his message. Again and again he advances, 
innocently but firmly, to his fellow man and stares him gentl> out of 
countenance while he analyzes out for him the elementary concepts 
which - so he says - are packed into and distorted in the shibboleths 
on which man feeds. And again and again Mr. Russell assures his lis- 
tener, with such hopefulness as he can still nuister. that all may ycl turn 
out for the best, provided - 

Here is a sample o'i Mr. Russell's "provided": "Thcic aic luv Minplc 
principles which, if they were adopted, would sol\e almost ail siKial 
problems. The first is that education should ha\e for one of its aims to 
teach people only to believe propositions when there is some reason to 
think that they are true. The second is that jobs should be gnen solely 
for fitness to do the work." Behind the sweet reasonableness o^ the 
proposal to adopt two such "simple principles " as these lurks something 



g48 /// Culture 

which one distrusts a Httle. To be frank, the patience of Mr. Russell 
seems a little taut, a little dangerous. 

Wc lay down the book with wonder that we are not more deeply 
stirred by its sincerity and by its spirit of fair play. This deplorable 
world in which Mr. Russell is so able to spot weaknesses which he is so 
willing to help remedy is surely the same old world that we knew all 
along w as far from perfect, but which, being the field of our loves and 
hatreds, we had decided to continue to live in. Yet it is hard to make 
up one's mind to continue to live in the world of these Skeptical Essays. 
Even after it has been revised by the application of two simple prin- 
ciples, it remains too simply unreal. We have the premonition that in 
this world no propositions are going to be proved to be true anyway, 
and as for jobs being distributed to the fit, we have a sinking feeling at 
the heart that we, at least, will have to remain jobless. 

On second thoughts we wonder if the two worlds that we had iden- 
tified are even potentially the same, and whether, after all, Mr. Russell 
hasn't really been asking us to trek to a nicer world than any we know 
- a world in which concepts stay put and in which, for our daily bread, 
we build unassailable propositions out of them. The incidental leisure 
which such a world gives in abundance could be used for doing what 
we jolly well pleased. We could produce art, which Mr. Russell thinks 
to be a form of love, we could have two husbands, or two wives, we 
could do or have anything, in fact, which the slightly jaded intellectual 
faculty, craving a release of tension, might ask of a high Polynesia that 
is built on the unshakeable coral reef of Science. 

We begin to resent, in other words, that subtle dissociation which the 
pure intellectualist is always effecting between life and his dream of life. 
The aloofness of which such an intelHgence as Bertrand Russell's is 
sometimes accused is by no means the aloofness of noble indifference, 
which can always be forgiven as a form of naivete, nor is it the aloofness 
of a truly dispassionate analysis, which can smart without rankling. We 
do not see the eyes of Mr. Russell fixed in loving abstraction on the 
stars, nor fixed on ourselves with a "savage indignation." We see them 
fixed, rather, in a not wholly serious bemusement on a static world of 
mirror images. In his Time and Western Man, a huge and admirable 
pamphlet, Mr. Wyndham Lewis finds Mr. Russell's mind absorbingly 
mteresting but fundamentally lacking in seriousness. He finds Mr. Rus- 
sell's philosophy to be essentially a craving for "amusement." It is likely 
that Mr. Lewis, one of the most deadly and intuitive intelHgences of our 
day, has hit clean to the mark. Though Mr. Russell speaks often of the 



Four: Reflections on Conlcmporury g49 

importance o\^ love and ail aiul the "tlner ilnngs" o\ lite, these have 
with him nearly always an air o[' nol being truly lite itself, but rather, a 
splendid toying around in those moments of relaxation that make life's 
(or philosophy's or justice's) rigors livable. He seems mu sulllciently to 
love what he hates to make his hatred saluiar\. His charity is too cosmic 
to touch us, too remote to discos er lor us the \irtues of our defects. 
And so his skeptical thoughts glance by us like meteors that bring but 
cold and momentary illusions. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The AVu Republic 57, 1^)6 (1^)2^^). under the 
title "The Skepticism of Bertrand Russell." 

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), English mathematician and philo- 
sopher, was known especially for his work in mathematical logic; he 
received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. 



Two Philosophers on What Matters 

F. C. S. Schiller, Tantalus, or the Future of Man. New York: E. P. 
Dutton and Company, 1924. 66 pp. 

Bertrand Russell, How to he Free and Happy. New York: The Rand 
School of Social Science, 1924. 46 pp. 

Here are two pamphlets that are actuated by diametrically opposed 
spirits. The English pragmatist is all nerves, the mathematical philo- 
sopher speaks with the cheerful serenity of one who has learned the 
catechism of despair. Mr. Schiller, in setting out on his adventurous 
Cook's tour into the future, with a desperately instrumental philosophy 
for godmother's blessing and Tantalus for a guide, is all for overhauling 
his ropes and pulleys that he may negotiate the precipices sadly indexed 
in his Baedeker. Mr. Russell is too busy dandhng the baby on his knee 
to pay much attention to the hubbub of departure; all Mr. Schiller will 
get out of him in his present mood is an absent-minded, whimsical, 
nou.s verrons. Clearly they are not meant to be congenial traveling com- 
panions. We suspect that Mr. Schiller would be annoyed by his fellow 
philosopher long after he had ceased to be amusing to Mr. Russell. 
There is only one thing that unites them, and that is that neither has 
the heart to say Apres nous le deluge. Both really care. 

Which is the saner man? We fear that there is no telling, that this is 
a clear case of de gustihus. Mr. Schiller speaks in the unbroken faith of 
a man who believes that life is, or should be, a rational undertaking, 
that we know what is good for us, that we can see if the works run 
smoothly, if we but knock off an hour or two to peer about in the 
engine room, and that, having found out what, if anything, is wrong, 
we can, and most certainly should, set about putting it to rights. There 
is nothing strikingly new about Mr. Schiller's diagnosis of the parlous 
state of contemporary civilization. He finds that the fostering sohcitude 
of modern humanitarianism plus the declining birth rate of the abler 
classes has reduced the conduct of affairs to a drab and wearisome 
mcompetence. Flabbiness reigns supreme and mediocrity is rampant. If 
we are not mighty careful to do something about it, civilization will 
soon be engulfed in an ocean of feeble-mindedness. 



Four: Rcpcclions on Conicnipornrv 85 1 

This is not a checrtiil prospect. parliciilarl\ as it docs not parcnlhcli- 
cally occur to Mr. Schiller to suggest that Asia and Africa may conceiva- 
bly help us out in the proximate rmure hy taking ci\ili/alion olT our 
hands for a few centuries. His reiiied\ is nothing more novel than eu- 
genics, but he goes into no technical details on the art o\ belling the 
cat. All he can offer is the assurance that "it is really one of the great 
advantages of eugenics that it cannot proceed upon an\ cui-and-dned 
scheme, but will have to be guided by the results o\' e.xpernnenl and 
discussed by an intensely interested public." A page or two farther on. 
however, he is less disposed to leave the cure of our ills entirely to 
eugenics. "As time passes," he says, "and sheer destruction ma> over- 
take us before eugenics have made much difference, it would be highly 
desirable if some means could be found to accelerate the change o\' 
heart required." Pills and injections are dismissed as unlikely to be of 
substantial assistance. "On the other hand there does seem to be a sci- 
ence from the possible progress of which something of a sensational 
kind might not unreasonably be expected." The name ol" this science is 
Psychology. It has not been up to much so tar but it is slated for great 
things. In fact, "a pragmatically efficient Psychology might actuall> in- 
vert the miracle of Circe, and really transform the Yahoo into a man." 
Which reminds us that we have been traveling in Laputa. 

It is a relief to turn to Mr. Russell's lecture, simple and profound. 
Mr. Russell has perhaps the most rational and disciplined intelligence 
in the English-speaking world today. Small wonder, then, that he sees 
the vanity of a rationalized scheme of life and the nullity o\' taking 
elaborate thought for the morrow. What is wrong with civili/atuni to- 
day is not a high or low birth rate but a fexcrish concern with things 
that do not matter, with the complexities and irrelevances of external 
values. Applied science has mechanized life and impoverished the spirit 
of man. There is only one way to regain spiritual health, and that is to 
shift all significant values to the realm o\' the personalis apprehended 
spirit, pocketing the material advantages of science with indilTerencc 
rather than with gratitude. Social programs avail little Wh.it Mr Rus- 
sell recommends, in the homeliest of terms, is nothing less than the 
rediscovery of the individual soul. "If you have a human being that sou 
love, or a child, if you have any one thing that you really care for. life 
derives its meaning from thai iliing. aiui >ou can build up a \shi>lc 
world of people whose lives matter." A platitude' Hear the corollary: 
"But if you start with the nation - 'Here am I; I am .i member of a 
nation; I want my nation to be powerful' then you are destroying 



g52 /// Culture 

the individual. You become oppressive, because whether your nation is 
powerful depends upon the regimentation of people and you set to work 
to regulate your neighbor." And a little further on in this quest of free- 
dom and happiness Mr. Russell remarks, "The great thing is to feel in 
yourself that the soul, your own thoughts, your own understandings 
and svmpathies, that is the thing that matters and that the external 
outward decor of life is unimportant so long as you have enough to 
keep you going and to keep you alive. It is because we are so immersed 
in competitiveness that we do not understand this simple truth." These 
appealing and "dangerous" doctrines were once crowned by a crucifix- 
ion. Can it be that a jaded humanity is prepared to follow the disillu- 
sioned and the sceptics in a renewed search for Christ? 



Editorial Note 

Previously unpublished; from an undated typescript, with corrections 
in Sapir's hand, in the possession of the Sapir family. 

Ferdinand C. C. Schiller (1864-1937), an English-American philo- 
sopher, was influenced by William James. 



Review of M. E. DeWiii, 

Our Oral Word as Social and Economic Facfor. 

London and Toronto, J. M. Dent and Sons; Ncu York, I:. P. Duilon 

and Co. 329 pp. $2.25. 

The keynote of this strange and personal book is gi\en in one ot" the 
paragraphs of the "Introductory'": 

"Personally we cannot look upon the oral word from a local or even 
a one-nation point of view. It is far too much a part of our international 
lives, and with every month our lives are less local, which makes the 
oral word mean more to the English-speaking people as a whole and 
thereby to the world at large. They are those who are interested in scKial 
and economic problems, particularly through women's clubs and the 
myriad other organisations, who will soon realise that a dozen 'best* 
dialects do not belong to any national programme of education. We no 
longer educate our nomadic millions for one state, shire or pro\ ince. or 
for one section of a land or even for one land alone. Wh>. then, should 
we give them in the oral word anything which does not sound world- 
well? We are in a new era, an era in which the air itself connects all 
villages and far-flung communities within the single monicni -^i" 'lu- m- 
tered word." 

Miss De Witt is not always easy to follow, fhis is because ot ihc 
breathless and emotional quality of her thought and a style which con- 
stantly borders on the quaintly pedantic. She is a well-known student 
of phonetics and of correct English and Irench speech. Her technical 
competence is attested by the "Old World euphonetigraphs" which ap- 
pear in the second part of the volume in plain linglish. phonetic 
transcriptions of samples of the connected speech o\ some ri!i\-ninc 
representatives of upper class England, such as John Cialsworths. I.sq.. 
the late Sir Edmund Gosse, C. B., LL. D., and Dr. Annie Besanl. Hicsc 
supplement the "New World euphonetigraphs" alreads published in the 
companion volume. 'iuiphonEnglish and World Standard English " 

Two main ideas emerge. The first is the paramount impi^rlance and 
indefinite continuance o\' Aniilo-Anierican power, uhich must not be 



j^54 ii^ Culture 

muddied by any blendings of other races with the Anglo-American race. 
This great power and race is mystically united by the sea with "its long, 
slender, tendril fmgers'* which ''twine their way in, out, round-and- 
aboui." The Athmtic, as is shown in a design of her own drawing, is 
really a ri\er spanned by a bridge. 

The second idea is the necessity of perfecting and conserving for this 
great ethnic unity a noble form of speech, which is correct and uniform 
in pronunciation, possesses a natural beauty, and is to be made still 
more beautiful with the help of "tonetics for the world-good speech 
melody of a given language; and voice training, the spiritual blender of 
the other two [elements, i. e. euphonetics and tonetics], which gives the 
tone quality, production and control." Miss De Witt does not approve 
of the "Western or General" form of American pronunciation, which 
she dubs "the School of the Curly Tongue," but prefers a common 
ground of cultivated English speech based on British and eastern Amer- 
ican models. 

Anglo-American power, the sea, a particular norm of English pro- 
nunciation, and beauty of vocal utterance are inextricably blended in 
Miss De Witt's planetary dream. Tangentially she touches the fascinat- 
ing and intricate problem of the social and political significance, in a 
symbolic sense, of differences of pronunciation within a given language. 
Is there a true will, in the unconscious, for such phonetic unity of speech 
as she advocates? Is not the resistance to such unity a far profounder 
sociological and psychological fact than most of us are willing to be- 
lieve? she neither explicitly raises nor answers this question but merely 
wishes it away. But her book at least suggests its interest and stubborn 
importance. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published, in abbreviated form, in the American Journal of 
Sociology 34:926-927 (1929). Reprinted by permission of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago Press and the estate of Edward Sapir. 



Review of James Truslow Adams, 
Our Business CivilizdH'on 

James Truslow Adams, Our Bu.slnc.s.s Civilizuiion: Some Aspects of 
American Culture. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1929. 

This excellent book should have a salutary eflcct in shocking the 
American public into a more painful awareness o\^ the shortcomings of 
our contemporary life than is ordinarily managed by books o( its type. 
The criticism offered by so original a book as Our America, by Waldo 
Frank, for example, is too easily met by counter-charges o'i uindiness, 
irrelevant estheticism and an all-round exoticism of spirit that was ne\cr 
intended by God or nature to find a mystically satisfying domicile in 
these poor States. Much of the annoyance that colors the pages of such 
writings proceeds from perfectly real sources of discomfort, but the 
typical American, be he merchant or professor, will not listen, because 
the annoyance which is expressed does not harmoni/e with his own 
humbler exasperation. The indices which are gi\en o\' our lack o\' true 
culture tend to be too remote from normal experience to seem to mailer. 
But in Mr. Adams's book the indices o\^ our bus\ barbarism are pre- 
sented in all their homely actuality and, while the inspnaiion o^ some 
of the chapters is the somewhat conventionalh aristocratic outlook of 
the New England Brahmans, the total indictment is telling because the 
details of conduct that lead up to the charge have been well obscr\cd. 
They ring dreadfully true. The laughter of amused recitgniiion dies away 
quickly. 

It is true, for example, that we are a lawless people. Much o\ vuir 
lives is an uneasy vacillation between "watching our step'" and "gclimg 
away with it.'' One watches one's step, not because o\ a deep-sealed 
respect for the rights o^ others, not because a success conditioned b> 
the discomfiture of others is spiritually humiliating, but quite frankly 
because it does not pay to be on had terms with one's neighbors. Bui 
once one has "got away with it." the retios|x*ctive possible virtue oi 
having "watched one's step" disappears like a spell o\ hard work slaxcxi 
off by an unexpected vacation. We live. then, in an ethical for\sard 



856 JJJ Culture 

and backward m which hypothetical virtues are dissolved by merely 
problematical vices. The old "Handsome is that handsome [427] does" 
has lost its Puritan stitTness and taken on the much more obliging tex- 
ture of a "Handsome is that does handsome." 

There is no doubt about Mr. Adams's facts, but one wonders whether 
ihc explanation that he offers is quite adequate. No doubt the shibbo- 
leth o\' overt success at whatever cost comes to some extent from the 
necessities o^ a pioneer life that brooked no fumbling and no control 
from a distance. But is it too far-fetched to see in our tolerance of the 
lesser ill of law-breaking and our complementary insistence on the sheer 
goodness of "making good" a kind of made-over avoidance of sin, the 
pure thoughts and manifest righteousness of man in the eyes of God 
having imperceptibly become secularized into those meritorious ambi- 
tions and smashing successes which make every individual, however 
obscure his pedigree or his intentions and however undistinguished his 
mental or moral baggage, a possible darling of the people? For there 
does seem to be an austere religiosity about the contemporary cult of 
reckless success which justifies a suspicion that it is both historically 
and psychologically connected with the zealous avoidance of sin which 
animated an earlier generation. It is excusable to come a Httle late be- 
cause of the crowded streets, but it seems to be far more inspiring just 
to "make it on time" if one has not actually killed the pedestrian who 
all but got in the way of one's triumphant car. Where it is sinful to 
succeed below the acme of possible success a little absent-minded law- 
breaking can do no harm. 

Mr. Adams very rightly stresses our infatuation with "doing" versus 
"being." Even when there is nothing visible to be done one can at least 
"step lively" and thus make a clearance for those more fortunate ones 
who have something rapid on hand as well as hasten one's own chances 
of arriving at some place or other where something clamors to be done. 
It is doubtful if one can any longer be properly said to "be" in America; 
the state nearest to quiescence seems to be "to have got that way," 
which offers but a precarious equilibrium at best. The philosophy of 
doing is exceedingly far-reaching in its effect on personal relations in 
America, the itch for jumping off to a point of vantage threatening at 
any moment to shatter even the most peaceful and unassuming of hu- 
man constellations. It is precisely doing as contrasted with being that 
makes an easy-going familiarity our daily business and friendship so 
unattainable. What passes for friendship is generally a chronic [428] 
exercise of the art of mutual "boosting." 



Faur: Reflections im Conlcmporary 857 

One of ihc niosl telling chapters in Mr. Adams's book is ihal on "The 
Mucker Pose." He has here put his finger on one of our profoundcsl 
symbols of anonymity. To be a "regular fellow," to pretend lo a "lower 
brow" than comports with the actual size of one's head, to scatter care- 
ful shoddy over one's speech - all this is not important because it 
expresses the individual, it is impiMiani because it does noi express him. 
The ideal implicit in Mr. Adams's "mucker pose" is really the "poker 
face." the sphinx whose inscrutability has been relaxed into a self-im- 
posed stupidity. At the heart o\^ this sphinx there is no mysier>. merely 
the fear of being caught in the sinfulness of failure, the cunning is fear's 
press-agent, counseling silence and watchful waiting, masked, if the 
poker face must talk, by a barrage o\' earnest \ulgarit>. It is not so 
much the decay of good speech and good manners that Mr. Adams has 
to mourn as their gradual dissociation from the inner core o( personal- 
ity, which seeks safety from the glare o\^ the public e\e by blaring forth 
inanities meant to disarm. 

Our Business Civilization is chiefly \aluable because it is an honest 
burst of anger with the steadily mounting shoddiness o( .American life. 
The realization of this comes particularly hard to one who has so com- 
pletely identified himself with the none too easily won culture of old 
New England. Hesitatingly he looks to old England but something tells 
him there is no solution there. Were Mr. Adams as ruthless a ps\choIo- 
gist as he is a historian of manners, were he less interested in the reten- 
tion of graces and values that no longer belong to .America, he would 
be looking not to the lost past but to the darkly emerging future. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in Current History M, 42b A2S {\')M)). 
James Truslow Adams (1878- 1949) was an American historian and 
writer; he received the Pulitzer Prize. 



Review of Thurman W. Arnold, 
The Folklore of Capitalism 

Thurman W. Arnold, The Folklore of Capitalism. New Haven: Yale 
University Press, 1937. 

The Folklore of Capitalism richly deserves its success. Anyone who 
has been as fed up with the indirections and stalemates of contemporary 
legal and economic thinking as any probable reader of his book must 
be cannot but be grateful to Mr. Arnold for this joyous carnage of 
cliches. Whatever afterthoughts may qualify his first, spontaneous ap- 
proval, he will not begrudge the author sincerest thanks for releasing 
him - partly in fact, partly in fantasy - from that vast verbal oppres- 
sion that Dickens in his day had some preliminary knowledge of when 
he pondered the circumlocution office. 

The book runs through the thick of recent American economic his- 
tory, though there are many rapid forays into other times and places - 
the primitives, the middle ages, the days of Adam Smith. In similar 
fashion the book runs a double ideological course. There is discussion 
of contemporary American maxims or principles of law and there is 
constant linkage of these principles with general problems of symbol- 
ism, with untiring emphasis on the fictional or mythological nature of 
our inherited social concepts and on our increasing need to circumvent 
them in a practical world which is no longer organized in the terms of 
their original implications. This nervous back and forth between the 
glare of the immediate present and fitful gleams out of the night of 
history, between the urgency of the immediate question and the stub- 
bornness of the universal question, gives Mr. Arnold's writing its pecu- 
liar quality of intelligent haste. Calmly analytic minds may be more 
irritated than instructed by it in the end, but those of us who have at 
least a dash of the intuitive, who are not fearful of strategic overstate- 
ment, since statement and overstatement are themselves but symbolic 
steps in the passage of thought, will know how to assimilate it without 
disturbance, indeed with many hygienic chuckles. 

The Folklore of Capitalism should not be dismissed as a legal sparrer's 
cynical holiday. We find its core of philosophy in these passages: "There 



Four: Reflections on Contvniporarv 859 

is plenty of 'realism' in this coiinlrs today, but ii is ihc realism ihal 
leads to cynicism. In other words, modern realists are still too emotion- 
ally bound by the mythology that the facts which their honesty compels 
them to admit only make them sad because the human race is not dif- 
ferent" (page 390); and, "The greatest destroyer o\ ideals is he who 
believes in them so strongly that he cannot fit them to practical needs" 
(page 393). Mr. Arnold, in short, trusts Hfe in its organizational forms 
and the pressures in that lite more than formulations about it. He is a 
"cynic" not in the sense that he cheerfully finds men derelict to high 
principle but that he tlnds them persisting in verbal I(>\.ili\ td c.uls 
turned ghosts. 

Very effective, though perhaps overdone, is the authors armament 
of "debunking" words and phrases. A group of people who guard an 
ideology that is no longer relevant to human needs, say the more con- 
servative justices of the Supreme Court or the current expositors of 
economic theory, constitute a "priesthood." The windings of legal pro- 
cedure are a "ritual." Learned treatises of interpretation, particular!) 
when such interpretation is more ingenious than obvious, build up an 
honored "literature." The conceptual content of such literature and. 
indeed, the habitual thinking of the majority of people about the nature 
and conduct of government and business are "mythology," which in its 
more remote and austere reaches is presided over by certain "di\ inities.** 
Such divinities, say [146] democracy or the American constitution, arc 
so variably interpretable that few need fear sacrilege in approaching 
them with invocations. The sort of man who is appealed to \^hen a 
decision has to be made as to what literature must be selected in order 
than an orthodox mythology may be kept going with least strain to its 
presiding divinities is known as the "thinking man." Natural!), the 
abuses of language, the subtle confusion o\' the thing lelerred to (the 
"referent") with the means at hand for such reference (the "symbol." 
ordinarily a word or series of words), are pointed out. In this much 
talked about area (see, e. g., the chapter on "The Ntagic o\ Words" m 
Ogden and Richards' Mcauiny, of Mcauuiii) e\erybod) can lake com- 
tbrt, it seems to us, tmm the thought that even the nu>st subtle philo- 
sophers, mathematicians and logicians ha\e been taken in at limes by 
the pseudo-thingness of symbols. Mr. Arnold is particular!) unfriendly 
to "polar words," those right-wrong, good-bad symbols \shich paint so 
lurid and inaccurate a reality. Alas! Are not all generic s\nibnk ,i l.,.i 
analysis, incurably polar in character? 



860 /// Culnirc 

Speaking o( language, we may turn to a passage (pages 146-47) 
which seems to rest on the quaintest of misunderstandings of what Hn- 
guistics is all about. "Mencken's book, [ The American Language],'' says 
Mr. Arnold, "is outstanding because he is not interested in grammar or 
the correct use of words. History of the development of language is told 
not from the point of view of how it ought to be spoken, but how it is 
spoken. In reading this book, I obtained for the first time a grasp of 
language as a living force, reflecting the moods and spiritual struggles of 
a people in the strange new words, bad and good, which were constantly 
Hooding in. Groups which experience the greatest conflict between re- 
spectable attitudes and practical needs are the source of most new 
words; i. e., the nonrespectable classes, engaged in sub rosa but very 
necessary social activities. Seeking a way to describe themselves, since 
society has denied them a position of dignity, they create a language of 
subtle satire and attack." Quite aside from Mr. Arnold's tribute to an 
admirable book, this passage harbors a number of very serious miscon- 
ceptions. Linguists are not to be confused with grade school, high 
school, college, or literary preachers about "how language ought to be 
spoken." What Mr. Arnold dismisses as "grammar or the correct use of 
words" is either wishful thinking about dignified language (e. g., rules 
like: "say "I shall go" but "you will go") or a calm analysis of the 
relatively stable structural features of a language at a given time and 
place (e. g., rules like: "The man does," not "The man go," but "The 
men go," not "The men goes"; or, in compounds of type "railroad" 
stress the first syllable, not the second). The former kind is of little or 
no interest to the linguist, who cares far less about the "ought" of speech 
than Mr. Arnold does. The latter kind is of great interest to the linguist, 
though it is probably too dull a business to stir Mr. Arnold's pulse. The 
linguist must defend his sober science of analysis from confusion with 
the advice generally given by pedagogues and nice people generally. Mr. 
Arnold's irritation is no more and no less justifiable than if he, in almost 
the same breath, derided chemistry, first, for its dullness and uselessness 
in working out the structural analysis of water; second, for its high- 
toned effrontery in trying to tell us that we ought to drink water rather 
than Scotch; and, third, wishes to goodness that chemistry might help 
us to understand why, in the long run, Scotch is sure to win out. To 
which Mr. Arnold would be the first to answer that chemistry does not 
properly include either ethics or history. The hnguist's modified answer 
IS that linguistics is primarily concerned with structural analysis, not at 
all with ethics as such, and only in the second place with history. Fur- 



Four: Re flee I ions on Contcmporurv 86 1 

ther, Mr. Arnold's conception oi' whal consliiuics siumficanl linguislic 
history is highly selcctixc. nol Id sa> picaresque and romantic. One 
would have thought ii all but obvious that the most fundamental 
changes in speech are nol concerned with words as such but wiih mmulc 
and cumulative [147] changes in sound patterns and in the lormal pal- 
terns of words and sentences; further, that any important cultural 
changes, say the Renaissance intluence on English culture in the six- 
teenth century or the impact of Christianity on hundreds o\ siKielics, 
bring with them numerous adaptations o( the vocabulary. But we must 
cheerfully agree with Mr. Arnold if all that he is really doing is to plead 
for a more serious study of language as sociological factor and mde.x. 
That is a large order and not in the least adequately taken care of by 
epigrammatic remarks about respectable people and bad words. 

The title of Mr. Arnold's book and the u hole tenor o( its content lead 
us to expect an unusual degree of hard-boiledness or cool realism. Yet 
he is not only sometimes romantic, as we have just seen, hut also meta- 
physical - or shall we say folkloristic'.' On page 25, for instance, he 
tentatively describes one of "the elements which all social organizations 
share in common" as "A creed or a set of commonly accepted rituals, 
verbal or ceremonial, which has the effect o\' making each individual 
feel an integral part of the group and which makes the group appear as 
a single unit. This is a unifying force and is as mysterious as the law of 
gravitation." In other words, it would seem, Mr. Arnold is not seriously 
interested in a patient research into the psychologv o\' the individual 
and in a discovery of how and why it is that his dail\ relations with 
other individuals induce him, in the fulness of time, to feel his uay with 
the symbolic instrumentality of such menial constructs as '*soc-iei>.*' 
"organization," and ''culture." Why does Mr. Arnold's insight into the 
manifold abilities of men to kid themselves along suddenly desert him 
at this point? Can one not admit the extreme usefulness o\' the "folk- 
lore" of sociology and anthropology without being entranced b\ it into 
a sympathetic stare at the "mysteriousness" o\' the law o( graviialion? 
If Mr. Arnold were a true mystic instead o\' a fragmentar> one. we 
would have no criticism to olTer. for lo a mystic one thing is as niNslen- 
ous and as necessary as another. 

We may be pardoned, in concluding cnir remarks on I he Folklore of 
Capitalism, if we suggest that its chief interest lies m its symptomatic 
character for an understanding of a widespread intellectual attitude in 
contemporary America. This attitude is pervaded b\ an almost morbid 
tear of formal analysis of any kind. Its urge is the manipulative urge of 



862 ftl Culture 

organization, engineering efl'iciency is its one great value. An underlying 
spirit o^ fairness or decency is always present, not as following on prin- 
ciple hut as irrationally bursting through in the moment of action. This 
attiiudc wills •'realism'" and hence protects itself with a skepticism that 
is anti-intellectualist but that is not proof against all manner of incur- 
sions from unacknowledged realms of wishful thinking. "Hard-boiled" 
is the ideal, ''romantic'" is the deed. As to history, it is not felt through 
as a vast cosmos o'i human experience but is rather intuited as a debris 
that rushes through the narrows of the present into an immediately 
impending fulfilment of desire. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in Psychiatry 1, 145-147 (1938). Reprinted by 
permission of Psychiatry. 

Thurman W. Arnold (1891 — 1969) was an American lawyer and au- 
thor, a member of the U. S. Court of Appeals, D. C, and a professor 
at Yale Law School. 



APPENDIX 

American Educalion and Culiurc 

John Dewey 

The New Republic, July 1. \')\(^ 

One can foretell the derision which will be awakened in certain quarters by a state- 
ment that the central theme of the current meeting of the National Educational Associa- 
tion is cultural education. What has culture to do with the quotidian tasks of millions 
of harassed pupils and teachers preoccupied with the routine o\' alphabetic combma- 
tions and figuring? What bond is there between culture and barren outlines of history 
and literature? So far the scene may be called pathetic rather than an occasion for s;itirc. 
But one foresees the critics, the self-elected saving remnant, passing on to mdignant 
condemnation of the voluntary surrender of our educational system to utilitarian ends, 
its prostitution to the demands of the passing moment and the cry for the practical. Or 
possibly the selection of cultural education as a theme of discourse will be welcome as 
a sign of belated repentance, while superior critics sorrowinglv wonder whether the 
return to the good old paths is sought out too late. 

To those who are in closer contact with the opinions which hi>ld conscious sway in 
the minds of the great mass of teachers and educational leaders there is something 
humorous in the assumption that they are given over to worship oi the vi'K:alu>nal and 
industrial. The annual pilgrimage of the teachers of the country to European cathedral 
and art gallery is the authentic indication o{ the conscious estimate of the older ideal 
of culture. Nothing gets a hand so quickly in any gathering o'i teachers as precisely the 
sort of talk in which the critics engage. The shibboleths and the sentimentalities are 
held in common by critic and the workers criticized. "Culture and discipline" serve as 
emblems of a superiority hoped for or attained, and as catchwords to s,i\c the trouble 
of personal thought. Behind there appears a sense of some deficiency in our self-con- 
scious devotion to retrospective culture. We protest too much Our gestures bcirav the 
awkwardness of a pose maintained laboriously against odds In contrast there is ^XAiX 
in the spontaneous uncouthness o[' barbarians w hole-heartedly abandoned in their Kir- 
barism. 

While the critics arc all wrong about the Ci>nscious altitude and intent of those \*ho 
manage our educational system, they are right about the powerful educational currents 
of the day. These cannot be called cultural: not when measured b> any standard dra\«i 
from the past. For these standards concern the past -what has been said and 
thought -while what is alive and compelling in our educatuMi mo\es toward M^me un- 
discovered future. From this contrast between our conscious ideals and our tendcncic* 
in action spring our confusion and our blind uncertainties. We think we think one thing 
while our deeds require us to give attention to a ratlically dilTercnt set ft " us 

This intellectual constraint is the real fiK- to our culture. Ilie beginning • .Id 



864 ^^^ Culture 

be to cease plaintive eulogies of past culture, eulogies which carry only a few yards 
before they are drowned in the noise of the day, and essay an imaginative insight into 
the possibilities of what is going on so assuredly although so blindly and crudely. 

The disparity between actual tendency and backward-looking loyalty carries within 
Itself the whole issue of cultural education. Measured in other terms than that of some 
as yet unachieved possibility of just the forces from which sequestered culture shrinks in 
horror, the cause of culture is doomed so far as public education is concerned. Indeed, it 
hardly exists anywhere outside the pages of Mr. Paul Elmer More, and his heirs and 
assigns. The serious question is whether we may assist the vital forces into new forms 
of thought and sensation. It would be cruel were it not so impotent to assess stumbHng 
educational ctTorls of the day by ideas of archaic origin when the need is for an ideal- 
ized interpretation of facts which will reveal mind in those concerns which the older 
culture thought of as purely material, and perceive human and moral issues in what 
seem to be the purely physical forces of industry. 

The beginning of a culture stripped of egoistic illusions is the perception that we 
have as yet no culture: that our culture is something to achieve, to create. This percep- 
tion gives the national assembly of teachers representative dignity. Our school men and 
women are seen as adventuring for that which is not but which may be brought to be. 
They are not in fact engaged in protecting a secluded culture against the fierce forays 
of materialistic and utilitarian America. They are, so far as they are not rehearsing 
phrases whose meaning is forgot, endeavoring to turn these very forces into thought 
and sentiment. The enterprise is of heroic dimensions. To set up as protector of a 
shrinking classicism requires only the accidents of a learned education, the possession 
of leisure and a reasonably apt memory for some phrases, and a facile pen for others. 
To transmute a society built on an industry which is not yet humanized into a society 
which wields its knowledge and its industrial power in behalf of a democratic culture 
requires the courage of an inspired imagination. 

I am one of those who think that the only test and justification of any form of 
political and economic society is its contribution to art and science -to what may 
roundly be called culture. That America has not yet so justified itself is too obvious for 
even lament. The explanation that the physical conquest of a continent had first to be 
completed is an inversion. To settle a continent is to put it in order, and this is a work 
which comes after, not before, great intelligence and great art. The accomplishment of 
the justification is then hugely difficult. For it means nothing less than the discovery 
and application of a method of subduing and settling nature in the interests of a democ- 
racy, that is to say of masses who shall form a community of directed thought and 
emotion in spite of being the masses. That this has not yet been effected goes without 
saying. It has never even been attempted before. Hence the puny irrelevancy that mea- 
sures our striving with yard sticks handed down from class cultures of the past. 

That the achievement is immensely difficult means that it may fail. There is no inevi- 
table predestined success. But the failure, if it comes, will be the theme of tragedy and 
not of complacent lamentation nor wilful satire. For while success is not predestined, 
there are forces at work which are like destiny in their independence of conscious choice 
or wish. Not conscious intent, either perverse or wise, is forcing the realistic, the practi- 
cal, the industrial, into education. Not conscious deliberation causes college presidents 
who devote commencement day to singing the praises of pure culture to spend their 
working days in arranging for technical and professional schools. It is not conscious 



Four: Reflect ion.s on Contcniporurv 865 

preference whicli loads school superiiiiciidciits who ilchvcr orations at teachers' meet' 
ings upon the blessings of old-fashioned discipiuie and cuhurc to demand from th«r 
boards new equipment, new courses and studies of a more "practical'" an ' 'mg 

kind. Political and economic forces quite beyond their control are c»)nij ,^»c 

things. And they will remain beyond the control of an> of us save as men honcMly lace 
the actualities and busy themscKes with inquiring what education the\ impart and what 
culture may issue from l/wir cultivation. 

It is as elements in this heroic undertaking that current tendencies in American edu- 
cation can be appraised. Since wc can neither beg nor borrow a culture without betray- 
ing both it and ourselves, nothing remains save to produce one. Those who arc too 
feeble or too finicky to engage in the enterprise will continue their search for asylums 
and hospitals which they idealize into palaces. Others will either go their way still 
caught in the meshes of a mechanical industrialism, or w ill subdue the industrial ma- 
chinery to human ends until the nation is endowed with soul. 

Certain commonplaces must be reiterated till their import is acknowledged Ilic 
industrial revolution was born of the new science o\' nature. .Xny democracy which is 
more than an imitation of some archaic republican gcnernment must issue from the 
womb of our chaotic industrialism. Science makes democracy possible because it brings 
relief from depending upon massed human \Ahov. because ol the substitution it makcti 
possible of inanimate forces for human muscular energ\. and because of the resources 
for excess production and easy distribution which it ellects. The old culture is doomed 
for us because it was built upon an alliance of political and spiritual powers, and equi- 
librium of governing and leisure classes, which no longer exists. Tliose who deplore the 
crudities and superficialities of thought and sensation which mark our day are rarcl) 
inhuman enough to wish the old regime back. They are merely unintelligent enough to 
want a result without the conditions which produced it. and in the face of conditions 
making the result no longer possible. 

In short, our culture must be consonant with realistic science and with machine 
industry, instead of a refuge from them. And while there is no guaranty that an educa- 
tion which uses science and employs the controlled processes o{' industry as a regular 
part of its equipment will succeed, there is every assurance that an educational practH."C 
which sets science and industry in opposition to its ideal of culture will fail Natural 
science has in its applications to economic production and exchange brought an indus- 
try and a society where quantity alone seems to count. It is for education to bnng the 
light of science and the power of work to the aid of every soul that it may discover lis 
quality. For in a spiritually democratic society every individual would rcali/c distinc- 
tion. Culture would then be for the first time in human history an indi\idual achieve- 
ment and not a class possession. An education fit for our ideal mm-x i-. ,i matter ol acluaJ 
forces not of opinions. 

Our public education is the potential means for elVecting the iiansfipuralii^n of the 
mechanics of modern life into sentiment and imagination. We may. I repeal. nc\cr gel 
beyond the mechanics. We may remain burly, merely vigorous, expending energy riol- 
ously in making money, seeking pleasure and winning temp«u.ir> m >ne 

another. Even such an estate has a virility lacking to a culture whose m. mis- 

cence, and whose triumph is finding a place of refuge. Bui it is not enough lo juslify a 
democracy as against the best of past aristocracies even though return t ' forever 

impossible. To bring to the consciousness oi the conung generation ^ of ihc 



866 /// Culture 

potential significance of the life of to-day, to transmute it from outward fact into intelli- 
gent perception, is the first step in the creation of a culture. The teachers who are facing 
this fact and who are trying to use the vital unspiritualized agencies of to-day as means 
of efiecting the perception of a human meaning yet to be realized are sharing in the act 
of creation. To perpetuate in the name of culture the tradition of aloofness from realistic 
science and compelling industry is to give them free course in their most unenlightened 
form. Not chiding hut the sympathy and direction of understanding is what the harsh 
utilitarian and prosaic tendencies of present education require. 



Section Five 
Aesthetics 



Richard Handler, editor 



Percy Grainger and Pniniii\c Mumc ( \')\h) 

I have often thought that one of the sinest tests of a true musical 
instinct is the abiHty to sense melody and rhythm in the music of primi- 
ti\e peoples. The frequent presence of such disturbing elements as unfa- 
miliar intonations, a too forceful handling o\' the \i)ice, loud and mo- 
notonous drum or rattle accompaniments, and interspersed u hoops 
prevent many a supposed lover oi^ music. man\ an individual blessed 
with all the endowments of "musicianship" from percei\uig the pure 
gold that lies buried only a little below the surface. In the measure that 
spontaneous aesthetic appreciation is independent o\' the bias deter- 
mined by the conventional garb of art must such appreciation be 
deemed sincere and sound. Thousands o( "art lovers" accept without 
question second and third rate productions, provided they be dressed 
in the usual accoutrements of art, who would shrink from a masterpiece 
treated in a totally different style. Hence it is not. as a rule, the musical 
amateur, learned or unlearned, who is the most ready to acknowledge 
the profoundly musical quality of much of the music of primitive folk. 
but rather the musical creator, the composer, whose musical learning 
does not sit so heavily on him as to crush his instinctive appreciation 
of the beautiful wherever and however it ma\ be found. The case in 
music is precisely analogous to that in primitive plastic art. The lavman 
who talks glibly oi' Rembrandts and Diirers would fain have us believe 
his soul is being constantly bathed in art. yet he finds some exquisite 
bit of West Coast Indian art merelv 'inleiesting"' (generallv a preten- 
tious way of saying "funny") where the genuine artist frankly says 
"beautiful" or "great." 

And so we need not be surprised to find a Debussv rejoicing in the 
exotic fragrance of Javanese music or. to ci>me nearer home, a Mac- 
Dowell or Cadman finding frank inspiration in the tunes of the Ameri- 
can Indian. There is, however, a gap between such aesthetic apprecia- 
tion and the laborious field and laboratory studv o\ primitive music 
undertaken by the musical ethnologist. Ihe interest o\' a MacDowell 
and of a von Hornbostel do not readily or, at any rale, frequently com- 
bine. Hence my keen gratification at coming across an example o\ ihis 
potentially rare bird only recentlv. in lookini: throuL'h the Julv. 1915. 



g70 iJJ Culture 

number (vol. L no. 3) of The Musical Quarterly (published by 
G. Schirmer, New York [593] and London). The purpose of this note is 
to call the attention of ethnologists who are interested in primitive mu- 
sic to a paper by the Australian composer Percy Grainger on "The 
Impress of Personality in Unwritten Music" (pp. 416-435). Grainger is 
well known in the musical world both as pianist and as orchestral com- 
poser; he is particularly noteworthy for his daring and extensive use 
in his orchestral scores of such unusual instruments as the guitar and 
xylophone. In the article referred to Grainger shows himself to be not 
merely a cultivated musician who is half-condescendingly disposed to 
take from the storehouse of folk and primitive music a hint or two for 
his own purposes but, on the contrary, an enthusiastic and painstaking 
collector of such music who freely acknowledges the complexity of the 
problem, and is convinced of the necessity of studying with all serious- 
ness the subtleties of intonation and rhythm which such music presents. 
Grainger's ideal falls nowise short of that of the scientific ethnologist. 
And his sympathetic understanding of the primitive background again 
creates a common bond with the professed student of primitive culture. 
I shall be content, for the rest, to let Grainger speak for himself, so as 
to give the reader of the American Anthropologist some idea of how 
a topic near to him strikes one of the foremost of Enghsh-speaking 
composers. 

Symptomatic of the general attitude of the musical routineer towards 
the objective study of all music but that of the academy is the following 
(p. 433): 

Experience of primitive music is not in any way thrust upon the 
budding musician. When I was a boy in Frankfort my teacher wanted 
me to enter for (I think it was) the Mendelssohn Prize for piano 
playing, and I remember asking him: "If I should win, would they let 
me study Chinese music in China with the money?" And his reply: 
"No, they don't give prizes to idiots." 

The most enthusiastic interpreter of primitive life could hardly do 
greater justice than Grainger to the superior possibility of individual 
participation in art among primitive communities than in our own. He 
says (p. 418): 

With regard to music, our modern Western civilization produces, 
broadly speaking, two main types of educated men. On the one hand 
the professional musician or leisured amateur-enthusiast who spends 
the bulk of his waking hours making music, and on the other hand 



Five: Aesthetics g7| 

all those many millions of mcMi and women whose lives are far too 
overworked and arduous, or too completely immersed m the ambi- 
tions and labyrinths of our material civilization. \o be able to devoic 
any reasonable proportion of their time to music or artistic expression 
of any kind at all. How different from either of these types is the 
bulk of uneducated and [594] "uncivilized" humanity of every race 
and color, with whom natural musical expression may be said to be 
a universal, highly prized habit that seldom, if ever, degenerates into 
the drudgery of a mere means of livelihood. ... Now primitive modes 
of living, however terrible some of them may appear to some edu- 
cated and refined people, are seldom so barren of "mental leisure" as 
the bulk of our civilized careers. 

Of the complexity of "unwritten" music and of the incapacity o\' the 
general public, through sheer ignorance, to fathom and enjoy this com- 
plexity, Grainger remarks (p. 417): 

While so many of the greatest musical geniuses listen spellbound 
to the unconscious, effortless musical utterances of primitive man. the 
general educated public, on the other hand, though willing enough to 
applaud adaptations of folk songs by popular composers, shows little 
or no appreciation of such art in its unembellished original state, 
when, indeed, it generally is far too complex (as regards rh\ihm. 
dynamics, and scales) to appeal to listeners whose ears ha\e not been 
subjected to the ultra-refining infiuence of close association with the 

subtle developments of our latest Western art-music -Vs a rule 

folk-music finds its way to the hearts of the general public and o\' the 
less erudite musicians only after it has been "simplified" (generall> m 
the process of notation by well-meaning collectors ignorant o^ those 
more ornate subtleties of our notation alone titled for the task) out 
of all resemblance to its original self. 

The following is of interest to the folk-psychologisi. though {>erson- 
ally I am inclined to believe Grainger may go too far in his generaliza- 
Uon (p. 423): 

The whole art [of folk and primitive music] is in a constant state 
of fiux; new details being continually added while the old ones are 
abandoned. These general conditions prevail wherever unwritten mu- 
sic is found, and though I may never have heard Greenland or Red 
Indian music I feel pretty confident that as long as it is not too 
strongly infiuenced by the written music of our Western civilization 
it will evince on inspection much the same symptoms as ili«>se dis- 



g72 JJJ Culture 

played b\ the folk -music o^ British, Russian or Scandinavian peas- 
ants, or hv natives o'i the South Seas, and we may always be sure 
that the singing of (let us say) an unsophisticated Lincolnshire agri- 
culturalist o{ the old school will in essentials approximate more 
closely to that of Hottentots or other savages than it will to the art- 
music of an educated member of his own race living in a neighboring 
town. 

My own experience would lead me rather to emphasize the quite definite 
stylistic peculiarities of the folk-music of different tribes and peoples. 
However, much depends on the perspective adopted. The measuring 
rod o\ the musician must needs be differently graduated from that of 
the ethnologist. [595] 

For the following breath of fresh air let us be duly thankful 
(pp. 427-430): 

What life is to the writer, and nature to the painter, unwritten 
music is to many a composer: a kind of mirror of genuineness and 
naturalness. Through it alone can we come to know something of the 
incalculable variety of man's instincts for musical expression. From 
it alone can we glean some insight into what suggests itself as being 
"vocal" to natural singers whose technique has never been exposed 
to the influence of arbitrary "methods." In the reiterated physical 
actions of marching, rowing, reaping, dancing, cradle-rocking, etc., 
that called its work-songs, dance-music, ballads and lullabies into life, 
we see before our very eyes the origin of the regular rhythms of our 
art-music and of poetic meters, and are also able to note how quickly 
these once so rigid rhythms give place to rich and wayward irregulari- 
ties of every kind as soon as these bodily movements and gestures 
are abandoned and the music which originally existed but as an ac- 
companiment to them continues independently as art for art's sake. 
In such examples as the Polynesian part-songs we can trace the early 
promptings of polyphony and the habits of concerted improvisation 
to their very source, and, since all composing is little else than "frozen 
inspiration." surely this latter experience is of supreme importance; 
the more so, if there again should dawn an age in which the bulk of 
civilized men and women will come to again possess sufficient mental 
leisure in their lives to enable them to devote themselves to arfistic 
pleasures on so large a scale as do the members of uncivilized commu- 
nities. 

Then the spectacle of one composer producing music for thousands 
of musical drones (totally uncreative themselves and hence compara- 



Five: Aesthetics 873 

li\cly oul of touch uilh ilic ulu>lc phcnoinciiDn (>t" arlislic creation) 
will no longer sccni noinuil or dcsnablc. and then the presenl gull" 
between the mentality of composers and performers will be bridged. 

The lact that art-music has been written down instead ol nnpro- 
vised has di\ided musical creators and executants mto two quite sepa- 
rate classes; the former aiUocratic and the latter comparatively slav- 
ish. It lias grown to be an important part of the oHlce tif the modern 
composer to leave as tew loopholes as possible in his works for the 
idiosyncrasies of the performer. The considerable increase of exact- 
ness in our modes o\^ notation and tempo and expression marks has 
all been dnected toward this end. and thouLih the state of things 
obtaining among trained musicians ['ov se\eral centuries has been 
producti\e o\^ isolated geniuses o\' an exceptional greatness unthink- 
able under primitive conditions, it seems to me that it has done so at 
the expense of the artistry of millions o[^ performers, and to the de- 
struction o\' natural sympathy and understanding between them and 
the creative giants. 

Perhaps it would not be amiss to examine the possible reason for 
the ancient tendency of cultured musicians graduall\ to discontinue 
improvisation, and seek some explanation for the lack of \ariety with 
regard to scales. rh\thms and dynamics displayed b\ our western art- 
music when compared with the resources of [596] more primiti\e men 
in these directions. I believe the birth of harmony in Europe to ha\e 
been accountable for much; and truly, the acquisition o^ this most 
transcendental and soul-reaching of all our means of musical expres- 
sion has been worth any and every sacrifice. We know \\o\\ few com- 
binations of intervals sounded euphonious to the pioneers o\ har- 
monic consciousness, and can imagine what concentration the> must 
ha\e brought to bear upon accuracies o{ notation and reliabiliis o\ 
matters of pitch in ensemble; possibly to the exclusion o\ an> \er> 
vital interest in indi\idualislic traits in performances or m the more 
subtle possibilities of dynamics, color and irregular rhsthms. 

With the gradual growth of the all-engrossing chord-sense the 
power of deep emotional expression through the methum of an unac- 
companied single meliKlic hue would likewise tend to atroph\; which 
perhaps explains win man\ of those coinersani with the strictly solo 
performances o[' some branches o^ unw rilten music miss in the me- 
lodic invention of the greatest classical geniuses passionatel) as 
they may adore their masterliness in other directions - ihe presence 



g74 /// Culture 

of a certain satisfying completeness (from the standpoint of pure line) 
that may often be noticed in the humblest folk-song. 

It always seems to me strange that modern composers, with the 
examples of Bach's Chaconne and Violin and 'Cello Sonatas as well 
as of much primitive music before them, do not more often feel 
tempted to express themselves extensively in single line or unison 
without harmonic accompaniment of any kind. I have found this a 
particularly delightful and inspiring medium to work in, and very 
refreshing after much preoccupation with richly polyphonic styles. 
Now that we have grown so skilful in our treatment of harmony that 
this side of our art often tends to outweigh all our other creative 
accomplishments, some of us feel the need of replenishing our some- 
what impoverished resources of melody, rhythm and color, and ac- 
cordingly turn, and seldom in vain, for inspiration and guidance to 
those untutored branches of our art that have never ceased to place 
their chief reliance in these elements. I have already referred to the 
possibilities of "inexact unison" evinced by Maori and Egyptian mu- 
sic. Similar rich and varied lessons might be learned from Red Indian, 
East Indian, Javanese, Burmese, and many other Far Eastern musics. 

Being, moreover, the fortunate heirs to the results of those centu- 
ries of harmonic experiments in which ever more and more discor- 
dant combinations of intervals came to be regarded as concordant, 
we are now at last in a position from which we can approach such 
music as the Rarotongan part-songs and similar music of a highly 
complex discordant nature with that broad-minded toleration and 
enthusiastic appreciation which our painters and writers brought to 
bear on the arts of non-Europeans so many generations before our 
musicians could boast of an equally humble, cultured and detached 
attitude. 

A broad-minded tolerance and an enthusiasm for the aesthetic value 
of all that is genuine and distinctive in art, whether or not countenanced 
by academic sanction, are here united with a sure sense of history that, 
on the whole, seems rather uncommon among creative musicians. [597] 

I cannot close this already lengthy note without quoting from the last 
part of the paper (pp. 433-434): 

I believe the time will soon be ripe for the formation of a world- 
wide International Musical Society for the purpose of making all the 
world's music known to all the world by means of imported perfor- 
mances, phonograph and gramophone records and adequate not- 



Five: Aesthetics 875 

atioiis. Quilc small but rcprcsciUali\c iroupcs ot" poasanl aiul native 
musicians, dancers, etc., cmild he scl m nuuion on '"UDrki iDurs" lo 
pciloiin m ihc subscription concerts o\' such a sociely in the art- 
centers o\' all lands. One program might consist of Norwegian 
fiddling, pipe-playing, cattle-calls, peasant dances and ballad singing. 
aiuuher ol' \arious types o\' African drumming, marimba and /an/e 
plaxiiig. choral songs and war dances, and \el another e\ening tilled 
out with the teeming varieties of modes of singing and playing upon 
plucked string instruments indigenous to British India; and so on. 
until music kners everywhere could form some accurate conception 
of the as yet but dimly guessed multitudinous beauties of the world's 
contemporaneous total output of music. 

Quite apart from the pleasure and \eneration such e.xotic arts in- 
spire purely for their own sake, those o\^ us who are genuinel) con- 
vinced that many of the greatest modern composers ... owe much to 
their ccMitacl with one kind ov other o\' unwritten music, must, if we 
wish to behave with any generosity toward the future, face the fact 
that coming generations will not enjoy a first-hand experience o^ 
primitive music such as those amongst us can still obtain who are 
gifted with means, leisure or fighting enlluisiasm. Lei us therefore 
not neglect to provide composers and students to come with the best 
sccoiui-liaud xx\d{Qv'vd\ we can. Fortunes might be spent, and well spent, 
in having good gramophone and phonograph records taken i^f music 
from everywhere, and in hav ing the contents o\^ these rec^Mds noted 
down by brilliant yet painstaking musicians; men capable of respond- 
ing to unexpected novelties and eager to seize upon and preserve //; 
f/u'lr full MrdHi^cnc'ss iind (Xhcnicss jusi those elements that have least 
in common with our own music. We see on all hands the victorious 
on-march of our ruthless western civilization (so destructivelv intoler- 
ant in its colonial phase) and the distressing spectacle o\' the gentle 
but complex native arts wilting befc^re its irresistible simplicitv. 

Grainger's enthusiastic proposal doubtless meets with little more than 
a humorous smile from the average musician. To the ethnologist il 
opens up a visia full of interest and pii"»rit. 



liditorial Note 

Originally published in Annrican Anthrofyo/oj^iM IN; y)2 >'V, (LMdl. 
Reprinted bv permission of the .American Anthropological .Association. 



Literary Realism 

We are no longer under any illusions as to realism, naturalism, and 
the other ism's in the literary art. Whether or not the now ancient real- 
ism of Zola, the Hauptmann of the earlier plays, and the rest is really, 
as some would have it, a new-fangled romanticism, the truth of the 
matter is that we are no longer interested, if indeed we ever sincerely 
were, in mere chunks of life, be they represented with all the pho- 
tographic fidelity you please, in mere assemblages of human happenings 
selected from a hundred tiresome notebooks. We want the eager scent, 
the indefinable feel of life, to be sure - want it more imperiously than 
ever before - but are careless of the outer garment in which this feel is 
clothed. We want to sense in our characters and motives the play of 
fundamental human impulses. So long as the literary craftsman seizes 
firmly on these and makes them real for us, in other words brings us 
vividly face to face with certain aspects of ourselves, he is at liberty to 
be as romantic or symbolistic or naturalistic as he likes. He may serve 
his dish in whatever sauce he favors. The Maeterlinck of The Intruder 
is a symbolist, as labels go, but I find him a more ruthless realist than 
the muck-raker of Mrs. Warren's Profession. And you may characterize 
the Claudel of The Tidings Brought to Mary as a modern mystic, but he 
bares the soul of man unflinchingly for all that; he is a truer realist than 
the playwright of Ghosts. Where the older realism took infinite pains 
with the accidents of time and place that lend color to the interplay of 
human wills, the newer realism, or rather the newer trend in Hterary art 
(for it would be forcing the facts to speak of a specific neo-realistic 
school), is often content merely to suggest these accidents and to focus 
searchingly, sometimes impertinently, on the birth and growth and the 
decay and death of passions, of attitudes, of human relations - in short, 
on the significant aspects of our psychic life. Spoon River Anthology and 
Jean-Christophe well typify this modern trend. In them the body is not 
so much given a soul as is the soul perforce provided with a body; the 
habitafion of the body is often not much more than sugegsted. I find 
this newer realism more "real" than the other. Which is the "real" house 
-the thing of foundation and girders and roofing not seen by the eye, 



Five: Aesthetics 877 

or ihc \isihlc. rcspcclabl\ clad ihiiiii ot buck rows and windows and 
green sliii iters? 

If the outer garb in wliich the writer clothes his analysis of the life o^ 
the soul is relatively indifferent to us. this does not at all mean that 
certain styles o\^ certain techniques may not be intrinsicalK better 
adapted than others to the realistic ideal. I or one thmg it is obvious thai 
the dramatic form most adequately meets the rc(.|uncmcnts of realism m 
its usual sense, in a sincere modern play there is no room for mere 
verbiage or theatrical sleight o( hand. Each phrase should come out 
clear and sharp as a rapier thrust, revealing by its gleam the personality 
o\^ the speaker. The technical limitations of the dramatic form, the re- 
moval of all descriptive and most narrative matter from the te.xt o\ the 
work to a primitive appeal to the eye and the necessity o^ developing 
character and motive through self-revelation, give it an admirable con- 
ciseness and verisimilitude that the great dramatists ha\e cherished. .\ 
false note is instantly detected, just as in life the slightest disturbance of 
the credible tlow o^ things startles us. Yet this very sensitiveness o^ the 
dramatic form to the relentless demands of current reality strains its 
capacity to represent the more fundamental factors o\^ psychic reality. 
Men and women do not in real life wear their psyches on their sleeses. 
The great verities of life are not bandied about in speech. They are 
revealed in the unuttered promptings o\' individual souls, in half 
ashamed, often incompletely selt^-apprehended. impulses and fancies. 
No wonder then, that an Ibsen, more concerned with probing the 
depths of the soul than the chronicling of surface realit> or with techni- 
cal theatrical evolutions (master technician though he be), has been 
constrained at times to push his dialogue beyond the realm o\ the 
strictly plausible, of the strictly realistic, to translate iiiis|^oken thoughts, 
feelings, impulses into terms imposed by the medium o'i his art form - 
spoken dialogue. The more "real"' a realistic dramatist wishes to be. the 
less merely realistic he can afford to be. An ironical contradictuMi. but 
an inevitable one. Inevitable, indeed, unless we frankls deny to the stage 
the right or the inherent capacity to reveal psschic realism at its pro- 
foundest. It is significant that the keenest modern pla>w rights h.i\e 
most deeply felt this curious dilemma and have sought to escape tri>m 
it, with varying degrees o[' consistency, by an abandonment o{ realism 
in its narrower sense. Hence such allegori/mg extravaganzas as Peer 
Gynt, hence the symbolistic play o\' Maeterlinck and the mystery pla\ 
of Claudel, hence too the Shavian farce, most pregnantly real when 
most outrageously unrealistic. 



g78 JJ^ Culture 

And \ci, in spite of these and other types of escape from the normal 
realistic drama, whatever their purely aesthetic excellences, the theoreti- 
cal ideal o\^ accomplishment in the dramatic form would seem to be 
the union o'( Hawless, punctilious realism with the unforced revelation, 
whether by subtle implication or otherwise, of the most powerful, the 
most significant determinants of the life of the soul. Has this idea ever 
been realized? I am not so sure that it has; not improbably it is an 
impossible one. Of a serious attempt to dramatically portray life as it 
really and unpretentiously is, quite without any admixture of the "grand 
style," there can be no serious talk until the latter part of the nineteenth 
century. That the Greek tragedians, Shakespeare, and Goethe were 
magnificently "real" it would be impertinent to point out, but slavish 
adherence to the humble actualities of life was not an ideal sought by 
them. And Ibsen, the master realist of dramatic literature, makes no 
insignificant demands on our bread-and-butter credulity. Why deny it? 
I am afraid we sometimes allow ourselves, willing captives, to be hood- 
winked by his superb technique. Does he not taste a bit "theatrical" 
every now and then? Strindberg seems not essentially different in this 
respect for all his brutal frankness. But there is little comfort to be had 
making the rounds. Nothing is more depressing than the discovery that 
hardly a single realistic play remains strictly realistic when the depths 
of the soul are being plumbed, when the moment of revelation arrives. 
Perhaps Schnitzler in his Lonely Way comes the most perilously near to 
the impossible ideal — at least nothing occurs to me at the moment that 
so fuses the casual commonplaces of everyday intercourse with a sense 
of the unutterable longings and fateful limitations of life. Perhaps Che- 
khov also solves or nearly solves the problem in the wistful Seagull. 

It may be objected that our standpoint is unreasonable, that we can 
hardly expect the dramatist to show us people who talk about the 
weather or the price of potatoes and at the same time reveal to us their 
loves and gnashing hatreds and hypocrisies unknown to themselves. 
This is impossible, on the stage. That is precisely why the drama cannot 
portray real life in its fulness. It can be meticulously realistic, in which 
case it does not plumb deep; or it tears the soul to shreds, but in an 
atmosphere which is higher, lower, at any rate other than that of the 
human world we know. 

Evidently we want some form of literary expression which has as few 
purely technical limitations as possible, a medium so flexible as to 
mould itself to whatever uses we will. It must be capable of the clean 
objectivity of realistic drama, it must allow of the conveyance of all 



Five: Acs (he lies 879 

nuances iifthc mind and heart, and it must above all provide us, cxplic- 
ill\ or implicitly with a profound understanding of the causal nexus of 
human relations. Need one say that the narrative form, or a form built 
up on a primaril\ narrative basis, most adequately fulfils these require- 
ments? For us of today this necessarily means prose narrative the 
short story and the novel. The poetic epic, so powerful an implement 
in the past, has, as a form, practically outlived its significance. Jo most 
of us there is something inherently incongruous in chaining the expres- 
sion of the jostling, hurrying stream of life to an artificially measured 
form. 

Prose fiction is easily the greatest common denominator of all forms 
of literary art. No doubt it is a levelcr. which means that it is compelled 
to forego much of the particular Havor of the more distinguished forms. 
The loss in formal individuality is nevertheless more than counterbal- 
anced by the added facility, flexibility, and completeness of expression. 
The sheer narrative gives us the spectacle of life; motivation can be 
readily worked in by added comment; where necessary, the prose can 
rise to impassioned lyric heights; skilfully constructed dialogue in fiction 
may have all the verve of dramatic dialogue. Prose fiction occupies the 
same relative position in literature that belongs to orchestral music in 
the realm of music generally. The string quartet, the unaccompanied 
chorus, the pianoforte solo all have their individual aromas that are 
only in part reproduced in the heavier and more luianced fragrance of 
the orchestra; yet there can be no question o( the generally greater 
musical serviceableness of the latter. Needless to say, it would be unwise 
to press the analogy. 



Editorial Note 

Previously unpublished; from a typescript draft with ms, editorial 
changes in the possession of the Sapir family. This is Part 1 o\ a longer 
essay; part II was published as "Realism in Prose Iiciion" (.Sapir 
1917 0, which follows in this volume. 



Realism in Prose Fiction 

Prose fiction is the vehicle par excellence for a realistic ideal. But I 
wish to call special attention to a somewhat embarrassing feature of the 
realistic technique of nearly all prose fiction, further to suggest a 
method - not a wholly new one - for the development of a fictional 
technique that differs materially from the normal, excelling it, in my 
opinion, in its purely psychological possibilities. If one rummages in his 
memory of short stories and novels - such of them as can be fairly 
conceded to strive for realism - he will, I believe be prepared to admit 
the justice of a somewhat unexpected thesis, that those succeed best in 
giving a sense of the How and depth of inner life, in attaining both 
outer and inner reahsm, that do with the smallest number of essential 
characters, or, to put it rather differently, that do not attempt to individ- 
ualize all the characters with equal care. The thesis will not hold rigor- 
ously, to be sure, but in a large way it undoubtedly possesses much 
truth. In the measure that it is sound, it is merely the symptom of a 
wider principle, which we shall define in a moment. 

What gives a play its power of realistic illusion? Evidently the simple 
fact that the action and dialogue are directly revealed to us, not left to 
the imagination. This means that we can readily identify ourselves with 
the various characters as they follow one another. Being passive specta- 
tors, our minds work kaleidoscopically without serious effort, without 
too great an exercise of creative imagination. The drama is predigested 
food. For the lyric poem a greater degree of creative imagination is 
required of the reader. He must identify the mood of the poem with a 
potential mood of his own. As a rule, he is aided in this task by the 
singleness of the mood represented. Economy of attention makes for 
strength and vividness of mood-realization. Thus, the essential tech- 
nique of both the drama and the lyric makes it a simple matter for us 
to live through the experiences that the artist aims to have us feel and 
sense with him. 

What are the tacit assumptions in fiction? Generally speaking, the 
writer does not identify himself, and through himself the reader, with a 
central character alone but claims an unconditional omniscience. He 
enters with equal freedom into the psychic privacy of all his characters. 



Five: Aesthetics 881 

His oiilK>i>k iijtiMi ihc c\cnls aiul iiuUi\cs thdl comprise ihc narralivc 
seems to be JircclcJ nou b\ i>iic of his characters. no\s by ;ini>lher. This 
conventional omniscience ot the aiitlior's goes by the name ot'objecliv- 
ity. It is a power that the reader is supposed to share with him; indeed, 
it is considered so much o\ a sine qua nan in the art ot" story-telhnu that 
it can hardl\ be said to be generalls recognized as a tacit assumption at 
all. The reader, at the mercy of his omniscient guide, turns one imagina- 
tive somersault after another. Hardly has he ensconced himself in the 
head and heart o\' one indi\idual, hardl\ has he begun to feel the 
warmth o\' \ icarious self-conscimisness, when he is mercilessly bundled 
out of his retreat and required to take up new quarters. Incidentally he 
is asked to cut his former self dead, at an\ rate to exhibit no more than 
a purely external acquaintance with him. Needless to say. he may be 
called upon at any moment to race back into his old skin, or even to 
adopt a third alias, a fourth indeed, there is no limit [o the demands 
made upon his reincarnative capacity but the charity o\' the writer. .Ml 
this makes good gymnastics for the reader, and he develops a llexible. 
bouncing multi-personality that keeps him e\er alert. There is not one 
of us who has not rejoiced in the exhilaration i^f this exercise. 

But let us not forget that the test of a trul\ realistic technique is the 
relative case with which the reader or hearer ov spectator can be made 
to live through the experiences, thoughts, feelings o\' the [>"4] charac- 
ters. He must himself be these personalities and develop as them. In 
the drama, as we have seen, this self-identillcation with a number o\ 
personalities is rendered a comparativel\ easy matter b\ the \ery nature 
of dramatic technique. In fiction, however, it requires a more distinct 
effort of the imagination to project oneself into a character's soul life. 
To do this for several characters and to shift rapidls about from one 
psyche to another may be fatiguing. More than that, it is, psychologi- 
cally considered, a not altogether convincing procedure. Once we have 
identified ourselves with a definite persi^nality. mir imagmati\e pride 
demands, provided al\\a\s that the arti^t can hold our interest, that we 
be left to the isolation imposed by our new shell, that we watch the 
progress of events from our own point of vantage and follow the psy- 
chic lives of the other characters, not as revealed bv themselves, but as 
atTecting or as rellected in the soul that we have made ouv own If the 
artist chooses to impose this limitation on the narrative form, two 
things inevitably result. The arena crowded with significant characters, 
one o\' the features o\' the older, romantic and semi-realisUc. lv|X*s of 
fiction, becomes an impossibility. It is significant of a striving for a 



gg2 /// Culture 

subtler understanding of reality that modern fiction has, on the whole, 
progressively moved away from this crowding of the arena. Further, the 
deeree ol" individualization of the characters needs to be carefully 
shaded. It will not do to bring them all into the foreground, for that 
would belie our naive outlook on our environment. The self stands 
strongest in the light. Further removed are a small number of individu- 
alities w hose lives are closely interwoven with that of the self but whose 
inner experiences can only be inferred, sometimes truly (that is, in a 
manner roughly coinciding with the viewpoints of their own selves), 
more often mistakenly. Still further removed are a larger number of 
personalities whose inner life is of little or no consequence to the central 
self, whose only function is to lend dash and color to the stream of 
daily experience that makes up the outer life of this self. And in the dim 
background bob up and down the merest ghosts of psychic entities, 
pale gleams, fragments of a suggested multitudinous world beyond. So 
we are fated by self-consciousness and the limitations of attention to 
live our life. So we may be made to Hve an imagined world at the artist's 
bidding. This psychic perspective is of greater importance than the unity 
of plot and the rest of the academic requirements of literary art. For 
want of it many a well-conceived narrative, excellently motivated, 
proves "jumbly." In a picture everything is illumined by a single light 
that has direction. We would not think much of an exterior in which 
the central figure is lit up by daylight that runs counter to several subor- 
dinate daylights showing up the rest of the group. Yet we do not seem 
to have developed a very keen sense of the value of the strict analogue 
in literary art of consistent lighting - a self-consciousness that sets all 
the elements of inner and outer life in comprehensible, livable relations. 
Singleness of outlook by no means limits the writer to the short story 
or to labors of unambitious scope. Indeed, one of the Works which seem 
best to answer to our ideal, though it has not by any means altogether 
eliminated cross-lights, is a prose epic in ten volumes - "Jean-Chris- 
tophe." 

At this point the reader may object that while this method pretends 
to be sweepingly realistic, to aim to grasp a bit of hfe and imprison it 
in narrative form, it yet is the merest subjectivism, an egoist's dream in 
which everything is hopelessly out of plumb, in which the valid relations 
of the objective world are badly muddled. Nor would he be aUogether 
wrong. And yet, what is life, as we really and individually know it, but 
precisely "an egoist's dream in which the valid relations of the objective 
world are badly muddled"? Objectivity, one might say, is romance. But 



Five: Acs i he lies 883 

he would n^L\\ [o add lliat uc cra\c and dciiiaiid this romantic objcctiv- 
it\. ihis mad seeing of things "as ihey realK arc." and thai the hierary 
artist has therefore a perfect right to choose between rigorous realism, 
the method that is frank Is subjective, and ob|ecti\e reahsm. the ro- 
mance of reahty. riicre is. indeed, always room for the narrative embod- 
ying more than one psychological viewpoint, for the "cross-light" tech- 
nique. Some of us, however, [505] will continue to look upon the sub- 
jecti\e, or better "single-light,'" technique as the more subtle and aes- 
thetically satisfying. 

\'et it is at least possible to combine the peculiar advantages of these 
two contrasting techniques by the use oi' a third method o^ realistic 
representation. Look at the three human beings seated around a dinner 
table, nibbling at jejune bits of conversation. If you and I. like the 
psychologist of the behaviorist persuasion, merely described w hat we 
saw and heard, the reader of our story would no\ thank us. Insipid 
twaddle he would call it, for all our pains. If we identify ourscKes with 
the host and take the reader into our confidence, revealing to him the 
stormy soul life hurtling along under the placid surface of conventional 
table talk, he would begin to feel interested. Yet he might tire o\' so 
purely one-sided, so merely subjective an interpretation o\' what was 
happening at the dinner table. On the other hand, if we identify our- 
selves now with the host, now with the hostess, now with the guest, 
pretending omniscience, some o\' us get restive, say "jumbly."" and talk 
of cross-lights. What if we tell it all three times - as seen, heard, and 
felt by the host, by the hostess, and by the guest'.^ Should we not succeed 
in being subjective in three different ways, in other wi^rds. m being 
objective? For may not objectivity be defined as the composite picture 
gained by laying a number of objectivities on top o\' one another, the 
most romantic of all wish-fultlllments, the successive jumping out o\' 
our skin in as many distinct manners as we fanc\'.' Thus we reclaim the 
gift of omniscience that we had modestly discarded for the "one-light" 
technique, but with a difference. Before, we let oui nine lives out of the 
bag all at once, now we live them in succession. 

The reader will not fail to have observed that we are nol dealing with 
an altogether novel literary device. It is as old as " The Ring and the 
Book" and has latterly been the subject o\' experiment at the hands 
of Arnold Bennett and Joseph Conrad. Vei 1 doubt if the tremendous 
possibilities of "The Ring and the Book " method of the conveyance o\' 
a certain attitude toward realism have been clearlv recogni/ed. Hie 
method is of far greater significance than as a more or less interesting 



gj?4 ^^^ Culture 

technical device; it is one of the major approaches to a profound and 
all-embracing realistic art. It sacrifices neither the depth, the inner truth, 
o( subjective realism, nor the external completeness of motivation of 
objective realism. It unites the two in a new synthesis of boundless 
resources. As a method for the artistic presentation of ideas and the 
analysis of life, it is bound to come into its own and reap a large harvest. 
That it can never become the method of narrative fiction is obvious, if 
only because it violates what we may call, with apologies to the jargon 
o\' the economists, the law of diminishing returns in narrative interest, 
f cl us acquaint ourselves with some of its implications. 

One thing is obvious enough. This method of varied repetition makes 
somewhat serious demands on the technical ability of the writer. Mere 
repetition of incident and dialogue with appropriate variations in moti- 
vation is out of the question. No mere human beings would long toler- 
ate the resulting dullness, were they animated by the best of wills. One 
of the great tasks of the literary craftsman working with the normal 
narrative technique is to make a satisfactory synthesis of the disparate 
elements - of character, incident, and motive - that go to make up his 
story. He is always fearful lest he fail, explicitly or implicitly, to arrange 
his materials so as to bring out his point with maximum effect. The 
weaving of threads becomes an obsession with him. In our suggested 
method of repetition, however, the threads need rather to be unraveled. 
The total material to be put before the reader must be distributed, with 
naturalness and nicety, among the successive versions. In this way each 
version brings something new with it, while the actual repetitions must 
be charged with ever-changing significance. Needless to say, the ar- 
rangement of versions would normally be such as to produce the effect 
of cumulative energy, of a steadily growing comprehension of the mean- 
ing of the whole. Like all inductive processes, the method requires a 
high degree of mental alertness in the reader, an alertness that finds its 
reward in the fullness of realization finally attained. [506] Attention may 
be called to a further technical feature of interest. In the usual narrative 
it is always difficult, sometimes impossible, to avoid explicit analysis of 
character and motive. Even when we cordially like such analysis, we 
cannot altogether ward off a sneaking irritation at the disturbing influ- 
ence it exercises on the flow of the narrative. Our method reduces the 
necessity of explicit analysis to a minimum. The tacit comparison of 
even two skilfully constructed versions gives opportunity for a wealth 
of implications, many of which would need express mention in a single 
version. We gain a perspective of motive as we pass from one subjective 



Five: Aesthetics 885 

viewpoint to another, just as \\c gain oin- knowledge of space relations 
by shifting the angle from which we look at a number of objects. 

There are many other interesting ccMc^llaries o\' the method. Tliere is 
one in particular that should appeal mightily as opening up exquisite 
possibilities of a purely aesthetic order. We have all of us often observed 
the peculiar individuality that a specific light lends an object. A house 
is not the same thing in the chilly gray of dawn, in the bla/.ing light of 
a clear noon, in the soft glow of sunset; it is not the same thing under 
a hard winter sky as in the hazy warmth of summer. Each \ ersion o^ a 
repeated story is doubly subjective. The focal character brings with him 
not merely a psychic perspective, a center of motivation, he brings with 
him also a temperament and a mood. His version receives an emotional 
atmosphere all its own. As we pass from one version to another, ue not 
only shift our standpoint, we also attend in a difTerent mood. This fea- 
ture of change of emotional approach can be utilized to give the most 
profound, the most poignant interpretations of life. One and the same 
series of events may be apperceived in varying, even contradictory, man- 
ner - as a merry jest, a tragedy, a clever play of circumstance, an 
irritating bungle. 

Need one say that in the promised land is displayed a signboard 
bearing the following inscription, in letters writ large: "Tinkers beware. 
Only artists allowed"? 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Dial 62, 503-506 ( 1917). The previously 
unpublished "Literary Realism" was the fust part of an essay of which 
this article was Part II. 



The Twilight of Rhyme 

In a lime that now seems strangely remote I happened to drop in on 
a mceiinii of an Ottawa debating club in which President Wilson's peace 
note to the belligerent nations was being discussed. After we had been 
treated to a couple of innocently academic utterances, the floor was 
taken b\ a rather elderly, choleric-looking Englishman of very deter- 
mined manner and voice. He woke us up. In a rambling discourse that 
had little connection with the ostensible subject of debate, he aired his 
\ iews and feelings mightily. He convinced those of us that had a mind 
to be con\inced that President Wilson's policy had been marked by a 
consistent pusillanimity worthy only of contempt, that the American 
people as a whole (and he knew all about it, for he had only recently 
visited the United States) were criminally lukewarm about the war, and 
that the only permanent hope for world peace lay, not in any professo- 
rial. Wilsonite notes, but in the strong arm of British sea-power. All of 
which, it need scarcely be said, was liberally punctuated by blazing eyes, 
waving arms, and clarion intonations. Some of us later, incautiously 
and vainly, looked for an intelligible argument or two in the Eng- 
lishman's flow of rhetoric. No matter — we were all carried away at the 
moment, and when he ended up with a triumphant snort and a bang, 
our answering applause was nothing if not sincere. Only the cultured 
elite can resist mere eloquence. I lay no claim to membership in that 
very exclusive species of humanity. Yet I was vain enough to take a 
certain pride in my failure to respond as unreservedly as most of the 
audience to our orator's fiery outburst of British patriotism. It was the 
old man's fault. Had he not quoted rhymed poetry at the tail end of his 
peroration, I should have drowned with the rest. That poetry of his was 
just the straw needed for a drowning man's clutch. It tided me over 
nicely. Indeed, after a fitting interval of surcharged silence, the memory 
of those rhymes, still tingling like a box on the ear, inspired me with 
courage to get up and, in the very teeth of the storm raised by the great 
man, to put in an apologetic word for Mr. Wilson. 

This was what the orator quoted, with a fervor that sent shivers down 
our backs: 



Five: Ac.silh-iics 887 

liicathcs tlicrc a man willi soul sd dead 
Who ncNcr lo hiiiiscit halli said. 
"This is my own. m\ iiati\c laiull"' 

and sonic move lo llic same ctTccl. '■.\hal" said I lo iiisscH. **is it some 
o\' Scolfs old doggerel \oii are lr\iiig lo palm olT on us'.'" Bill ii was 
Max haslnian who vsas uppermost in my thoughis jusi then. His "Lazy 
Verse" crusade had branched otT even into the wilds of Canada and I 
was still \ icariousl\ smarting from the whip hlous he had administered 
the la/\ praclilioners of the tVee-verse hahil. (,)uick as lightning I saw 
m\ chance: in a second I had Mr. Eastman by the throat. Here was a 
moment of intense social consciousness, [99] of patriotic emotion \i\id 
and sincere, demanding aesthetic resources, it would seem, for its con- 
summate expression. The old man, in his instinctive groping for a cli- 
max, fell the ncc<.\ too - and chose a bungling anticlimax! Had he but 
called in the aid of measured blank verse or, preferably, free \erse, he 
might ha\e succeeded in producing a truly climactic elTect. But uhat 
had such inane jingles as dead-said, shed-bed, Ted -Fred, lo do uilh 
the expression of heightened feeling? What concern had we, stirred to 
the patriotism that dealt and suffered death, to do with pretty boudoir 
tricks and rococo curtseys? It was the most magnificent test case one 
could have desired. The verse came quite unexpectedly, the emotion was 
already there to be definitely crystallized. In my own case, alas! it suf- 
fered collapse. Evidently rhyme had noi stood the test. Mr. Eastman, 
in so far as he lays stress on rhyme as a sincere aesthetic device, might 
question the diagnostic value of my experience. He might accuse the 
evident tawdriness of the lines themselves o( the disconcerting ctTcct 
produced upon me, not to speak oi' other psxchological analyses less 
nattering to my aesthetic sensibility. No doubt the lines stand in some- 
what helpless contrast to the emotion they are supposed to call forth, 
but I do think it was quite specifically the rh\nie as such that shunted 
me on the wrong track. 

Rhyme, I decided, might do \ery well lor certain lighter forms of 
poetry, the tlutfy rutlles of literary art drinking songs, sentimental 
but not too seriously felt love ditties, vers i/c socicic. popular ballads, 
and quite a number of other genres one might mention, in short, its 
value seemed purely decorali\c at best and not indispensably decorative 
at that. I decided that one could allow for it where graceful trifling or 
purely technical sound-etfects were in order, but that its empli\smenl in 
conjunction with deep feeling was perilous, lo say the least. I had lor 
years had an instinctive dislike for ihc jingle o\ rh>me in all but the 



ggg /// Culture 

lighter forms otNcrsc, and it seemed that my dislike had experimentally 
justified itself in a Hash of insight. 

Incidcniallv 1 could not help feeling impressed by the purely ethno- 
logical consideration that rhyme is rarely, if ever, found in the lyrics of 
primitive people, whereas there is probably not a tribe that does not 
possess its stock o\' measured songs. Whatever our attitude to the prob- 
lem of strictly measured or polyphonic verse in our own artistic levels, 
it is very evident that a set rhythm at least does answer to a primal 
human trend, that rhyme, on the other hand, is no more than a bit of 
technical flavoring that happened to become habitual in Occidental po- 
etrv at a certain period not so far removed from the present after all. 
Rhvme is merely a passing notion of our own particular cultural devel- 
opment, like chivalry or alchemy or falconry or musical canons or a 
thousand-and-one other interesting notions now dead or moribund. 
Some of these notions, like rhyme, still vegetate (for that matter, canons 
are still composed by students of counterpoint), but they cannot be 
allowed to cumber the earth forever. No doubt rhyme will some day be 
thrown into the limbo that harbors its first cousin, alhteration. Some 
day all sensitive ears will be as much outraged by its employment in 
passionate verse as by the musical expression of flaming desire in the 
pattern of a formal fugue. 

Mr. Eastman contends that rhyme, like rhythm, has a certain disci- 
plinary value which is of direct aesthetic benefit, in so far as it imposes 
a wholesome restraint on the artist. Rhyme sets definite technical limita- 
tions that tax the poet's ingenuity. He has to solve technical problems, 
and in their solution he is braced to the utmost limit of his powers of 
concentration, of clarity of vision, of self-expression. A chastening halt 
is put to a too easily satisfied, a too glibly facile flow of expression. The 
aesthetic product, which must of course appear perfectly natural and 
unhampered, is all the more refined and potent for the painful struggle 
that has preceded its birth. The dynamic value of the overcoming of 
conflict in aesthetic production is by no means to be lightly set aside. 
Where Mr. Eastman errs, it seems to me, is in the narrow and specific 
applications he makes of the principle. Just as soon as an external and 
purely formal [100] aesthetic device ceases to be felt as inherently essen- 
tial to sincerity of expression, it ceases to remain merely a condition 
of the battling for self-expression and becomes a tyrannous burden, a 
perfectly useless fetter. The disciplinary argument is then seen to belong 
to precisely the same category as the conservative plea for the educa- 
tional value of Latin or for the wholesome restraining influence of an 



Five: Acs I Iw tics 889 

outlived bi>ci\ o[' religions belief. In other words, ilierc is no ubsolutc 
standard by whieh to measure the \alidity ot a lornial aesihetie device. 
Necessary or seir-e\ident in one age, it is an encumbrance m another. 
Perfection o\' form is always essential, but the detlmlion of what consti- 
tutes such perfection camuU, must iu>t, be fixed once for all I he age, 
the individual artist, must sol\e the problem ever anew, must unposc 
self-created conditions, perhaps onl\ diml> realized, of the battle to be 
fought in attaining self-expressuMi. It winild be no paradox to say that 
it is the blind acceptance of a ['ovm imposed from without that is, in the 
deepest sense, "lazy," for such acceptance dodges the true formal prob- 
lem of the artist - the arrival, in travail and groping, at that mode oi' 
expression that is best suited to the unique conception of the artist. 
The "best" may, of course, be many; it is necessarily conditioned by 
temperament. Mr. Eastman's error, then, would seem to be the rather 
elementary confusion oi' form (an inner striving) and fiMiiialism (an 
outer obstacle). 

But Mr. Eastman seems to go further. He would not merely preserve 
rigid metrical forms and even rhyming schemes as essential to the satis- 
faction of our craving for poetic form, but he seems also to have regard 
for virtuosity as such. He speaks almost as if the greater the number 
and difficulty oi" formal limitations, the greater or more admirable the 
aesthetic result. This should mean that the pinnacle of poetic art has 
been reached in the Skaldic verse of Old Norse literature, perhaps the 
most artificial verse patterns ever devised. Here we have alliteration, 
assonance, extreme brevity of lines, and the use oi highlv conventional 
metaphorical modes of expression - four dilTicuIt masters to serve at 
the same time. Dc i^usfihus! 

In truth there is no greater superstition than the belief in the ever- 
growing complexity o( all the outer forms o\' life and art. I'n^gress in 
both means, on the contrary, an ever-increasing will and abililv to do 
without the swaddling clothes of external form. The ■freedom'" of prim- 
itive culture is only an illusion, gained partly b\ the freshness of contrast 
with our own order oi' restraints, partly, and chietlv. bv the imperfectly 
developed techniques oi' lower levels, formallv the grctil languages ol 
modern civilization are verv much simpler, verv much less virluoso-likc. 
than most i^f the languages o\' aboriginal America. Roman Catholic 
ritual seems rich and cc^iiplex to us, but it is a mere bagatelle in ci^iipar- 
ison with the endless elaboration of the ritual life o\ the Pueblo Indians. 
Northwest Coast Indian art is relatively crude in Us delineation (al its 
best, superb), but the puiclv formal limitaliiMis set on the artist's activity 



v^i)() /// Culture 

would seem to us almost to preclude the possibility of individual expres- 
sion at all. In lower levels of culture the number of things that one must 
do is great: in higher levels the number of things one may do is vastly 
greater, the number of things one must do relatively less. Progress, if it 
means anything at all. may be ideally defined as the infinite multiplica- 
tion of things one may profitably do, think, and enjoy, coupled with the 
gradual elimination of all things one must not do. 

We may seem to have gone very far afield, but the truth is that a 
proper historical perspective of such a problem as that of the use of 
rhyme can hardly be gained on a less broad foundation. The historical 
and psychological considerations affecting rhyme are by no means pe- 
culiar to it, but necessarily apply to countless other elements of art and 
life. Briefiy, then, aesthetic progress cannot mean that we hold on to 
such a feature as rhyme because it is a valuable conquest, a complexity 
that we have achieved in passing from a less to a more subtle grasp of 
form (this was true in its day), but that we leave it behind as already 
belonging to a more primitive stage of artistic consciousness. Once a 
resplendent jewel, it is now a pretty bauble. In time it will have become 
an ugly bauble. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in The Dial 63, 98-100 (1917). 



Review oi^ Romain Rolland. 

Jcaii-Christophc 

Romain Rolland. ./c7//;-(7/m7^V'/'^' I'aris: Ollcndorir. 1905 1912. 

Imagine Noursclfin a salon adorned by a gathering ol ehoice spirits 
exhibiting the last degree of refmement. Here you may admire the im- 
peccably dressed gentleman, a Greek god in exenitig dress; there the 
beautifully waxed mustaches of the man leaning against the piano. Art 
can go no further. Yet the women are still more exquisite. You hold 
\our breath in the presence of all this kneliness. When your ecstasy has 
been gathering speed for some little time, you are suddenls startled by 
a noise. The door is burst open and in walks a nonchalantly whistling 
fellow - he might be a lumberman - with firm step and confident air, 
looks about unconcernedly for a moment or two, says, "Excuse me. 1 
made a mistake," and walks out again, slamming the door after him. 
You ha\e had time to get a good look at him. enough to ascertain that 
he is a man. And the rest? Ninnies. 

This roughly defines the relation of Romain Rolland with his "Jean- 
Christophe" to most of his contemporaries in the world o^ F'rench let- 
ters. When you are fresh from the ten volumes o\^ "Jean-Christophe" - 
you have read them without a halt in rapid succession - and make 
mental notes of comparison with some of the best that the rest of recent 
French literature has to otTer, you find it difilcult to repress an impa- 
tient outburst. In the enthusiasm of the moment >ou berate \ourself for 
your hitherto zealous worship of the idols. Of course \ou ha\c a sneak- 
ing realization o\' the fact that \iui arc allowing your critical judgment 
to go napping, but you resent being mixed up with any charge o\ mere 
sobriety. You want to berate yourself; \ou take a fierce pleasure in mak- 
ing firewood of your beautifully carved idols, as did Jean-C'hrisiophc 
himself during his "Revolt" with ilic hallowed idols of musical tradition. 
You have found a real man w here you hoped only to make the accju.iinl- 
ance of an artist - you had not experienced a similar misad\enturc 
since parting company with Tolstoy and are so intoxicated with the 
find that the mere arlistr\ of the rest seems rather an impertinence. 



g92 111 Culture 

This feeling that Rolland gives us in ''Jean-Christophe" is as unique 
as it is simple and direct. To enjoy an imaginative work of unusually 
sustained conception with sheer aesthetic delight and at the end of it all 
to exalt the man that animates the artist above the artist himself - in 
few monuments of literature are we impelled to do this. It is not an 
accident that Rolland has written a "Life of Tolstoy." Tolstoy and he 
are kindred spirits. But whereas in Tolstoy the love of humanity is tinc- 
tured on the one hand by a stern, impatient indictment of the causers 
of misery, on the other by a mystical idealization of the poor and the 
humble of spirit, Rolland's love of humanity has never anything intem- 
perate or maudlin about it. It is shot through with a sublime reasonable- 
ness, a truly Gallic clarity of vision, a temper ever controlled by an 
irony now censorious, now playful, now tinged with pathos. 

Irony is the quality we always look for in a great French writer; its 
forms are protean. Anatole France and Maupassant are perhaps the 
virtuosos of modern French irony, and it is instructive to contrast their 
use of it with that of Rolland. The writer of "Le Crime de Sylvestre 
Bonnard." ''Lisle des Pingouins," "Thais," and "Les Dieux ont Soif 
runs through a considerably nuanced gamut of ironies, from the ineffa- 
bly tender to the savage. But in all these nuances I find the same essen- 
tial hopelessness, the same stoically pessimistic stare into the fathomless 
void; the gentle smile and the savage leer are strangely akin. There is 
no malice in this irony of Anatole France, but it does not brace you; it 
teaches you indifference. As for Maupassant, who can be misled by his 
polish of phrase and anecdotal finish of structure into blindness to the 
snarl, the aggressive or inhibited contempt of his irony? Some day it 
will be possible in our critical analyses to express these and other types 
of irony in terms of sex sublimation. Even now one can more than 
guess the sadistic strain in Maupassant's irony. Rolland is clearly more 
normal, more buoyant. His irony, though plentiful enough, is the sauce 
of the discourse, never the meat. It frankly rebukes the hero with a slap 
on the shoulder or slyly nudges the reader at the expense of Rolland's 
creations, but it never stands in the way of your faith. It does not [424] 
poison idealism with its ridicule; on the contrary, it encourages it by 
clearing the atmosphere. Irony is by no means the essence of Rolland's 
art. but it is on that account all the more symptomatic of his spirit. 

I have said that Rolland's love of humanity is neither intemperate 
nor maudlin. His idealism does not crane its neck cloudward, leaving 
the actual world of men and women shivering at its feet; nor does it 
hug the world with a sloppy sentimentalism. There are many passages 



Fivi'. Acslhi'tics 893 

of ■■Jcan-C'hrisU^phc" ihai iii their clean. leiA kI n.lcalism arc aniicipalory 
of the essays in 'Aii-tiesMis tie la Melee." but these are precisely not the 
passages thai seem to me to be most ciMuinciniiK iiKlieativc of Rol- 
lands intense humanity. Fhere can be no doubt in them ol'his sincerity. 
They are eloquent. Moreover, Rc^lland's instinctive good taste and hu- 
mor pre\eni liini iVom falling into any semblance t^fthe drear\ twaddle 
that disfigures so much o[\ say, "The Kingdom of (iod is within you." 
For all that, he is not at his best when frankly and rhetorically idealistic. 
1 get an uncomfortable feeling of whipping myself on and of marching 
at the head o\' columns. The truth is that Rolland is so human in his 
narratixe and analysis of character that one wonders why his humanity 
yearned to express itself in more abstract form as well. We are reminded 
that the artist, like every other human being, mistrusts his strongest 
weapon. The loftiest idealism rays out, by some mysterious process of 
implication. W'om Rolland"s handling of the nicest \ulgar and common- 
place scenes and characters. His, or his hero's, "impure" impulses are 
somehow cleaner than the rectitude of others. 

What is the secret of this intense humanity o^ Rolland's art? The 
answer may not be easy to give. Or let us say rather that it is too easy 
to give, that it seems trivial. Rolland loves hiinianit\ so well that he has 
the patience and the audacity to see life as it is. Many idealists love 
humanity, provided we allow them to define it as an adumbration oi 
themselves, their own personal virtues and desires, projected into a fu- 
ture. They love the vision. Rolland loves the vision, too, but meanwhile 
he also loves the poor flesh and blood that will one dav make the vision 
incarnate. He has the true artist's respect for his material. 

In speaking of Rolland's patience in depicting life as it is, I am far 
from wishing to imply that he is one o[^ the item-listing tribe begotten 
of Zola. Those who delight in miniature accuracy stained in plenty ot 
local color will find him a decidedly impatient craftsman. I'he atmo- 
sphere of locality and outward circumstance is deftlv enough created 
where Rolland so wills it, but it is truly remarkable how little of it either 
he or his reader wills in the course o\' the huge epic. "Jean-Christophe" 
is preeminently a study of human hearts, of human hearts lovinglv and 
patienllv disclosed. The more uninteresting ti^ external ga/c. the less 
dramatic his man or woman, the more warml> glows Rolland's heart 
as he draws the picture. 1 know of no characters in fiction that seem so 
tenuous in outline, so devoid of content, as si>me o^ tlu>se that he lures 
us with - irresistibly. Charcoal sketches that pulse with warmth. 



gq4 ^^^ Culture 

Think o\' l,ouisa. the mother of Jean-Christophe. Now Louisa is one 
of those got>d, patient, ignorant women that we would probably not 
waste more than a moment's thought on if we knew them in the world 
we li\e in. Mothers o\' iieroes are not generally interesting, still less so, 
nood mothers. Why, then, do we love Louisa? And think of the magic 
o\' the good, serene old Gottfried, the brother of Louisa. If I were to 
eive you a brief summary of what he is and thinks and does - what 
little he does - you would yawn apprehensively with fear of the oppres- 
sive dullness of the good. But Gottfried is sturdy for all his humility 
and goodness. You look him in the eye, and somehow you begin to feel 
very small. A Tolstoyan conception - a German version of Artzibas- 
hett's Ivan Lande, only far more lovable. Schulz, the obscure music- 
lover who reveals Jean-Christophe to himself, is an even greater favorite 
o( mine. There is absolutely nothing to relieve his unabashed goodness; 
by all the canons of modern realistic art he should inspire nothing but 
disgust. Again Rolland fools you. You may be heroically cynical in real 
life, but in the land of "Jean-Christophe" you can no more escape hug- 
ging the old man to your heart than an iron bar can help leaping to the 
magnet. And what shall we say of Sabine, the lovely, silent, pensive, 
dainty-footed Sabine, one of those pathetic girls (she is a widow, but 
her youth entitles her to the privilege of girlhood) who are made to live 
a [425] sweet, lingering life only to die and make us grieve? She, at least, 
is not so very "good"; she comes within a hair's breadth of yielding 
to temptation, of depriving Jean-Christophe of his youthful innocence. 
"Good," you say as you rub your hands, "Rolland has some consider- 
ation for us, after all." But I warn you that Sabine is endlessly good in 
spite of, or because of, or quite apart from it all - it doesn't really 
matter what view you take of it. For Rolland knows what we all dimly 
know but what only one in a thousand will admit (woe to morality if 
we gave way!) - that men and women are not good and bad by virtue 
of what they do, but by virtue of what they are. Oh, sweet heresy! Once 
we have it flashed upon us, who can rob us of it? At least in Ada, the 
vulgar wench, have we not an unlovable bit of humanity? No. I, at least, 
like her, or perhaps I like her only because Jean-Christophe loves her 
for a spell. It would be safer to say that I like her because Rolland will 
have it so - Rolland, who, for all I know, detests her. 

Nowhere is the mystery of Rolland's human art more subtly shown 
than in Antoinette, the heroine of the volume that bears her name. 
Antoinette is made to be loved and to love, but it is her destiny to 
sublimate all her passion, all her instincts, into the spirit of endless self- 



Five: At'sllwlics 895 

sacrifice. As she li^ils and sci imps aiul sulTers Id i!i\e her weak, neurolic 
brolhci cnlr\ iiilo ihc larger lile, she hriishes against ihe world's muck. 
hill her inner self seems e\er lo nunc apart m a cloistered garden 
scented with the fragrance of rare (lowers. It is impossible lo con\e> in 
a few words a sense of the peculiar Kneliness of this adorable girl. There 
are other pure maidens m liieialure wIk> compel atloralion, bul few, if 
any, haunt us with so lender, so poignant a feeling o\' frustration. She 
is our mingled yearning and self-pity objectified into beauty. Hence she 
is at one and the same time remote from and inexpressibly near lo us. 

\\licrc\er we Uirn in ■■.Ican-C'hrisloplie." we are confri)nted by some 
craniiN o[' our soul. The cheap coquetry of Colette, ihe volcanic and 
mood\ passion o\^ Franvoise. the dark, flaming soul o( F.mmanuel. the 
seething, ice-girl passion of Anna, the wistful waywardness of Jacque- 
line, the genlle Goethean serenity of Grazia Buontempi (is not the mel- 
oi\\ of the name a symbol?), the \oiithful egotism o\' .\uvo\a and 
Cieorges in lo\e - these and much besides are our \ery seKes. actual or 
imagined. Everywhere a few strokes of the pen, and a warm, luminous 
indi\ idualily stands close to us. Nowhere a complication of plot or a 
stage overcrowded with characters, hut alwa\s the surge o\' life lov- 
ing, haling, aspiring. 

And through it all unfolds the soul o( Jean-C'hristophe himself, the 
musical genius, Beethoven reincarnated in the present. No greater error 
can be committed than lo assert with P. Seippel ("Romain Kolland, 
THomme et fOeuvre") that "Jean-Christophe" is not for those who do 
not love music. Those who love music will drink deepest in the joys o( 
Rolland's epic, but, aside from certain pages of musical criticism in "La 
Koire sur la Place" (aesthetically the weakest volume oi' the scries, 
though thoroughly absorbing), there is little that requires more than a 
bare tolerance of music, if tolerance is all the reader can sincerelv give. 
The passionate, striving temperament o( the hero carries all before il. 
What matters it whether we can enter into the technicalities of his musi- 
cal career? Such a sum o\' life-fierce. o\' unswervinglv sincere h\ing and 
yearning, needs no label to make it real. Jean-C'hristophe is tingling 
Hesh and blood at every step -in his sufferings and jovs. in his triumph 
and defeat, in his tempestuous youth and serene old age. Bul he is also 
a symbol o\' abst^luie sincenlv in life aiul art; and herein Rolland has 
attempted a herculean task {o merge the humanlv real, pilfalls and 
all. with the ideal. In the first four volumes and in "l.e Buisson .Ardent." 
Rcilland has eminently succeeded. Idsewhere Jean-Chrisiophe seems 
olien on the poiiu of dissolving into an ideal abstraction, into the pas- 



J?96 lit Culture 

sivc carrier o\^ Rolland's aesthetic and humanitarian message. At such 
times he is all force and hght - and colorless. I would give much if 
Rolland could have induced himself to dispense with the critical discus- 
sions o^ French music, literature, and life that make up so much of "La 
Foire sur la Place" and "Dans la Maison." I would he had saved them 
for another setting, for we cannot afford to miss them. 

Jcan-Christophe is the impulsive, creative, universal side of Rolland's 
temperament. But there is also a reflective, critical, ironical side that 
needed expression, a subtler, more characteristically Gallic spirit. Oliv- 
ier Jeannin is the friend and counterfoil of Christophe. He represents 
the purest ideals of French art [426] and thought, but, Hamlet-like, he 
is crippled by his doubts and scruples. I get a curious feeling that Rol- 
land has left him a torso, that he has incorporated in him certain more 
intimate elements of his own personality but has not been able to clothe 
him in all the flesh and blood he had originally intended. Rolland fights 
shy of something. He wraps Olivier in a wistful haze that even his bo- 
som friend Christophe cannot altogether penetrate. At times the sym- 
bolic wins the upper hand over the human. And Olivier cannot hold 
Jacqueline's love. 

I mentioned Rolland's audacity. Many artists have sought evil in their 
heroes and heroines and set it by the side of their good. Many have 
pictured the waywardness of fate with a detached wonder. But they 
generally put a "but" between the good and the evil, between the ideal 
and the actual. Rolland's audacity leads him, and with unerring psycho- 
logic instinct, to put an "and" between them. Jean-Christophe lives with 
the common-souled Ada. There is no conflict in his soul; he merely 
breaks off all relations in a moment of revulsion. Olivier's friendship 
for Christophe is of the very warmest. When Olivier marries, he drifts 
away form his friend with a strange rapidity. Emmanuel hates Chris- 
tophe. And his love for Christophe is the same emotional current, dif- 
ferently colored. Jacqueline loves her son to distraction, but she sud- 
denly loses interest in him. If you have been fed up on the relatively 
conventional psychology of most realists, you may not feel altogether 
at home in some of Rolland's arbitrary-looking conflicts of will. By and 
by you realize that you are not asked to fit the patterns that you have 
brought with you. You are walking in the strange path of life and had 
better see and be silent. 

Of the style, of the thousand and one observations on hfe, nationality, 
art, and politics, of the structure of the work, of its aesthetic and ethical 
ideals - of these and other aspects of "Jean-Christophe" I shall say 



Five: Aesthetics 897 

nothing. The \irilc aiul Kniiiu huiiKiii now \ihialing t'roni end U) end 
of the gical prose epic is iis si longest hid lor ininiortahty. 11" critics grant 
French lellers light but (.\^\\\ il waimth. let tlieni he silenced bv 'Jean- 
Chrisiophe." 



Editorial NcUc 

Oiiginail) published in I'hc Duil Ul. 423-426 1^)17). mulcr ilu- mlc 
"Jean-Christophe: An Epic o^ lliiiiianity." 

Romain Rolland (1866-1944) was a Erench novelist, playwright, and 
biographer, who receixed the Nobel Pri/e for Literature in U)I5. 



Review of Henry T. Finck, 
Richard Strauss, the Man and His Works 

Henry T. Finck. Richard Strauss, the Man and His Works. With an 
appreciation of Strauss by Percy Grainger. New York: Little, Brown 
and Co., 1917. 

This is a useful survey of the external facts touching the life and 
musical compositions of Richard Strauss. It is also, as the writer seemed 
to be very eager it should be, a reasonably entertaining volume, liberally 
besprinkled, as it is, with anecdotal matter and journalistic chit-chat. 
But it does not, on the whole, suggest that it has been a labor of love. 
Mr. Finck makes it abundantly clear in the course of his remarks that 
his reason for writing the book was rather the fact that Strauss is con- 
sidered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of living composers than 
that he himself considers him to be such. And the general tone of Mr. 
Finck's book is blase, sometimes yawningly so. His own spontaneous 
reactions to Strauss are so consistently unsympathetic that he evidently 
fears at times to create in the reader an impression of unreasoning pre- 
judice; he therefore protects himself by calling on copious testimony 
from other writers. "You Straussianer just fight it out among your- 
selves," he seems to say, and steps back with a shrug of the shoulders. 

Mr. Finck's lack of sympathy is only partly due to Strauss's obvious 
shortcomings - his crass realism of conception, his lack of a distin- 
guished melodic vein, his frequent want of restraint and tendency to 
lapse into sheer vulgarity. We could hardly expect Mr. Finck to forgive 
Strauss these sins. In one of the most charming essays on Chopin that 
I have seen he has implied how much he understands and values the 
jeweled and the chastened in art, how ardently he loves the limpid flow 
of perfect melody and the delicious echo of subtle and softly pedaled 
harmonies. But melody and the glow of harmonic sequence, precious 
as these are, are not the whole of music. The more massive qualities 
exhibited by Strauss at his best - the power to fill a large canvas with 
color and movement, the titanic artistic unity and inner coherence at- 
tamed through polyphonic mastery, and, above all, the will and power 



Five: Afsthclics 899 

to gi\c ci^iKictc nnisical cxprcssii>n lo large thoughts and unbridled 
passions, lo ihc Rabelais and lo ihc madman biuh ihal iirc lalcnl in all 
of us - these are not to be lighll\ ignored. Here precisel> \\ is that Mr. 
Finck seems not quite adequate to his task. He has e\identl\ |5S5J little 
genuine love for polyphony as such, for the interweaving o\' indepen- 
denll\ nioxing melodic lines. That ihc pi^l\ phonic icchmque has fre- 
quenll\ dcgcneraled into mechanical \irtuosity need not be denied, it 
is doublfuK for all that, whether the history of music records any means 
o'( expression more virile and resourceful than the free polyphony of 
modern music. Mr. Finck is also doubtful, it would seem, of the legiti- 
mateness of such wealth of expression in pure tone as Strauss gives us. 
He ma\ be right, but only one prepared to meet Strauss at least half 
\\a\ in his artistic presuppositions is genuinely qualified to interpret 
him to us. That is why Mr. Ernest Newman's far shorter study of Strauss 
seems so much more vital: the few pages that Romain Rolland devotes 
to Strauss in his "Musiciens d'Aujourdhui" also re\eal a deeper under- 
standing of the musical personality o\^ this composer. 

Underneath all Mr. Finck's hesitations and shrinkings in the presence 
o^ Strauss's tone poems and operas, may we not discern a more funda- 
mental clash of temperaments, the refined irritation o\^ the cultivated 
Sybarite who looks on at the capers of a healthy barbarian, a spirit 
attuned to Tennysonian felicities subjected to the uncouth liberties of a 
Walt Whitman? Something of the kind is conveyed by Percy Grainger 
in the following words, taken from his interesting introductory essa\ : 

Strauss is not a musician's musician like Bach, Mo/art, Schubert. 
Grieg, or Debussy, capable o'^ turning out flawless gems o\' artistic 
subtlety and perfection, but rather is he a great cosmic soul o\' the 
Goethe, Milton. Nietzsche, Walt Whitman. Fdgar Lee Masters cali- 
ber: full of dross, but equally full of godhead: lacking refinement, but 
not the supreme attributes: and uniquely able to roll forth some great 
uplifting message after gigantic preliminaries o\' boredom and incon- 
sequentialness. 

(Do Schubert and Grieg quite belong to the first list? Do Goethe and 
Milton feel quite at ease with their neighbors in the second".') It is the 
"dross," the "lack o\' refinement," and the "gigantic preliminaries o^ 
boredom" that too fatally afTect Mr. Finck: the "godhead" and "su- 
preme attributes" seem altogether lost in the scramble. 

In the section de\t>ted to "Program Music" Mr. Finck has a splendid 
opportunity to analyze the psychology and aesthetics and trace the de- 
velopment of one of the most interesting musical phenomena of the last 



1)00 /// Culture 

hundred years. I cannot feel thai he has made very serious use of the 
opportunity. The externality that characterizes his account of Strauss's 
career and his description of the musical compositions themselves is in 
evidence in this section as well. The inevitable anecdotes, random re- 
marks on various specimens of programme music (MacDoweirs piano- 
forte sketches come in for warm appreciation), a determined and gallant 
attempt to convince us that the symphonic poem has reached its artistic 
culmination in Liszt, and divers evidences of Strauss's inferiority to his 
Hungarian precursor fill up space that one would have liked to see de- 
voted to the rationale of the programme movement and to the varying 
ideals that have animated its representatives. We are not given even a ser- 
viceable notion of the nature of Strauss's aesthetic procedure, of the man- 
ner in which he aims to reconcile the conflicting demands of literary con- 
ception and musical treatment, of the symbolic significance of leading 
motive, instrumental individualization, and polyphony. And what of the 
evolution of musical form in the composition of Strauss, the acknowl- 
edged master of form? In brief, we nowhere feel that we are being brought 
to a realization of the nuclear conceptions of Strauss the artist. How then 
can the reader justly estimate the place to be assigned Richard Strauss in 
the history of programme music, whether his tone poems represent a logi- 
cal and healthy development of ideas that owe their most authoritative 
formulation to Berlioz and Liszt or, as Mr. Finck would have it, mark the 
degeneration of the programme tendency? 

Be that as it may, there is little doubt that for the present programme 
music has reached its apogee. Signs of revolt have been in evidence for 
some time; the cumbrous literary constructions that were meant to give 
form to elaborate tonal creations seem to crumble of their own weight. 
It is probable that the programmists have attempted too much, that 
they have tried to get as much service out of Pegasus as out of a willing 
dray-horse. The future alone can tell whether they have indeed at- 
tempted the impossible or have merely sought the arduous conquest 
with means too coarse and untried, have mistaken a Rosinante for the 
real Pegasus. Meanwhile, a clear swing back to the absoludsts, Brahms 
notwithstanding, is a sheer impossibility. However music may tend to 
be chastened of its luxuriance of symbol, the spell of fancy and mood 
that the romanticists and programmists have cast over it will not disap- 
pear. Self-determination [586] of form and emotional expression - if 
these alone remain, their attainment by way of the perhaps circuitous 
route of the programmists will have jusfified the Liszts and Strausses. 



Five: Aesthetics 901 

\\:\ all ihc while I HikI in\scir scrunisls dislnislinii ihc psychological 
validity o\' the cm i cut ciassificatio!! of composers iiilo absolulisls and 
programiiiisls or impressionists. '\o an altouetlier iinuarrantablc cxlcnl 
we lia\e been taking musical artists at their own valuation, at the sur- 
face \alue o\^ their titles and programmatic analyses. Is it not possible, 
na\ likel\. ihal <iii appalling proportion o\' ihc musical "'programmes" 
authorized b\ composers are afterthoughts designed, consciouslv or un- 
consciously, to lure the public, always an essentially unmusical bods' 
Or to give an external conceptual frame, of subjective associative \alue. 
to a lyric impulse that has alread\ imlranslatably expressed itself in 
tone? We know that Schumann ga\e titles to his pieces after he had 
composed them; the conceptual label, in other words, was probabl\ 
more a flourish o^ the pen. a Finis, than a genuine aesthetic stimulus. 
The wayward whimsy or burning passion was there from the beginning, 
but it needed no other than purely musical expression. May not e\en 
some o\^ our impressionists, Debussy among them, entertain a funda- 
mentally identical attitude toward their material? is there not the least 
shade of hypocrisy in these pagodas and goldfish and engulfed cathe- 
drals and moons descending on temples that were? Strange, otherwise, 
that we seem to breathe a larger air and to feel the tow o^ a mightier 
current in the music itself than in the bric-a-brac world its titles intro- 
duce us to. Conversely, there is little reason to doubt that a great deal 
of absolute music, so-called, has been wrought out o^ conceptions and 
emotions that were all but ready to burst into impassioned speech. 
What are some o'i those curious rccitativo passages in the Ikx-tlunen 
sonatas, glades in the wood, but tortured questionings and strixings 
bound in musical constraint? Before we can profoundl> approach the 
psychology of programme music, there is much underbrush to be 
cleared away. We must know better than we ^So how the artist conceives 
and works and care less how he labels. Perhaps it is well that artists tell 
us little, but we can often guess back of their paraphernalia o\' labels if 
we will but hearken to the music. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in Ihc Dial 62, 584-586 ( 1917), under the title 
"A Frigid Introduction to Strauss." 

Richard Strauss (1864 1949) was a German ci>mposer and conduc- 
tor. Sapir develops his thoughts on programme music further m " Repre- 
sentative Music" (1918, this volume). 



Representative Music 

The contest between the absolutists and the supporters of "pro- 
gramme" in modern music has often been characterized by extreme and 
mutually irreconcilable attitudes. On the one hand we have the purists 
or formalists, who either explicitly deny or evade acknowledgment of 
any necessary relation between musical forms and states or functions 
of mind occurring in other than musical experience. To these a sonata 
or even a bare musical "theme" is aesthetically satisfying by virtue of 
its own inherent beauty of melody, rhythm, harmony, construction, or 
color, quite regardless of any non-musical "meaning" it may be thought 
to possess. Such people would be annoyed rather than helped by the 
interpretation of a certain Beethoven sonata as suffused by a spirit of 
moonlight pensiveness. Why mar the sheer beauty of a self-sufficing art- 
form by attaching to it a label of extraneous origin? 

No less decided are some of the "programme" enthusiasts. While not 
denying to melody, rhythm, and the other means of musical expression 
an inherent sensuous beauty, and to musical construction the essential 
beauty of all design, they maintain that the enjoyment of such merely 
sensuous or structural beauty is an aesthetic one only in a more or less 
elementary phase. To a piece of music must, properly speaking, be de- 
nied the term art-form in its highest sense unless it does more than 
tickle our sense of rhythm or color or evoke our admiration by its 
skilful handling of the purely formal aspect of the musical problem. It 
must have vitality (to use a much abused word), that is, it must be 
associated in the mind of both creator and public, and this by virtue of 
its intrinsic quality, with some element or elements of their experience. 
[162] It dare not stand coldly aloof, on pain of degenerating into clever 
trifling, from the more definitely articulated currents of Hfe, but must 
seek to gain in significance, and therefore in aesthetic value, by embody- 
ing, in its own peculiar way, one or more of the incidents or phases of 
that life. The nature of such embodiment may vary indefinitely. In some 
cases the music may be content to picture a mood, in others to catch 
some aspect of nature, in others to define an idea, in still others to mark 
a succession of moods or ideas that in their totality comprise a "story." 



Five: Aesthetics 903 

The progress of musical art is thus u>\\ard c\cr increasing complexity 
and dcfiniteness of cniolic^nal aiui conceptual expression. In other 
words, music must lend to be ■"representative" in character. Music has 
lagged far behind plastic art and pcK'tr\ in this respect, but this is due 
primarily to the great lapse of time which it has taken the art to de\eK>p 
a lechnique rich and tlcxiblc ciunigh to fuiril its higher mission. 

if the history of aesthetic criticism teaches us anything, it is the t utility 
ot trying to mark oft the legitimate province of an art or an art-form. 
Over and over again a critic has demonstrated, to the complete satisfac- 
tion of the discerning, certain inherent aesthetic limitations. He proved 
his point, but some genius has generally managed to override his for- 
mula and consign it to the dust-bin o\' things that were. My own aim 
is, therefore, not the presumptuous one of a definititMi o^ the proper 
sphere of music but rather an attempt to state what music seems to me 
best able to accomplish. 

To begin with, can the absolutists really succeed in eliminating an 
emotional substratum, of varying vividness, from the appreciation of a 
musical composition? I do not refer to the emotional components o\' 
musical appreciation that are evident in the enjovmeni o\' an\ o[' the 
elements of musical expression as such (such as pleasure in certain in- 
strumental combinations or delight in the recurrence of a well-defined 
rhythmic figure or the more subtle pleasure derived from consideraliiMi 
of a certain balance of form), but onlv to a mood or altitude o\' mind 
induced by the composition as a whole and to which the former types 
of pleasure must normally be considered as subsidiary. As a matter o\' 
fact, it is difficult to listen to one o\^ the greater compositions even o{ 
pre-programme days without finding ourselves put into a rather definite 
mood, a mood which to all intents and purposes defines the meaning 
of the music for us. And does not the verdict of the present in judging 
of the relative merit or appeal of musical works of the past often cldirly 
imply just such an emphasis on [163] the aesthetic importance of definite 
emotional quality? fhus. it is no exaggeration to sav that most o\ the 
Mozart sonata movements, despite their spontaneous tlow o\ melody 
and finish of external form, are o\^ lesser aesthetic value to us than 
many of the simply constructed Bach preludes o\' the "*\\ell-tem|XMed 
Clavichord." These preludes belong to a remoter peru>d of musical his- 
tory, but their deep-felt, though restrained, quality of emotion (think o^ 
the devotional spirit of the very first prelude manifest enough without 
the Gounod Ave Maria pendant; or o{ the mood o{ serene sadness that 
permeates the beautiful E Hat minor prelude of the first set) keeps them 



904 J^f Culture 

alive where the Mozart sonatas, on the whole, must be regretfully ad- 
mitted to have become a respectable and faded musical tradition. 
Craftsmanship, no matter how pleasing or ingenious, cannot secure a 
musical composition immortality; it is inevitably put in the shade by the 
techniques of a later age. True, such craftsmanship may be admirable, as 
a dynamo or a well played game of billards elicit admiration; yet admi- 
ration does not constitute aesthetic enjoyment. 

Aside from the emotional substratum which we feel to be inseparable 
from a truly great and sincere work of musical art, are there not in the 
earlier supposedly absolutist art plenty of instances of direct realistic 
suggestion, sometimes intentional, no doubt, at other times a spontane- 
ous product of association on the part of the listener? Is it possible, for 
instance, to listen to certain of the Beethoven scherzos without sensing 
the gamboling faun (or convention-freed ego) kicking his heels with a 
relish? But Beethoven, the idol of the absolutists, was no more an abso- 
lutist than Aristotle, the idol of the scholastics, was a scholastic. I do 
not think it would be going too far to say that all musical art worthy 
of the name has implicitly, if not avowedly, some of the fundamental 
qualities of so-called "programme" music; from a musical standpoint it 
should make little difference whether the emotional appeal is left to 
declare itself in the mind of the sympathetic listener or is trumpeted at 
him by means of a formidable printed analysis. 

We have turned our backs on the uncompromising absolutist. Are we 
therefore to receive his most uncompromising opponent with open 
arms? I have already indicated in a general way the aims and procedure 
of representative music. It either uses all of its technical resources to 
define a mood or emotion, or it may, by the use of some special element 
of technique or combination of such elements, depict a selected feature 
of the external world [164] (rapid passage work may be utilized to sym- 
bolize the flowing brook or the falling rain or the roaring wind, the high 
pitched piccolo tones may do service for the shrieking of the tempest or 
the chirping of birds, the loud discord of clashing harmonies may sug- 
gest a battle scene or the clangor of a foundry). Now there seems to me 
to be a profound psychological difference between those two types of 
procedure, intertwined as they necessarily often are in practice. That 
the former touches our emotional life while the latter plays upon our 
sense experience is obvious. The distinction 1 have in mind is more deep- 
seated. Realistic suggestion must make use of the principle of associa- 
tion, and the fact of such association becomes obvious to the listener 
on reflection. By the musical equivalent of a figure of speech, a feature 



live Acsihiins 905 

common lo iwo cuhcruisc loiall\ clissiiiiilar phenomena (the thing sym- 
bolized and a certain mass of sound) is made to identify them. If, for 
some reason or other, the experience of the auditor has been such as 
noi to make the associatiiMi ob\ious. the suggestion loses all its force 
and the arlisi. insofar as he is writing merely representative music, has 
with that auditor failed of success. On the other hand, music is able lo 
put us into more or less well defined emoticMial states without such 
associati\e inlermedialK^n. or. perhaps more accuratel>, the associative 
links are o\' so obscure and intimate a nature as never to rise into con- 
sciousness. In other words, the emotional effect o\' music is gained di- 
rectly or, what amounts to essentially the same thing, gi\es the impres- 
sion of being so gained. Once this point is clearly grasped, it becomes 
obvious that the function oi" music, insofar as it has aesthetic aims o\' 
other than a sensuous and formal nature, is primarily the expression o\' 
the emotional aspect of consciousness, only in a very .secondary sense 
the expression of the conceptual aspect. This primary function is thus 
of poetic quality and may be brielly described as the interpretation o\' 
emotional quality in terms of sensuous and structural beaui\. A still 
more concise way of putting the matter is to define music as an idealiza- 
tion of mood by means oi" tone. 

It has often been instinctively felt that music which makes loo free a 
use of realistic suggestion lays itself open to the charge of superficiality, 
of the abandonment of its own highest artistic capabilities. E\en the 
greatest composers, in its employment, seem often to sail between the 
Scylla o( triviality and the Charybdis of absurdity. And \et there is no 
doubt that it is capable of affording keen aesthetic pleasure. Probabls 
the simplest and most fundamental element in such pleasure is the sheer 
delight [165] that the mind seems to find in generalizing by analogy, in 
meeting familiar friends in new and unexpected guise; it is the tonal 
correspondent o\' the childish phantasy that interprets cKnid shapes as 
battleships and monsters and human faces. More careful anal\sis. how- 
ever, shows thai this type of pleasure is, in the best examples of musical 
suggestion, powerfully reinforced by another though not alwa\s clearly 
distinct factor. The melodic, harmonic, rh> thmic. or other musical idea 
which serves as the symbol of the concept represented has in such cases 
an independent sensuous beauty o\' its msn. a beauts whose appeal 
transcends our normal interest in the concept itself Hence such music 
amounts to an idealization of some aspect of the external WiHid. lo our 
greeting o\' a friend in disguise is added the much greater pleasure o\' 
finding him liansporled lo a higher plane oi being. And this brings us 



906 li^ Culture 

to a third and yet more significant phase in the use and appreciation of 
realistic suggestion, that in which the concept is not ideahzed for its 
own sake, is not merely represented as such, but is utilized as a symbol 
o^ the emotion simultaneously called forth by the music. Obviously this 
means a very considerable heightening of the quality of the emotion 
itself. The fmest examples of realistic suggestion derive much of their 
charm from this very factor. In other words, realistic suggestion in mu- 
sic is most successful when it ceases to be merely what its name implies 
hut contributes to the enrichment of the emotional aim of music. Thus 
even in so obviously suggestive a bit of music as the delightful "Jardins 
sous la pluie" of Debussy, the secret of the appeal, it seems to me, lies 
not so much in the clever devices of rhythm, melodic progression, and 
shading which symbolize the pitter-patter, the gustiness, the steady fall, 
and the tempestuous downpour of the rain as in the delicate and wistful 
line of emotion that runs through the composition; the rain but voices 
human feeling. And such humanizing of the external world via emotion 
is a significant indication of the primary function of musical art. 

We have just seen that realistic suggestion may assist us in the defini- 
tion of the mood (thus, the suggestion of the shepherd's pipe may rein- 
force a mood or atmosphere of rustic peacefulness, a dancing rhythm 
of break-neck rapidity may accentuate a mood of reckless gaiety). In 
representative music, however, the emotion created by the music is con- 
versely often employed to suggest an associated concept, concrete or 
abstract. When a certain harmonic progression, for instance, in one of 
Strauss's tone poems is used to symbolize a mountain, it is clear that the 
only [166] associative link is furnished by the feeling of all-embracing 
massiveness suggested by the chords in relation to each other (I say "all- 
embracing," for a feeling of vast extension would seem to be implied in 
the sudden chromatic modulation at the close of the figure, the immedi- 
ate juxtaposition of two harmonically remote keys being the musical 
equivalent of a bringing together of the widely removed in space; the 
feeling of "massiveness" is conveyed by the use of full compact chords 
in the bass). My claim here is that, considering the music itself as our 
starting point, the interpretation suggested by the composer is by no 
means the only justifiable one, psychologically speaking. Adopting the 
formula of "all-embracing massiveness" as expressing the quality of 
emotion conveyed by the passage in question, it seems clear that a quite 
unlimited number of alternative interpretations are possible (the vast- 
ness of the sea. Mother Earth, grim fate, eternal justice), each condi- 
tioned by considerations of personal interest and experience in the audi- 



Five: Acsilictus 907 

tor. If the conceptual interpicialion of a single musical passage of defi- 
nite emotional quality is thus multiform without limit, how much more 
must this be the case with the conceptual interpretation o\' a series o^ 
such passages, in other words of an extended musical composition! The 
"story" which we are expected lo icad in a composition of the "pri)- 
gramme" type must be considered as relevant only insofar as it conve- 
niently summarizes in conceptual terms the emotional stream immedi- 
ately expressed by the music. As such it may be highly welcome. 
Whether the composer wills it or not, the particular story suggested by 
his title or analysis is only a more or less arbitrary selection tuil o{ an 
indefinitely large number of possible conceptualizations. We cannot re- 
fuse him the right to his own interpretation, to be sure; no more can he 
refuse each one of us the right to his. All he has done or can do, aside 
from the possibility of direct realistic suggestion, is to determine for 
us the character and sequence of our moods. He may modestly direct 
attention, by means of his programmatic apparatus, to the conceptual 
genesis in his own mind of this emotional stream or, probabh more 
often than is generally thought, to his own merely secondary interpreta- 
tion thereof, but he cannot via a non-conceptualizing medium, i. e. mu- 
sic, force any particular stream of thought on us except insofar as we 
surrender into his hands our own individuality of judgment and associa- 
tion. In short, the music does not "telf the story but the story tells or 
rather guesses at the music. If the composer absolutely must appeal 
conceptually, as well as emotionally, to his hearers, he must ha\e re- 
course to [167] the conceptual implement which society has e\ol\ed. 
i. e. language. In other words, he must supplement his own expression 
of emotion by calling in the aid of the poet. His art then takes on the 
special forms of the song, music drama, oratorio. 

I have said that all the composer can do is "to determine for us the 
character and sequence of our moods." It is not worth while for him to 
aim at a purely representative ideal; his highest success in this direction 
will fall miserably short of what is attained b\ the merest balderdash in 
literature. In the expression of the emotions, however, he has a field the 
unending fruitfulness of which is hardly realized by most people. We 
think it a field of narrow range because words, mere conceptual s\m- 
bols, are lacking to indicate its infinite nuances. Select a half do/en 
musical examples of the expression of any typical emotion. sa\ unbri- 
dled mirth or quiet sadness or poignant anguish, and compare them. 
The feelings they arouse in us are identical onl\ when translated inlc> 
the clumsy conceptual terminology of language. In actual fact ihe> will 



908 H^ Culture 

be found to be quite distinct, quite uninterchangeable. It is literally true 
that the aesthetic expression of mood in tone is an exhaustless field of 
human endeavor. Does not the very potency of music reside in its 
precision and delicacy of a range of mental life that is otherwise most 
ditl'icult, most elusive of expression? Nay more, does not music ofttimes 
create nuances of feeling, nuances that add in profound measure to the 
more external enjoyment of its own sensuous and formal beauty? 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in The Musical Quarterly 4, 161-167 (1918). 



Review of Gilbert K. C'hcsicrioii, 
Utopia of Usurers 

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Utopia of I'surcrs and Other Essays. New 
'Nork: \^on'\ aw^} I i\criuht. 1917. 

Whether il is merclx because C'heslei"li>ii lias gi\en us a eharaeteristie 
and. in its own \\a\. peculiarly illuminating stud\ o'i Shaw or because 
a subtle spiritual comradeship, underlying all their obvious dilTcrences, 
holds them bound in memory. I fmd it difficult to keep Shaw out of my 
mind when reading his fellow-craftsman in the art o'l paradox. When 
Chesterton makes a neat point or tlares out with some unexpected an- 
tithesis, I find myself wondering how Shaw would ha\e put the same 
idea. Both use their paradoxical panoply for the purpose o\^ charging 
on us with what they really think or, at least, with how they e\en more 
really feel. They are always deadly in earnest. This is the reason uh\ 
they can atTord to laugh so boisterously, for onl\ such as know what 
they are about and have found a foothold in the shifting sands o'i idea 
can find time and energy and, above all, courage to laugh. The 
well-balanced individual is too busy pairing o\'\^ alternati\es, too busy 
finding a sensible middle ground, to be capable of more than a preoccu- 
pied smile. Laughter presupposes comfort; the pro\crbial seat on the 
fence, advantageous as it may be in other respects, is ioo spiked for 
comfort. 

Yet, like all similar ihmgs. Shaw and Chesterton are \astl> dilTerent. 
Shaw's main concern is with ideals and with romance: he has a great 
joke on luinianil\ because he alone sees thai ideals and loniaiice are but 
decorations that humanity has built about the commonplace, though I 
fancy, to judge from sundry wistful passages in the (2^) Shavian writ- 
ings, that he sometimes wishes his sight were duller. Chesterton's con- 
cern is also with ideals and with romance; but his laughter springs rather 
from a zestful sense o\' then abiding presence in the ci>mmonplace. Uom 
a feeling of security in the essential goodnesses and righlnesses o\ lite 
that leaves him free for quips and fine scorns and puns beaslK ones 
sometimes. Shaw laughs heartil> on an empty stomach. Chesterton cas- 



910 II J Culture 

ily on a I'lill one. Shaw sees with amazing clarity the just beyond, while 
the present lies shadowed in a penumbra; Chesterton sees the just be- 
yond only a tritle less clearly, but he sees it as a distorted shadow cast 
by the present and the past, especially the mystic past. Shaw wanders 
about in search of his perfect No Man's Land, struggling all the while 
against the foul machinations of sorcerers who invest spades with glam- 
our; no wonder that he tilts a lance at an occasional windmill. Chester- 
ton accepts the machinations of the sorcerers for the wonderful actuali- 
ties they are. Were Shaw desophisticated and dehumorized, he would 
be Don Quixote; were Chesterton desophisticated but not dehumorized, 
he would be Sancho Panza. 

But as sophistication and Shavian humor are what the biologists call 
acquired characters, we are left scientifically free to equate Shaw with 
the illustrious Don, Chesterton with his no less illustrious squire. And 
once we have accustomed ourselves to interpreting them in the light of 
an exegesis borrowed from Cervantes, much becomes doubly clear. Na- 
ture is never more purposeful than when she seems inattentive and acci- 
dental. Need we now wonder that Shaw is thin and humane, that Ches- 
terton is fat and human? Are not Shaw's women as unclaspable as the 
famed Dulcinea del Toboso, and might not Chesterton find beauty and 
love in any country wench? But note chiefly this: Shaw scorns the gover- 
nance of a mere island, his fancy must hold sway over vaster realms, 
the realms of a humanity untainted by localism. As for Chesterton, he 
is eminently qualified to govern an island. Let Shaw found the world 
state, he will be content to rule merry England (Chesterton's England 
will be merry, as she has been) and pontificate for all of Christianity 
that is worth saving. 

In Utopia of Usurers, a series of reprints of essays first published in 
periodical form, Chesterton has much to say about his island. He is in 
a bad humor. Things have not gone well with the island. Not only is a 
dastardly foe threatening it from without, but there is cause for endless 
disgruntlements within. The "all's well with the world" frame of mind 
of Orthodoxy has given way to scowls and apprehensive shakings of 
the head. Even the cheery mysticism of that book and of so many of 
its successors ( 77?^ Innocence of Father Brown and Magic are types) is 
somewhat less in evidence than it should be in writing coming from 
Chesterton's pen, though faint-hearted, vestigial formulae are not ab- 
sent ("Robespierre talked even more about God than about the Repub- 
lic because he cared even more about God than about the Republic"). 



Five: Aesthetics 9 1 1 

llic piHucrh-likc cpiLiianis llial uc naliirall\ l(u>k lor (ii \m1I he rcincm- 
bcicd that Sancho l\in/a rc\clcci in proverbs) arc uith us ayaiii. bul 
too mail) o\' ihcni arc burnished with llic anger o{ ihc moment to be 
readily quotable out o[' their context. Still, there are some exceedingly 
good ones. For instance: "the materialistic SiK'iologists. ... whose way 
of looking al ihc world is to put on the latest and most pouertul scien- 
tific spectacles, and then shut iheir eyes"; or "when we talk of Army 
contractors as among the base but active actualities of war. we com- 
nuMiK mean that while the contractor benefits by the war. the war, 
on the whole, rather suffers b\ the contractor." Nor is that charming 
whimsicality, so often edged with as much naivete as paradox, for which 
Chesterton is most to be loved, entirely absent. Take this opening of an 
argument, for instance, which has the matter of a Swift and the temper 
of an angel: "An employer, let us say, pays a seamstress twopence a 
day, and she does not seem to thrive on it. So little, perhaps, does she 
thrive on it that the employer has even some difTiculty in thriving upon 
her." But all through the volume of essays runs a genuine anger, an 
anger that is by no means always careful to clothe itself in neat turns 
and whimsicalities but, on the contrary, may even break out into crude 
petulance ("And if anyone reminds me that there is a Socialist Parts m 
Germany, I reply that there isn't"). 

What is it that angers Chesterton and fills him with grim forebodings 
for the future of his island? Many things and, especially, man\ persons. 
But chiefly the capitalists, the upper middle class, the usurers, or how- 
ever they may be termed, and the fear of the servile state, the state in 
which art and literature and science and etHciency and moralitv and 
everything else that has value in the eyes of mortal man become the 
humble servants of the money-changers, in short, the "Utopia o'^ usu- 
rers." In this state the Venus of Milo advertises soap, and college profes- 
sors have to put up with such mental pabulum as can be digested and 
manages [27] to get published by the captains v>^ industr\. Hear Chester- 
ton's own summary of the nine essays devoted to the dismal uiopia: 
"its art may be good or bad, but it will be an adxertisement lor usurers; 
its literature may be good or bad, but it will appeal to the patronage o\ 
usurers; its scientific selection will select according to the needs o\ usu- 
rers; its religion will be just charitable enough to pardon usurers; its 
penal system will be just cruel enough \o crush all the critics of usurers; 
the truth of it will be Slavery: and the title o^ it may quite possibly 
be Socialism." There is exhilaration in the defiance o^ this from "The 
Escape": 



c)|2 /// Culture 

The water's waiting in the trough. 

The tame oats sown are portioned free. 

There is Enough, and just Enough, 

And all is ready now but we. 

But you have not caught us yet. my lords. 

You have us still to get. 

A sorry army you'd have got. 

Its Hags are rags that float and rot, 

lis drums are empty pan and pot. 

Its baggage is - an empty cot; 

But you have not caught us yet. 

And this, at the end of the poem, will serve to mark the Chestertonian 

contempt: 

It is too late, too late, my lords, 

We give you back your grace; 

You cannot with all cajoling 

Make the wet ditch, or winds that sting. 

Lost pride, or the pawned wedding ring. 

Or drink or Death a blacker thing 

Than a smile upon your face. 

Other causes for Chesterton's scorn there are in the book - the mean- 
spirited attempt of those infernal bores, the well-meaning people, to 
deprive the workingman of his ale; the dunderheadedness of parlia- 
ments and administrators; the incredible mendacity of the press; the 
absurdity of Sir Edward Carson in the role of loyal patriot; the 
shameless ignorance of public affairs exhibited by the well informed; 
the impertinence of Puritan meddlers - but the capitalist and his Uto- 
pia, the servile state, are at the back of these ills, present and to come. 
Don Quixote (in his Shavian avatar) is right. The nefarious enchanter, 
capitalism, is triumphant; he has cast his evil spell on all the springs of 
genuine, straightforward being; he is nigh unto choking the soul of 
humanity. It is high time that the Quixotes of the world bestirred them- 
selves. It is well that the doughty Sancho Panza is caparisoned for the 
fray. He will give a good reckoning of his stewardship of the island. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Dial 64, 25-27 (1918), under the title 
"Sancho Panza on His Island." 

Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English journalist, poet, 
essayist, dramatist, novelist, and critic. 



A Nolc on Ircnch-Canadian I olk-songs 

It is elcHibttiil it I he old ireasury ofKrench folk-lore is anywhere so well 
preserved as in ihe i*ro\ince ofQuebec. [21 1] The great eiirrenls of mod- 
ern civilization ha\e, until recent days, left practically unariected this col- 
ony of old France, where the folk still observe customs, use implements, 
recite talcs, and sing songs that take us right back [o the sixteenth and 
early seventeenth centuries. Indeed, many of the songs may be shown, by 
their wide ditTusion on the continent oi' Europe or by internal e\ idence. 
to go back to a much greater antiquity than that. Some o\' them ha\e a 
definitely mediaeval cast. Mr. C. M. Barbeau, who has gone exhaustively 
into all aspects of French-Canadian tblk research, and has. within the last 
few years, made himself incomparably its greatest authority, finds that 
fully ninety-five percent of the tour thousand songs and song \ersions 
that he and his collaborators have gathered are clearly of old-world ori- 
gin. Relatively little in the way of folk literature originated in Canada. 

This vast mass of folk-song material and it is being constantly 
added to - has been recorded both in text form and. for the most part, 
on the phonograph. Many transcriptions have already been made by 
Mr. Barbeau himself, some of which ha\e appeared, with full texts, m 
a recent number of the Joimuil of Anicriain Folk-lore. More are to fol- 
low from time to time. 

No one who cares to acquaint himself e\en superficialK with these 
folk-songs can doubt their historic and aesthetic \alue. Ihe music, uiih- 
out which they can hardly be adequately understcnxl or appreciated, 
itself constitutes an illuminating chapter in the liuropean histors of the 
art. [212] Modes and rhythms but scantily recognized in the straight 
highroad of "art" music here flourish luxuriantly. The songs ha\e been 
collected from all parts o[^ the pnn ince - from the remote fisherman 
of Gaspe, the little farming \illages along the St. Lawrence, the FYench 
sections of Montreal. They embrace a bewildering variety o^ metrical 
forms and of functional types. Some o{ these types are: drinking songs; 
lyrical and narrati\e love songs; "pastoral" songs; the nuiunuirics. of 
unhappy married couples; the cocus. jocular songs o\' deceived hus- 
bands; round dances and other types of dance songs; satires, not infre- 
quently on religious themes; festival songs; working songs of strongi) 



914 III Culture 

marked rhythm - fuller's, paddling, marching, and others; little vaude- 
villes ox duets for two singers; ballads; coinplaintes or complaints, a 
more solemn or tragic type of ballad, but the term is employed rather 
loosely; nimloimees or rigmaroles; cradle songs; shanty-songs. 

Readers of the four folk-songs included in this number of Poetry will 
probably welcome a few specific indications, which I owe to Mr. 
Barbeau. The Dumb Shepherdess is a religious eomplainte, and is known 
in the lower St. Lawrence region, both north and south shores. The 
King of Spain's Daughter is a work ballad, especially used as a paddling 
song, and is based on versions from Temiscouata and Gaspe counties. 
The Prince of Orange is another paddling song, collected at Tadousac, 
one of the oldest French settlements in Canada, on the lower St. Law- 
rence. Wliite as the Snow is a good example of the genuine ballad; it is 
[213] one of the best known folk-songs of Quebec, having been recorded 
in no less than twelve versions. All of these songs have old-country 
analogues. White as the Snow and The King of Spain's Daughter have 
an especially wide diffusion in France. The Dumb Shepherdess is proba- 
bly the oldest of the group; it is not unlikely that the French text, as 
recorded in Canada, goes back to the fifteenth century. The Prince of 
Orange, of course of much later date, is one of a category of well known 
French songs that mock the House of Orange. 

In the English versions, of which these are a selection, I have adhered 
as closely to the original rhythms and stanzaic structure as the prosodic 
differences of the two languages would permit. Pedantic literalness was 
not always possible, yet there are no serious deviations, least of all from 
the spirit of the songs as I have conceived it. Not all the originals, it may 
be noted, make use of strict rhymes; assonances are often used instead. In 
The Dumb Shepherdess I preferred to do without rhyme, aside from the 
very end of the poem, so fearful was I of spoiling its peculiar charm. 



Editorial Note 

Originally pubHshed in Poetry 20, 210-213 (1919). Sapir's transla- 
tions of the songs discussed in this note, not reprinted in this edition, 
appeared in Poetry 21, 175-185 (1920); they were also published in 
Folk Songs of French Canada by C. Marius Barbeau and Edward Sapir 
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925), which contains 41 folk songs 
collected by Barbeau with translations by Sapir. Unpublished transla- 
tions of an additional six songs are included in the Sapir family archives. 



Review of Rabindranath Tagore, 
Lover's Gift, Crossing. Maslii, and Other Stories 

Rabindranath Tagorc. 

Once more the poel-seer o\' Bengal otters lis. through the medium of 
a scries ol^ prose poems and iVee \crse lyrics, contact with his world o\' 
beauty, a beauty subtly compounded of the passion of sensuous experi- 
ence and the insight, symbolic and intuitive, that Tagore, true to his 
hneage, calls "truth." Those whom an apt metaphor or a mystic and 
beautifully phrased paradox can thrill into blissful apprehension o\' the 
deeps o\' realit\. o\^ the futility lM" sense, o( the eternity of the soul. o\' 
the abiding presence of the behind and the beyond, will in "Lover's 
Gift" and "Crossing" receive fresh sustenance for their faith, for their 
desire. Those who are too heavily burdened by the \eil of matter to see 
clearly into Tagore's esoteric world oi' reality but are not. for all that, 
obtuse to the loveliness of swift metaphor and exquisite diction will be 
well content to accept the beauty and to look upon the "truth" as a 
highly interesting facet of a typically, and traditionally, Hindu personal- 
ity. Indeed, we would be churlish if we could not, for the sake of poetry, 
even lull ourselves into a momentary acceptance of Tagore's truths. It 
is not so very much that he requires of us. It is not so very dilTiculi to 
persuade ourselves that the beauty of the beloved is indeed but a s\nibol 
of the beauty of all life, that our lo\e for the bekned is a cosmic lo\e. 
that death is the door to the eternal life that was dimmed for us at 
birth. All this and nuicli more we might accept, proxided alwa\s the 
thought be well garmented. 

Fortunately, the thought is, for the most part, well garmented. One 
can hardly give Tagore greater praise than to say that he \ields but 
rarely to the temptation to fall into e\lra\aganee. to allow the freshness 
o\' his feelings to choke in turgid weeds. In an art and a philosophy 
such as Tagore's simplicity o( diction and con\incingness o\' imagers 
are doubly difficult o\' attainment. Their attainment by lagore means 
that he is, fust and foremost, a poet. Whether he is also a seer seems, 
after this, a bit irrelexant. lelicities of iiielaplior oi expiession meet one 



916 III Culture 

at every turn, while now and again the feeUng, too intense for the bonds 
ofsymboHsm, bursts into untrammeled lyric utterance. I cannot forbear 
to quote at length at least one of the "Lover's Gift" set: 

I thought I had something to say to her when our eyes met across 
the hedge. But she passed away. And it rocks, day and night, like a 
boat, on every wave of the hours the word that I had to say to her. 
It seems to sail in the autumn clouds in an endless quest and to bloom 
into evening flowers, seeking its lost moment in the sunset. It twinkles 
like firetlies in my heart to find its meaning in the dusk of despair, 
the word that I had to say to her. 

For a moment Tagore here seems to allow the passion of the opening 
words to drift away, but he recovers it, poignant and elusive, at the end. 
In another poem we read of "the lonely night loud with rain." How 
effective and unexpected the word "loud," in its amazing simplicity, and 
how stark the contrast of "lonely" [138] and "loud"! Only poets think 
of such self-evident things. 

Not that Tagore is flawless. Particularly in "Crossing," a long series 
of symbolizations of the passage from life into the realm ruled by 
Death, we are occasionally annoyed by such sentimental paradoxes as 

"Sleep, like a bird, will open its heart to the light, and the silence 
will find its voice." 

or by such unrealities as 

"When the morning came I saw you standing upon the emptiness 
that was spread over my house." 

but rarely by such uglinesses as 

"For the boisterous sea of tears heaves in the flood-tide of pain." 

Yet we have never long to wait for a reconciling felicity, for a hne or 
a phrase that clothes extravagance of symbol in a delicate simplicity, 
such a line as 

"Rebelliously I put out the hght in my house and your sky sur- 
prised me with its stars." 

Felicity is the word that recurs to one's mind as he passes from lyric 
to lyric. It is not an unmixed compliment. It argues a certain detachabil- 
ity. a certain independent glitter, in each stone of the mosaic. Powerfully 
unified works of art leave little elbow room for felicifies. Right here, 
I venture to think, lies concealed why Tagore, greatest as lyric poet, 
nevertheless falls short of membership in the choir of supremely great 



Five: Aesthetics 917 

lyrists. Tagorc's method is the liision, as wc have seen, ol ihe symbohc 
or "eternally true" or ol an mliin^iblc stale ol iniiul. uiih the sensuous, 
the outwardly real. Whoever essays such lusion nuisl do homage to 
each Janus lace, the laee looking out upon the inner truth and. no less, 
the face directed to lleeting reality. It is my c|uarrel with lagore that he 
is not impartial m Ins worship. I lie inner iniili not mlrequenlly tri- 
umphs at the expense of the outer. To he more precise, I llnd it charac- 
teristic of lagore's method that his symbolic perception of his feeling, 
seeking to clothe itself in sensuous terms, chooses image after image, 
each beautiful or striking, it may be, but with little relevancy, perhaps, 
in their relation to one another. One does not altogether feel that a bit 
of outward reality has been keenly apprehended, that it grows and 
grows in the mind of the poet, taking on the richness of shadow and 
overtone, until, by imperceptible degrees, it finds itself wedded to an 
attitude of mind, to a mood. In other words, Ihe world of sense does 
not so much seem a powerful suggestion for a deeper world, as a casket 
of jewels, to be idly selected from for the adornment of a world already 
defined and felt. Many a poem, admitted abounding in single beauties 
or even at no point fairly open to criticism, does nevertheless leave upon 
the mind of the reader a feeling at once glittering and blurred. The 
feeling that it embodies seems, now and then, a little insecure, a little 
hollow. I am convinced, however, that this is an illusion, that Tagore is 
practically always master of the spiritual concept and of the feeling, but 
that he loses more than he perhaps realizes in passing from the unseen 
world to the world of imagery. Translations are rarely completely satis- 
fying. 

It may well be that to the devotee of lagore criticism such as this is 
no criticism. To me, who am not in the least concerned with Tagore the 
seer, but only with Tagore the poet, it seems, in so far as it is valid, very 
damaging criticism indeed. 

"It is little that remains now, the rest was spent in one careless 
summer. It is just enough to put in a song and sing to you; to weave 
in a flower-chain gently clasping your wrist; to hang in your car like 
a round pink pearl, like a blushing whisper; to risk in a game one 
evening and utterly lose." 

"To hang in your ear like a round pink pearl, like a blushing whis- 
per." There we have it in a nutshell. "It is just enough" here is the 
sentiment, |I391 with its subtle note of regret, that fills the poet, thrills 
him so with its abstract intensity that he has no care for the mcongruity 



918 III Culture 

o\' hanging it in his beloved's ear "Hke a round pink pearl" and "like a 
blushing whisper." An equally good example from "Crossing" is 

The day is dim with rain. 

Angry lightnings glance through the tattered cloud-veils 

And the forest is like a caged lion shaking its mane in despair. 

On such a day amidst the winds beating their wings, let me find my peace in thy 

presence. 

For the sorrowing sky has shadowed my solitude, to deepen the meaning of thy 

touch about my heart. 

A mood picture of the presence of death, genuinely enough felt - 
but how is it with the concrete perception? I find myself unable to run 
the first and last lines into the same picture as the rest; the fourth line 
undoes the work of the third. The whole is a series of really fresh images 
that, nevertheless, result in a blur. 

It is not often, perhaps, that Tagore mixes his metaphors so badly, 
but these examples illustrate fairly, I imagine, the dangers of his method 
and the poetic limitafions of his view of the world. Of the extremely 
limited range of experience voiced in both "Lover's Gift" and "Cross- 
ing" (fancy saying seventy-eight symbolic times that one is in the pres- 
ence of death and that it is well thus!) it is hardly necessary to speak. 
One must accept a poet's subject matter; one must meet him more than 
halfway in his orientation of that subject matter. Still, it is only human 
to admit that the volume we have been considering creates an inordinate 
hunger for reality, not the "reality" of Tagore, but the very crass reality 
of Spoon River and Coney Island. 

Tagore himself takes us a few steps nearer to this reality in "Mashi 
and Other Stories," though we never quite get there. It is as well, for 
stark realism is not Tagore's forte. Interesting and effective as most of 
these stories are, I have designedly left myself Httle space to speak of 
them. As a short story craftsman, Tagore does not belong in the first 
rank. There is too often a lack of deftness in the unfolding of the theme, 
in the handling of climax, in the placing of the point. Sometimes, as in 
the Maupassantish "The Auspicious Vision," "The Riddle Solved," and 
"My Fair Neighbour," the point of the tale (and all three of these de- 
pend for their effect almost entirely on "points") is obvious at a dismally 
early stage of the proceedings. Sometimes, again, a really promising 
story, like "Stubha," is spoiled or rendered trivial by an anticlimax or 
by a too clumsy touch of irony towards the close. 

A number of tales, on the other hand, are highly beautiful and effec- 
tive. Such are "Mashi," "The Supreme Night," "The Postmaster" (per- 



Five: Aesthetics 919 

haps llic bcsi in the \nliinic). aiul "I lie Ri\cr Stairs." C'haraclcrislicall\ 
enough, these tales depend for their power not so much on incident and 
character as on the poignancy o\' passing mood, further on a blend o\ 
idealistic mysticism with a realism that is not too complexly appre- 
hended. "The Postmaster," in which 'point" is perhaps at a minimum, 
has something of the cjuality of Chekho\. The lo\e the poor orphan girl 
Ralan bears the not greatly distinguished \illage postmaster is subtly 
drawn. It is not destined to lead lo either fulfilment or tragedy. Nothing 
happens. The postmaster, who is fond of chatting with Ratan, finds life 
too dull at his post and resigns. He leaves the village. She weeps. It is 
all very real and meaningless, it is life at its least stagey and its most 
atTecting. "The Trust Property" is a horrible story of bygone Bengal, 
and is in a class by itself In it Tagore combines most successfully, one 
might almost say unexpectedly, the sheer horror o'( Poe's "Cask o\' 
Amontillado" with the brutal irony of Maupassant. The utilization o\' 
an old folk-custom, the burying of a live [140] victim who is to ser\e as 
the guardian spirit of a secret treasure, lends an added ethnological 
interest to the tale. 

Over and above their specific qualities, these stories of Tagore's are 
well worth reading for the moments of intimate contrast they aflbrd us 
with present-day and recently past life in Bengal. It is good to assure 
ourselves that the Bengali is as human and real as ourseKes, if indeed, 
he is not more so. It does no harm to discover that caste and reincarna- 
tion can be made to seem at least as inevitable as the Democratic party 
and the Presbyterian hymnal. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Canadlcin Mcii^ciii/ic 54. 1 . w 140 (1919). 
under the title "The Poet-Seer o\^ Bengal." 

Sir Rabindranath Tagore (I86I-1941), Bengali poet. no\elist. com- 
poser, and painter, received the Nobel Prize for I iterature in 1913. 



Review of Gary F. Jacob, 
The Foundations and Nature of Verse 

Cary F. Jacob, The Foundations and Nature of Verse. New York: Co- 
lumbia University Press, 1919. 

It is only natural that the rapid development of freer forms of verse 
should be attended by a recrudescence of interest in problems of pros- 
ody. The old problem of the essential basis or bases of English verse is 
now being threshed out all over again. The relation in point of rhythm 
between prose and verse has become a curiously live question. Some 
see in prose and verse two naturally distinct and unbridgeable forms of 
expression; others consider them as merely the poles of a continuous 
gamut of possible forms, some of which are only now being consciously 
explored as artistic media. 

In his conscientious if somewhat dull book, Dr. Jacob takes us over 
a great deal of familiar ground, leads us, with shrewd deliberation, into 
many a blind alley of negation, leaves himself apparently little or no 
ground to stand on, and triumphantly concludes with a statement of 
principles and natural limitations. Too much space is devoted to prelim- 
inaries - acoustic, ethnographic, psychologic. It is difficult to see, for 
instance, what meat the humble prosodist is expected to extract from 
the lengthy chapter on pitch, with its array of citations from technical 
treatises on acoustics and from antiquated works of an ethnographic 
nature. On the whole one gathers that Dr. Jacob's psychologic and pur- 
ely musical equipment is superior to either his culture-historical or his 
linguistic equipment. This may well be erring on the right side, but it 
also tends to limit his perspective in a way that is not always fortunate. 
Phonetic phenomena are as good as ignored. Again, the problems of 
English verse structure are not set against a historical or comparative 
background that would serve to bring out in proper relief its own essen- 
tial peculiarities. 

The book offers nothing really new. To the devotees of freer prosodic 
forms it will prove a disappointment. No natural basis, however broad, 
is pointed out that would justify free verse as a realm of artistic promise. 



hvc: .hs the lies 921 

Between the accidental rli\iliiiis o\ prose and ihc more or less rigidly 
recurrent metric units ot" normal verse Dr. Jacob throws no bridge. The 
book strikes one, despite its liberal employment o( psychologic and 
prosodic authorities, as needlessly narrow in outlook. I, ike many proso- 
dists. Dr. Jacob al laches probably too great nnporlance to the purely 
objective and experimental study of rhythmic [l()()| phenomena. A sub- 
tler and ultimately more fruitful analysis would ha\e demanded a wide 
defmition oi' the concept of periodicity and a greater willmgness to eval- 
uate the more intimately subjective rhythmic factors. The same stanza 
may be lrul\ \erse to one subject, just as truly prose to another, accord- 
ing to whether or not a rhythmic contour (not necessarily a rigid metri- 
cal pattern) is clearly apperceixed b\ the reader or hearer. 



Editorial Note 
Origmally published (unsigned) m The Dial 66, 98, lUU (\')\') 



The Heuristic Value of Rhyme 

The employment of rhyme always presents a problem. We like to 
think that the poet, carried away by his vision and the passion of his 
theme, has his rhymes coming to him spontaneously, that there is in the 
creation of rhymed verses no too deliberate process of selection. We like 
to think that form and subject matter are wedded from the beginning in 
an indissoluble unity. But all art is largely technique, and technique 
involves experimentation, rejection, selection, modification of the origi- 
nally envisaged theme. Undoubtedly the actual practice of poets differs 
widely as regards the discovery of their rhymes. We shall not go far 
wrong in assuming that it is only in the rare case that thought and form 
come to the creator as a God-given unit. Perhaps we may speak of 
"God-given" rhyme in some of the very best lyrics of such poets as 
Robert Burns and Heine. Normally rhyme must prove a taskmaster; 
not infrequently it must coerce the poet into dulling, if ever so slightly, 
the edge of his thought here or padding out a little its range there. It 
does not in the least follow that the compulsion he is under to satisfy the 
taskmaster renders his work any the less satisfying in the end. Indeed it 
is more than probable that the very feeling of compulsion often serves 
as a valuable stimulant in the shaping of his thought and imagination. 

The strained image or the far-fetched phrase is a price paid all too fre- 
quently by the poet to the necessity of rhyming. Even the best of poets can- 
not always escape these sins, when he has set himself the task of squirming 
about in a difficult form pattern. Rhymes ad hoc are common in the work 
of our more facile poets. It would be possible to quote more than one pas- 
sage from John Masefield's work in illustration of this melancholy truth. 
Thus, I find the following from "Truth," one of the poems published in The 
Story of a Round House, to contain a weak, rhyme-compelled line: 

Stripped of purple robes, 

Stripped of all golden lies, 

I will not be afraid. 

Truth will preserve through death; 

Perhaps the stars will rise, 

The stars like globes. 

The ship my striving made 

May see right fade. 



Five: Aesthetics 923 

Maseficld here scl limisclf a lalhci dirricull \crsc pattern. He had to 
find a rh\iiic in his two-fooled sixth hue to match the "robes" of the 
first. His soUilion o\' the diUleiihy. "the stars hke globes," is hardl\ 
fortunate. A repetition of "the stars" is bad enough, "hke globes" lea\es 
the reader in sad wonder. It h^is pertinenc\ neither as idea nor as imag- 
ery. 

Another example of the made-to-order rhyme in Maselleld's \erse is 
to be found in "The Wanderer." We read: 

So. lis ihoLigh slopping lo a funeral march. 
She passed defeated homeward whence she came. 
Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch. 
A wild bird that misfortune had made tame. 

The "white as starch" seems dragged in by the heels. 

It would be a far more difficult but also more thankful task to point 
out the heuristic \alue o{ rh\nie. the stimulating, or e\en directls cre- 
ative, etTect that the necessity of finding a rhyming word may exercise 
on the fancy of the poet. There can be no doubt that imbedded in the 
smooth surface of great rhymed verse there lie concealed hundreds o^ 
evidences of technical struggles that have resulted in a triumph o\' the 
imagination, a triumph that could hardl\ ha\e been attained except 
through travail. Many a felicitous fancy, many a gorgeous bit o^ imag- 
ery, would have forever remained undiscovered if not w hipped into be- 
ing by the rhyming slave-dri\er. One of the prettiest examples that occur 
to me I select from the work of Robert Frost, who o'i all poets will not 
readily be accused of an undue adherence to con\entional patterns. In 
"Blueberries," one of the poems oiNorih of Boston. I find the lines: 

Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb. 
Real sky-blue, and hea\y. and ready to drum 
In the ca\ernous pail o[' the fust one to come. 

[311] It is impossible to pro\e anything about these lines without direct 
inquiry of the writer, who, moreover, may have forgotten the circum- 
stances oi' composition. But I ha\e always instincli\ely felt that the 
beautiful "drum" image was evoked in response to the rlnniing neces- 
sity set by the preceding "thumb." 

Nuances of feeling may recei\e an unexpected sharpening, a poi- 
gnancy of contrast, by way of rhyme that its absence may ha\e allowed 
to remain unrevealed. Turning the pages o\' Ihc Man a^iiiinst the Sky. I 
find this very characteristic bit o\' lidwin Arlington Robinson from "Li- 
sette and Eileen": 



924 IIJ Culture 

Because a word was never told, 
I'm going as a worn toy goes. 
And you are dead; and you'll be old; 
And I forgive you, I suppose. 

Nothing could well be more casual, ostensibly, than the "I suppose" of 
the last line. Yet how better could all the poignant irony, the frenzy, the 
passionate resignation of Lisette have been expressed? One wonders if 
this superb fourth line could ever have fashioned itself in Robinson's 
brain if he had allowed himself to work in a freer medium. 

Somewhat similar in its general effect is the following bit of humor- 
ous irony from "The Cake of Mithridates" (included in John Davidson's 
Fleet Street and other Poems): 

With that the baker, breathing spice, 
Produced the cake hot from the fire, 
And every vizier ate a slice, 
Resolving to be less a liar. 

There could be no more fittingly impertinent summary of the whole 
spirit of the poem than the unexpectedness of the final rhyme. The 
poem could not possible have ended on a more appropriate note. 

Both Robinson and Davidson are distinguished by a rare combina- 
tion of intellect and passion. Perhaps it is precisely the passionate tem- 
perament cutting into itself with the cold steel of the intellect that is 
best adapted to the heuristic employment of rhyme. The temperament 
and the triumphant harnessing of form belong, both of them, to the 
psychology of sublimation following inhibition. [312] 

I may be pardoned if I once again quote Masefield. Masefield has 
passion, vigor, swiftness, a fine frenzy that stamps him a belated Eliza- 
bethan. He has caught in his verse the physical throb and external color 
of the present, his spirit belongs irredeemably to the past, to the roman- 
tic past at that. Few poets of his stature are so innocent of intellect. As 
luck would have it, shortly after I had noted the fire... liar rhyme in 
Davidson, I ran across the following instance of the identical rhyme in 
''The Daffodil Fields": 

But all my being is ablaze with her; 

There is no talk of giving up to-day. 

I will not give her up. You used to say 

Bodies are earth. I heard you say it. Liar! 

You never loved her, you. She turns the earth to fire. 

Little comment is necessary. The external logic-chopping of these lines 
only serves to emphasize the unbridled, not to say unarticulated, pas- 



Five: Aesthetics 925 

sion. To ihc modern sensibility, is the lasl sciilciKc Icll as "in ihc draw- 
ing"? Have uc not here again a lacilc rhyming icchniquc seeking shelter 
and justincation behind an all loo uncritically evaluated rush of feeling? 
Tomorrow these lines will seem strangely cold. Robinson's cold lines 
will still burn. 

It is not often thai the artist can or cares to re\eal much o{ the 
intimate processes o{ his work. Perhaps in most cases he is himself 
unable to analyze the process of creation with any degree of satisfaction. 
Where he can, howe\er, it w ill certainly be o^ the greatest interest for a 
sound slud\ of aesthetics to ha\e him record something of this process. 
We have much too little material of the sort to work with. If aesthetics 
is ever to be more than a speculative play, of the genus philosophical, 
it will have to get down to the very arduous business o^ studying the 
concrete processes of artistic production and appreciation. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in Queen's Quarterly 27, 309-312. Typographi- 
cal errors in the original have been corrected without comment, based 
on Sapir's ms. notes on his copy. 



The Poetry Prize Contest 

[The first (hree paragraphs of this article are here omitted They consist 
of a list of the poems awarded prizes in The Canadian Magazine's 1920 
contest; a statistical breakdown of the genres into which entries fell; and 
a discussion of those genres. -Eds.] 

What of the quahty of the poems submitted to the three judges? Let 
it be frankly confessed that the general average of merit exhibited was 
far below what the judges believed they had a right to expect. The prize 
otTered was worthy of any poet's serious consideration; the response 
seemed hardly adequate. Poem after poem, especially in the class of 
patriotic efforts, voiced the most distressingly conventional, personally 
unfelt and unexperienced, sentiments. Even where the technical execu- 
tion was satisfying, the thought and feeling and imagery had a discon- 
certing way of harking back to well-worn poetic models. Gray's "Elegy 
in a Country Churchyard" was perhaps the most persistent ghost, the 
Kiplingesque line with its jaunty anapests was another. "In Flanders 
Fields" was responsible for a whole crop of war poems, to the extent 
of frequent quotation of the characteristic title words. Barely a dozen 
poems all told had something original to say or presented a universal 
sentiment in a strikingly original manner. Genuine feeling tended to 
express itself crudely; competent formal expression seemed to stifle 
feeling. 

The prize-winning poems of the open class illustrate, on a poetically 
successful plane, these contrasting tendencies. "The Pioneer" is clearly 
stimulated by a genuinely felt sentiment, but the beauty of the poem, it 
seems to me, is essentially a beauty of rhythm and words, rather than of 
conception. It is altogether different with "A Revelation," which makes 
perhaps severer demands on the interpretative sympathy of the reader. 
This poem has, in some degree, the faults of its merits. It throbs 
throughout with the passion of a religious emotion that has so mastered 
the diction and style as to cut away all verbiage, to the point of occa- 
sional obscurity of expression and a too turbid rhythmic movement. 
These critical remarks are only intended to bring out the fact that each 
has room for rich development in the mastery of a difficult craft. They 



Five: AcstlwtUs 927 

must nol he interpreted so as to read sliiihtingly. All three judges feel 
stronglv that both p^kmiis. as well as Mi. Hourinot's sonnet, are worthy 
of very high praise. 

It seemed \o the judges that the disappouilmg nature of the iii.iss fi 
poetry sent in eould be due to only one eause - that the majority o! 
the best pcK^ts in Canada had. tor one reason or another, failed to re- 
spond. [3.^1] Possibly this is due to insuffieient advertising of the pro- 
posed award: more likely to a eertain hesitaney that the piK't who has 
"arrixed" or is about to arrise feels in joining the merry throng of com- 
petitors. This brings up the question o\' the purpose o\' a poetry prize. 
Is such a pri/e to he awarded for tlie purpose of encouraging talented 
amateurs to take up more seriously an art they might otherwise neglect 
- and who can den\ that the cultural atmosphere o{ our country is 
only passively sympathetic, if at all. to the serious de\elopment o'i the 
art of poetry? Or should a pri/e gi\e public recognition to good work 
done within a stated period, no matter by whom or under what aus- 
pices? In other words, which is the more useful function o\' a poetr\ 
prize, stimulation towards creation or recognition of the created work? 
If so external a stimulus as a prize could, in any true sense, be held to 
encourage the actual production of a work of art. there wcnild he much 
to be said for such prizes as those recently awarded by the Arts and 
Letters Club of Ottawa. One suspects, howe\er, that a poem written 
entirely under the compulsion of desire to win a competitive pri/e is apt 
to be an indifferent thing at best; that an artist wi^rthy o\' the name, 
while needing all the encouragement he can get, will fmd other and 
more powerful sources of inspiration than the prize-lure; and that the 
few poems of value generally elicited by a prize contest are such as had 
been lying aicuiiul in manuscript before the aniuumcement t>f the prize. 
But here precisely lies a difficulty. Everyone that is at all professionally 
connected with poetry knows \ery well how difficult it often is for a 
poet to get himself a hearing. It is simply nc»t true that all poems o\ 
great merit find a ready market. For poetic work. particularK for poetic 
work o\' marked originalit\. we need some more adequate method o\' 
reaching the Canadian public than is at present a\ailable. The literary 
magazines are few and far between and necessarils de\ote but an incon- 
siderable portion of their space to poelr\. The costs of publication of a 
volume o\' poems are so great aiul the commercial returns so uncertain 
that we can hardly blame the publisher who turns down an\ thing that 
does not tally with the standardized wares he is most comfortable with. 
On the other hand, a poetry prize is too isolated an event to help maleri- 



928 lit Culture 

ally in the solution o^ this very real problem of getting at the public. 
What young poets, and old ones, for that matter, need is not so much 
the hectic hope of a rare and disproportionate emolument as the oppor- 
tunity to have their work brought to the attention of the poetry-loving 
public. It seems to me that there is only one way in which this can be 
done, it is the establishment of a substantial journal, financially guaran- 
teed, if possible, devoted solely or mainly to the publication of poetry 
and critical articles dealing with poetry. A few such journals exist in 
England and the United States, and it is perhaps not too much to say 
that such periodicals as Poetry, Contemporary Verse, and the English 
Poetry Review, far removed though they be from the ranks of best sell- 
ers, are doing more to stimulate public interest and original production 
in poetry than the whole run of popular magazines, whose chief relation 
to poetry would seem to be the occasional publication of a properly 
sentimental sonnet as a stop-gap. Canada is developing rapidly along 
material lines. She is also showing numerous indications of a breaking 
of the chrysalis-shell of provincialism. Should it not be possible to find 
a welcome for a Canadian poetry journal? 

These remarks do not dispose of the prize question. There is no 
reason why the prize should not be used to give recognition to especially 
praiseworthy poems that have already reached the public, whether in 
book form or in magazines. The general [352] public has no idea how 
poorly poetry is paid. The average editor would be ashamed to tell his 
readers how much he expends for even his best poetic contributions, if, 
indeed, he pays for them at all! Under these circumstances anything 
that can be done to crown the poet's work with hard cash is a graceful 
tribute to his genius and a welcome addition to his income, which fre- 
quently is slender. More than that, money prizes of this sort do, in an 
indirect but far-reaching manner, help to encourage the sensitive poet 
by putting him in more sympathetic touch with his public. The fact that 
the poet uses mere words tends to blind the public to the realizafion 
that he is as truly an artist as the brother-craftsman that works with 
tone or color. The award of money prizes would help, in a crude way, 
to accentuate this fact. Were there in existence in Canada such a poetry 
journal as I have spoken of, its editorial staff could properly undertake 
the task of organizing the giving of prizes. As it is, it ought to be pos- 
sible for a number of literary organizations in Canada to pool a certain 
proportion of their resources, appoint a staff of three or four judges, 
and invite the submission by poets of works published during the year. 
There are other methods of organizing prize awards that may seem 



Five: Aesthetics 929 

more cftccti\c. My own suggcstitMi is a piircl\ icnlalivc one. In any 
event, \vc can haicll\ do {oo nuicli \o clc\alc the status of serious poetry 
in Canada or to gain sonic slight increase m emolument to the pi>et lor 
his ill-paid art. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in I'lic Cuncididn Mui^uzim- >4. M9 '^52 (r)2()). 



The Musical Foundations of Verse 

Miss Amy Lowell's paper on "The Rhythms of Free Verse" is particu- 
larly important for the attention it calls to the concept of a time unit in 
certain types of verse as distinct from the metric unit determined by 
syllabic structure alone or by syllabic structure dominated by stress. To 
quote Miss Lowell: "For years I had been searching the unit of vers 
lihre. the ultimate particle to which the rhythm of this form could be 
reduced. As the 'foot' is the unit of 'regular verse,' so there must be a 
unit in vers lihre. I thought I had found it. The unit was a measurement 
of time. The syllables were unimportant, in the sense that there might 
be many or few to the time interval." This passage was all the more 
pleasing to me in that I found confirmation in it of a feeling that had 
gradually and strongly come to be borne in on me in the reading of 
certain types of free verse, the feeling that in some of the more artistic 
products of the imagist school, for instance, there was present a ten- 
dency to a rhythm of time pulses that operated independently, more or 
less, of the number of syllables. A line of verse, for instance, that had 
considerable length to the eye might quite readily, I conceived, be 
looked upon as the exact prosodic equivalent of a line of perhaps but 
half of its length, if the rates of articulation of the two lines differed 
sufficiently to make their total time-spans identical or approximately 
so. Hence the metrical "irregularity" of one type of free verse might 
be and, in at least some cases, as I felt convinced, was consciously 
or unconsciously meant to be, interpreted as a merely optical but not 
fundamentally auditory irregularity. This, in musical terminology, 
would be no more than saying that two equivalent measures (metric 
units) may, and frequently are, of utterly different constitution both as 
regards the number of tones (syllables) in the melodic line (flow of 
words) and the distribution of stresses. What is true, as regards prosodic 
equivalence, of lines of unequal length may, of course, also be true of 
syllabically unequal portions of lines. 

A very crude, but striking, exemplification of the unitary value of 
such time pulses is afforded by a series of orders delivered [214] by a 
drill sergeant at intervals, we will say, of exactly two seconds: 



Five: Acs the lies 9}\ 

March! 
Right lace! 
Riirhl about face! 
Halt! 



The ordinary prosodic aiuilysis rcsoKcs iiuo iliis; 



- an irregular bit ol' "verse" involving in its four hunihlc luies no less 
than three metric patterns. Of course, the truth o\' the matter is some- 
thing like this: 

a perfectly humdrum and regular type of rhythmic movement. The met- 
ric unit oi'^ the drill-sergeant's "poem" is not properly - or - - or - 
uu, but a two-second time-span. To lend variety to the contour of the 
discourse, he might, quite in the manner of some iM' the more realistic 
tVee verse of the day, substitute a rapid nine-syllabled oath for a military 
order without breaking the time-metrical framework ol' the w hole. Such 
an oath might be analyzed, let us say, as: 

<u — — — Kj — <uyj —, 

but it would be the precise time-metrical equivalent ol" the "March!" o\ 
the first line. 

That in much free verse relatively long lines or sections are meant 
(sometimes, perhaps, only subconsciously) to ha\c the same tune \alue 
as short lines or sections of the same stanza seems \er\ likcl> to me. 
The first stanza o\^ Richard Aldington's beautiful little poem ".Amalfi" 
reads: 

Wc will come down to you, 

O very deep sea. 

And drift upon your pale green waves 

I. ike scattered petals. 

The orthodox scansion: 

KJKJ — KJKJ — (or: <UKJ — — KJ —) 

u — uu — 

KJ — KJ — KJ — KJ — 

u — w — U 



932 JIJ Culture 

may be correct or approximately correct stress-analysis of the stanza, 
but it does not, if my own feeling in the matter is to be taken as a guide, 
being out the really significant form units. If the four lines are read at 
the same speed, an effect but little removed from that of rhythmical 
prose is produced. If the speeds are so manipulated as to make the lines 
all of equal or approximately equal, length, a beautiful quasi-musical 
ertect is produced, the retarded hovering movement of the second and 
fourth lines contrasting in a very striking manner with the more rapid 
movement of the first and third. I should go so far as to suggest that 
the time-units in this particular stanza are more important metrical de- 
terminants than the distribution of stresses. The last five lines of the 
poem are clearly intended to move along at a markedly slow rate: 

We will come down, 
O Thalassa, 
And drift upon 
Your pale green waves 
Like petals. 

The repetition of the earlier 

And drift upon your pale green waves 

as 

And drift upon 

Your pale green waves 

is no doubt an attempt to express to the eye the difference in speed 
intuitively felt by the poet. The splitting of the line in two must not be 
dismissed as a vagary. Whether the current methods of printing poetry 
are capable of doing justice to the subtler intentions of free-verse writers 
is doubtful. I shall revert to this point later on. 

It would be manifestly incorrect to say that all writers of free verse 
feel with equal intensity, or feel at all, the unitary value of time pulses. 
Not all that looks ahke to the eye is psychologically [216] comparable. 
In ordinary metrical verse the stress unit or foot tends to have a unitary 
time value as well. The prolonged coincidence of stress units and time 
units, however, leads often to an unpleasantly monotonous effect. To 
avoid this, as is well known, retardations and accelerations of speed are 
introduced that give the movement of the verse greater fluidity or swing. 
This process of disturbing the coincidence of time and stress units is the 
obverse of the unification by means of time units of the irregular stress 
groupings of free verse. Both "unitary verse," to use Dr. Patterson's 
and Miss Lowell's not altogether happy term, and time-disturbed metri- 



Five: Aesthetics 933 

cal verse arc "irregular" or "tree'" in the sense ihal \\\o uiiii streams oi 
ditTerenl iialure tail l(^ ciiiiiciJe. It is h\ no means a foregone conclusion 
that the latter type of \erse, ordinarily accepted without question as 
untVee, is more "regular" in all cases and to all ears than the former. 
Much depends on the sensitiveness of the reader or hearer to the apper- 
ception of lime pulses. 

1 1 would he a mistake to suppose that the feeling for time units m 
regular \erse manifests itself only in connection with the foot or with 
equivalent groupings of feet. The time unit is by no means aK^ays con- 
gruous to liie metric unit or sequence of such units, but may make itself 
fell more or less independently of the metrical tlcns. ma\. in extreme 
cases, so blur this How as to well nigh efface it altogether. Thus, a hea\\ 
syllable, with following pause, may stand out as the lime equivalent of 
the rest of the syllables in the same line, though metrically o\'^ only a 
fraction ol' their weight. An interesting example of such a contlict o\' 
two prosodic principles seems to me to be the lines: 

Us, in the looking glass. 
Footsteps in the street, 

of Walter de la Mare's "The Barber's," one oi' the delightful rhymes of 
Peacock Pie. The metrical structure of the poem, as exemplified by the 
immediately preceding 

Straight above the clear eyes. 
Rounded round the ears. 
Snip-snap and snick-a-snick. 
Clash the barber's shears. 

is clearly reducible to the formula: 

- (u) - u - (u) - 

— \j — u — . 

[217] The strict application, however, o\' this formula to the two lines 
first quoted results in a lifeless interpretation o\' their movement and in 
a meaningless emphasis of the "in" in each case. The reading 

> 



^ i: 



J J" / 



;; 



j 



is intolerable. It seems that "us" (one toot) is the lime equivalent, or 
approximately so, of "in the looking glass" (three feet). "foi>lstep" (one 
foot) of "in the street" (two feet). In the first line, "us" and the first 
syllable o\' "looking" are strongly stressed, "glass" weakly, "in" not at 



934 IJJ Culture 

all; in the second, the first syllable of "footsteps" and "street" are 
strongly accented, "in" weakly, if at all. In other words, the proper 
four-foot and three-foot structure is resolved, under the influence of a 
contlicting time analysis, into a primarily two-pulse movement: 






which may be interpreted, in prosodic symbols, as: 

— ( " ) uu — u — 

— VJ (' ) uu — , 

the ( ' ) representing a silent or syncopated secondary stress. To speak 
of a "caesura" does not help much unless a reference to time units is 
explicitly connoted by the term. Needless to say, the sequence - (' ) u u 
("us, in the") differs completely, to an alert ear, from the true dactyl 

- u u . These lines of De la Mare's are a good example of the cross- 
rhythmic effect sometimes produced in English verse by the clash of 
stress units and time units. They differ psychologically from true "uni- 
tary verse" in that the metrical pattern established for the ear by the 
rest of the poem peeps silently through, as it were. This silent metrical 
base is an important point to bear in mind in the analysis of much 
English verse. The various types of dimly, but none the less effectively, 
felt rhythmic conflicts that result have not a little to do with the more 
baffling subtleties of verse movement. Meanwhile it is highly instructive 
to note here a formal transition between normal verse and "free verse." 
The line of demarcation between the two is, indeed, a purely illusory 
one. [218] 

The normal foot of English verse is ideally determined in three ways 

- by a single stress, a definite syllabic sequence, and a time unit. These 
three elements are, in practice, interwoven to form more or less complex 
and varied patterns, for foot, line, or stanza. As is well known, the 
syllabic structure and time pulses of normal verse are particularly liable 
to variation, but stresses also are handled more freely than is generally 
supposed, particularly if we go back of the ostensible metrical scheme 
that stares coldly at us on the printed page to the actual rhythms of the 
living word. Generally these prosodic determinants are functions of 
each other. In other words, the streams of stress-units, syllabic groups, 
and time pulses are not completely independent factors but tend to be 
concomitants or multiples of each other. They are synchronous phe- 



Five: Aesthetics 935 

nonicna. Il is oiiK b\ st>nic ctTort i^faiialNsis thai \sc Icarn to convince 
ourselves thai cacli dclcrniinaiit. more or less regardless o( the other 
two, may form the basis of aesthetically satisfying rhythmic sequences. 
In English metrical \erse, stress is the main determinant; in *'unitar\" 
free verse, it is the time pulse; in normal Irench \erse, the syllable 
group. Where these noticcabl\ fail lo coincide, ue may speak of inter- 
crossing rh\lliiiis or non-synchronous \erse patterns. "Unitary \erse" 
illustrates one type o\' non-synchronous verse pattern, but others are to 
be found here and there within the precincts o\' traditional metrical 
verse. 

Stress-verse, time-\erse. and syllable-verse, if ue ma\ coin these con- 
\enient terms. ha\c or ma\ ha\c. ho\\c\er, this in common, that they 
are periodic forms, that their ground patterns recur with a high degree 
of regularity. The unit oi' periodicity is marked by the line alone or 
by regular, though often complex, alternations of lines, con\entionally 
grouped in stanzas. The determinants of periodic structure are, besides 
stress, time, and syllabic sequence, the use of perceptible pauses (one of 
the most important, if explicitly little recognized, rhythm-defmers) and 
the rising and failing (also strengthening and weakening) o\' the \oice. 
The periodic nature of some of the free types of verse is often obscured 
to many by their failure to evaluate rightl\ the factors o\' time, pause. 
and voice inflexion. 

Alliteration, rhyme, assonance, and simple repetition o\' words or 
phrases are, in modern English verse, generally o\' a decorati\e or rhe- 
torical rather than primarily metrical significance. [21^] The fact that 
they are recurrent features, however, gives them. particularl\ in the case 
of rhyme, a period-forming or metrical function at the same time. Ttie 
metrical value may even outweigh the decorative or rhetorical, as in the 
case of the older Germanic alliterative verse and the t\pical rh\med 
verse of French; in the latter, sectioning into syllable-periods would be 
somewhat difficult wiilu>ul the aid of rh\mc because of the lack of stress 
guidance and because o\' the intolerabl\ mechanical elTect that Wi>uld 
result from the use of regularly recurrent pauses. It is highh interesting 
to observe that the sectiiMiing power o\' rhsnie. mdependentl) of either 
stress, syllable, or time paltcrns. has been sci/cd upon b\ some o\ our 
modern poets as a means o\' attaining a comparaliveK novel and, it 
skillfully handled, oftentimes delightful type of nunement. Robert I'rost 
is especially clever in this technique. Take, for inst.iiKc, the fnlKuMng 
lines from "After Apple-Picking": 



936 Jl^ Culture 

For I have had too much 

Of apple-picking; I am overtired 

Of the great harvest I myself desired. 

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch. 

Cherish in hand, hft down, and not let fall. 

For all 

That struck the earth. 

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, 

Went surely to the cider-apple heap 

As of no worth. 

The sectioning here is mainly the resuU of the irregularly distributed 
rhymes. It forms a rhythmic flow that intercrosses with the simulta- 
neous iambic stress-rhythm of the poem. We made the acquaintance a 
little while ago of time-stress intercrossing; here we have a related, but 
very distinct rhythmic principle - rhyme-stress intercrossing. The lines 
of irregular length are, in my opinion, only superficially analogous to 
those of "unitary" free verse. It would be highly artificial to assign to 
such a line as "For all" a time value equivalent to that of "For I have 
had too much." There is no retardation of tempo in the short lines 
analogous to that of the only deceptively similar lines from Aldington. 
The tempo in Frost's poem is, to all intents and purposes, as even as 
that of normal blank verse; barring the rhymes, its movement may, 
indeed, not inaptly be described [220] as that of non-periodic blank 
verse. The iambic foot is the only stress-time-syllabic unit; the unmeas- 
ured rhyming line is the only higher periodic unit. 

In this example of Frost's, rhyme-sectioning is clearly indicated to 
the eye. Rhyme-sectioning may, however, be subordinated to another 
periodic principle of greater psychologic importance and therefore be 
deprived of external representation. The sporadic interior rhyming in 
ordinary metrical verse is an example of such subordinate sectioning 
that is at the same time synchronous, not intercrossing, with the metri- 
cal period. Various types of subordinate rhyme-intercrossing are pos- 
sible. An interesting example is furnished by the third "stanza" of Carl 
Sandburg's "Cool Tombs": 

Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a paw- 
paw in May, did she wonder? does she remember? ... in the dust, in the cool 
tombs? 

This is written as a connected whole probably because the refrain, "in 
the dust, in the cool tombs," which occurs at the end of the other three 
stanzas as well, is the determinant of a periodic structure that dwarfs 
the sub-sectioning. Nevertheless the stanza that I have quoted may be 
readily analyzed into time units of the "unitary verse" type: 



/•'/\('. Ac.silu-liiw 937 



I\)cahontas' body, lovely as a poplar. 

Sued as a red hau in NVncnihcr or a i->au-|>.i\s m \l.i>. 

Did she wonder'.' 

Does she reiiieinber'.' 



In the dust, in the eool tonihs? 

The rliMiic-cotipicls (haw paw-paw. N\)\cniber remember ) produce 
an inter-crossiiiLi sectioning ihat is distinctly subordinate, but none the 
less appreciable. It wcnild be as misleading, psychologically speaking, 
to print the stan/a in the manner o\' Frost's "After Apple-Picking," thus 
emphasizing the rhyme sections at the expense of the time sections, as 
to pimi the latter as blank \erse, ignoring the rhyme-sectioning. 

The term "periodic structure" is most conveniently used when the 
formula of recurrence is capable of expression in simple mathematical 
terms, generally on the basis oC an ideal time measurement. "Section- 
ing" is a wider term that includes the former, implying merely a division 
into appreciable psychological [221] pulses, short or long and o\' regular 
or irregular relations. So long as the sectioning is clearls apprehended 
by the mind, some sort of rhythmic contour results. This contour ma\ 
be aesthetically significant even if there is no defmite prosodic s\siem, 
as ordinarily understood, at the basis of the sectioning. A single strong 
stress or an unusually long pause at the end nia\ be enough to mark 
off a section. A poem may be periodic in reference to one o( its units 
of length, non-periodic in reference to another. Thus, the foot ma\ be 
a periodic unit, while the line and stanza are not; the rhyme-sectioning 
ma> be strictly periodic in (ovm. while the metric s\stem is now the 
stanza may be perfectly "free," presenting no clearly defined periodic 
features, yet may itself serve as a rigid pattern for peritxlic treatment; 
and so on through all manners of complications and intercrossings. .-Vs 
an example of stanza-periodicity in free \erse I may quote the following: 

K) 1)1 HI SS'i 

"Lci Cut/ii'dicih' Fm^loniic" 
Like a taint mist. niurkiK illununed. 

That rises imperceptibl\. tloatine its way nowhere, nmv hither. 
Now curling into some momentary shape, now seemmi: poised m space - 
Like a faint mist that rises and fills before me 
And passes; 

Like a vauue dream. Iltfully lilumineil. 

Thai wanders irresponsibly. Ilouiiii: unbid nowhere. ni>whilher. 

Now flashing inli> a lurid tlame-lit scene, now seeming lost in ha/c 



938 iil Culture 

Like a vague dream that lights up and drifts within me 
And passes; 

So passes through my ear the memory of the misty strain, 
So passes through my mind the memory of the dreamy strain. 

The I'liM two Stanzas, it will be observed, follow a perfectly periodic 
scheme with reference to each other (precise recurrence of rhythms and 
word repetition), but show no rigid periodic features as such. This form 
is most easily o^ service where there is a natural parallelism of thought 
or feeling. 

The preceding unsystematic observations on the structure of verse, if 
de\eIopcd to their logical outcome, lead to the conviction that the pos- 
sible types of verse are very numerous -more so than assumed even by 
the vers Hhristes, it would seem - that they are nowhere sharply delimited 
from each other, and that, in particular, it is impossible to say where 
metrical verse ends and "free verse" begins. The rhythmic contour or 
contours of any type of verse result from the manner of sectioning em- 
ployed in it. "Rhythmic contour" includes here not merely the flow of 
foot on foot or of syllable group on syllable group but, equally, of stanza 
on stanza or of free-verse time pulse on time pulse. A strictly analytic 
classification of the possible prosodic varieties would have to consider: 

1 . Whether the primary unit of sectioning is determined by stress, 
time, number of syllables, alliteration, rhyme, assonance, repetition, or 
other element. 

2. Whether the primary sectioning is in short or long units; in the 
latter case we might speak of a long-breathed rhythmic contour. 

3. To what extent, if at all, the smaller section units are built up into 
large ones. 

4. Which, if any, of the orders of sectioning are of a periodic nature. 

5. Whether, if there is more than one rhythmic contour, these are 
synchronous or intercrossing. 

Anyone who takes the trouble to think out to some extent the impli- 
cations of such an approach to the problems of verse structure will soon 
be led to conclude that only a very small number of possible forms 
have been at all frequently employed. Considerable rhythmic discipline 
would be needed to learn to assimilate readily some of the more long- 
breathed types of structure and the subtler types of intercrossing. There 
is no reason to doubt that our ears will grow more sensitive to the less 
conventional developments of the rhythmic impulse as genuine artists 
give us more and more convincing examples on which to feed the im- 
pulse. One does not spontaneously assimilate and enjoy the cross- 



Five: Aesthetics 939 

rh\lhnis o\' a Scriabinc ov llic irregular ihcinatic rcpclilions of a De- 
bussy, bill one gradiiall) learns lo do so and. in so doing, one rises to 
a more and more subtle eonsciousness ol ihe infinite possibilities o{ 
rlnthmic appreeiation. 1 ha\e advisedly said nothing of the satislaetor) 
or unsatistactor\ nature o\' the eadenee or swing of verse not formally 
regulated by stress. This is an important but dirt'ieull matter to reduce 
to analysis. No doubt there are frequently brought mto [223] play inter- 
crossing relations o^ various rhythmic factors, so adjusted as to give a 
sense of hidden periodicity under an apparently irregular contour I 
ha\e. further. purposel\ avoided an\ necessary reference, in the five 
criteria of verse classification, to a specific rhythmic determinant, say 
stress. The feeling for sectioning of some kind is, 1 believe, the basic 
factor in the psychology of verse appreciation. The how of the section- 
ing is an exceedingly important detail, but still on\\ a detail m a funda- 
mental theory of prosody. 

It is now time to ask what relation verse bears to prose. If sectioning, 
whether into short or long units, is to be accepted as the fundamental 
criterion of verse, it is clear at the outset that it would be just as vain 
to look for a hard and fast line of formal demarcation between prose 
and verse as between metric verse and free verse. If we could substitute 
"periodicity" for "sectioning," we would be better otT, and, indeed, it 
will be found in practice that comparatively little o^ even free verse is 
totally lacking in some form of periodicity. Nevertheless we have not 
the right to narrow our defmition of verse in such a way as to exclude 
any type o^ rhythmically articulated discourse, however irregular the 
contours yielded by analysis. Since it is obvious that all prose, even 
such as is not carefully modulated in pleasing cadences, is capable o^ 
being sectioned o[^^ into shorter and longer units, whether o\' stress or 
time or pause-marked syllable groups, it would almost seem that we 
have allowed ourselves lo be driven into the paradox that all prose is 
verse. This would be improving M. Jourdain's interesting discovery. 
Have we been talking verse all our lives witlunil knowing it'.' 

Were we lo depend entirely on an external and purelv mechanical 
analysis of the phenomena of sectioning, we should indeed have ii> de- 
spair of ascertaining any completely valid differentia of verse. A rhvth- 
mic contour i>f some kind is as inseparable from the notion i>f prose as 
from that of verse. Fortunately we possess an extremelv simple criterion 
to guide us, so simple that we need not wonder that it has been consis- 
tently overlooked. It is ihe psychological principle o\' attention. o{ 
rhythmic self-consciousness. Of two passages that are perlectiv homolo- 



940 ^^^ Ciilmrc 

gous in rhythmical respects, so long as a merely formal analysis is made 
of their stresses, time phrases, and [224] syllables, one may be verse 
because the rhythmic contour is easily apperceived as such, demands 
some share of the reader's or hearer's attention, the other prose because, 
for some reason or other, the same rhythmic contour, while necessarily 
making a vague impress on the fringe of consciousness, has not suc- 
ceeded in clearly obtruding itself on the attention. In the former case 
the rhythmic construction of the passage is present, as an analyzable 
factor, both phonetically and aesthetically; in the latter, phonetically 
but not aesthetically. As far as art is concerned, rhythm simply does not 
exist in the latter case. (An immediate corollary of these considerations, 
should they be accepted as valid, is the necessary limitation of machine 
methods in the investigation of prosodic problems. If the evaluation of 
rhythm did not unavoidably involve the subjective factor of fixation of 
attention, it might be possible to arrive at completely satisfactory results 
with the aid of such methods alone. As it is, it is doubtful if it will ever 
be possible to dispense wholly with introspective analysis, welcome as 
are the data yielded by rigorously objective methods.) Verse, to put 
the whole matter in a nutshell, is rhythmically self-conscious speech or 
discourse. 

If anyone doubts that verse and prose may be perfectly homologous 
from the rhythmic standpoint, he can readily convince himself by simple 
experiments with both prose and verse. He may so read a prose passage 
as to make all its rhythmic characteristics stand out in over-clear relief. 
In spite of himself an effect of nervous, irregular verse will be produced; 
not infrequently he will find himself reading blank verse. The contrast 
between the sharpness of the rhythmic contour and the inappropriately 
prosaic character of the diction or thought may make the reading pain- 
fully stilted, but he will be reading verse none the less. If he succeeds in 
substituting words of poetic content, without changing the rhythmic 
pattern, he will be reading poetry as well. The book that lies nearest to 
hand at the moment is America through the Spectacles of an Oriental 
Diplomat, by Wu Ting Fang, LL. D. Opening it at random, the first 
sentence that strikes my eye is: "Uniforms and badges promote brother- 
hood." I am convinced that this is meant to be prose. Nevertheless, 
when I read it many times, with ever-increasing emphasis on its rhyth- 
mic contour and with less and [225] less attention to its content, I grad- 
ually find myself lulled in the lap of verse: 

— u — u — u'u — — u— . 



Five: Ai'sthctics 941 

Had Wu Ting Fang cIidscii lo cloilic liis ihsiliniic paiicrn in words of 
poetic ciMinolation, say: 

I luiiulcrbolts ct>nic ciiishiiiL' in m.Kl UirbuloiKc. 

the elTeel ofxerse latent in all j^rose uoiiM ha\e risen \o the surface far 
more rapidl). 

C\'>n\ersel\. one nia) take a passage o{ undoubted \erse and turn it 
into prose, subjectively speaking, by the simple process of reading il 
with dilVused i"h\thniic attention. It reciuires some practice to {\o this 
convincingly, though 1 have heard more than one lecturer, when quoting 
poetry for illustrati\e purposes, succeed with little apparent etTort in 
producing this effect. Free verse, even the most strikingls rhythmical 
free verse, ma\ very easil\ thus lapse into prose. If prosaic diction is 
substituted, without destroying the rhythmic pattern, even the most pal- 
pable metric movement may be made to seep awa\ into an unarticulatetl 
prose. The first four lines of "H. D.'""s ■"Oread"" run: 

Whirl lip. sea - 
Whirl your pointed pines. 
Splash your great pines 
On our rocks. 

These lines, though not based on a metric scheme, are in the highest 
degree rhythmical. The following approximate verse-homologue: 

I say. Bill! 

Come, you silly boob. 
Fetch your old pate 
Back to \o\\\\ 

introduces itself with every apology but believes it proves its point. The 
verse pattern set by the original poem is so clear-cut in its rhvihmic 
outline that even this travesty is not wholly devoid o\' rhvthmic elTecl 
and is, to that extent, verse. Nevertheless it is undeniable that a casual 
reading of the lines suggests a far weaker degree o^ rhvthmic self-con- 
sciousness. In short, it is not enough for a rhvthm to be di.scoverabic; 
it must disclose itself with alacrity. Verse rhythms come, or should 
come, to us; we go lo the rhythms o[' prose. 

All this means, if it means anything at all. that there is not onlv wo 
sharp dividing-line between prose and verse, as has been so otlen 
pointed out. but that the same passage is both prose and verse accord- 
ing to the rhythmic receptiv ity o[' the reader or hearer or according lo 
his waning or increasing attention. Fhe verv lack o\ svmpalhv that is 
so often accorded the freer forms o{ verse frequently brings with it an 



942 til Culture 

unavoidable transmutation of the verse into prose. A and B are quite 
right in caMing the "same poem" prose and verse respectively. They are 
talking about different things. Poetry does not exist in its symbolic vi- 
sual form; like music, it addresses itself solely to the inner ear. 

There are, naturally, several factors that tend to excite the rhythmic 
apperception of a series of words, to deepen prose into verse. The isola- 
tion and discussion of these factors would be one of the most important 
tasks of a psychologically sound theory of prosody. Foremost among 
them is perhaps the choice of words, the diction. Whatever be our favor- 
ite theory of the nature of diction in poetry, it must be granted unreserv- 
edly that any lexical, grammatical, or stylistic peculiarity that is not 
current in prose helps to accentuate the rhythmic contour if only be- 
cause the attention is more or less forcibly drawn to it. "Wherefore art 
thou come?" is necessarily more rhythmical than its prose equivalent, 
"What made you come?" not so much because of inherent metrical 
differences as of the practical impossibihty of reading the former sen- 
tence with the carelessness, the diffused rhythmic attention, so inevitable 
in the reading of the latter. It does not in the least follow that conven- 
tionally "poetic" diction is necessarily justified in poetry. Poetry has 
to follow more masters than rhythm alone. Any striking or individual 
intuition, such as we have a right to look for in poetry, is bound to 
clothe itself in correspondingly striking expression, in some not altoge- 
ther commonplace choice of words. That is enough for that heightening 
of attention which is so essential for the adequate appreciation of rhyth- 
mic effects. Curiously enough, we are here brought to a realization of 
the fact that, however justifiable in general theory the separation of the 
formal aspect of poetry (verse) from its distinctive content, [227] in 
practical analysis this separation can hardly be enforced. Prosody di- 
vorced from poetic intuition is very much of an abstraction. 

We must, further, freely grant that periodicity in sectioning is a partic- 
ularly powerful stimulus for the awakening of rhythmic consciousness. 
This is inevitable because of the rapidly cumulative effect on the atten- 
tion of repetition of any kind. Even sectioning is more easily seized 
upon than uneven sectioning. Hence it lends itself more readily to utili- 
zation in verse. It is no more rhythmical per se than a rhythmically well 
apperceived passage with uneven sectioning; it merely helps solve the 
problem of attention by so much. Should we, for the sake of avoiding 
the appearance of hairsplitting, grant to periodicity as such an intrinsi- 
cally prosodic character, we should have to conclude that the gamut of 
forms that connects normal prose with strophic verse is twofold: a 



Five: Aesthetics 943 

gamut dcpendiiiLi on a progressive application ot ihc principle of peri- 
odicity (the shorter and more numerous the periodic units, the more 
verse-Mke the form) and a gamut depending on the degree of appercep- 
tion of the rhythmic contour (the more selt-conscious the contour, the 
more verse-like the form). Only we must be careful not to identity the 
principle ot" periodicity with the particular applications o\' it that are 
familiar to us in metrical verse. Theoretically speaking, any particular 
form of discourse will be best thought o\\ not as flatly verse or prose, 
but as embodying the verse principle in greater or less degree. With 
those who prefer impersonal abstractions to subjective realities there is 
no need to argue. 

The inestimable advantages of the art of writing, in poetry as in mu- 
sic, have been purchased at a price. Impressions originally meant for 
the ear have been transcribed into visual symbols that give at best but 
a schematized version of the richly nuanced original. Symbolization 
tends to rigid standardization, to a somewhat undue emphasis on se- 
lected features at the expense of others. We have become so accustomed 
to taking in poetry through the eye that I seriously doubt if the purely 
auditory intentions are as clear to all as is light-heartedly assumed. Is 
it easy to grant that an eye-minded critic (and more people tend to eye- 
mindedness than ear-mindedness) who has silently read an immenseK 
greater volume of poetry than he [228] has heard is always competent 
to discuss free verse or any verse? One wonders sometimes what a dis- 
passionate psychological investigation would disclose. To a far greater 
extent than is generally imagined I believe that the pleasurable responses 
evoked by metrical verse are largely conditional on visual experiences. 
The influence of visual stanza-patterns in metrical verse, on the one 
hand, and the somewhat disturbing effect o\' unc\cn lines m free \erse. 
on the other, are not to be too lightly dismissed. Much o\' the misunder- 
standing of the freer forms may well be due to sheer inabilit\ to think, 
or rather image, in purely auditory terms. Had poelr\ remained a purely 
oral art, unhampered by the necessity of expressing itself through \isual 
symbols, it might, perhaps, have had a more rapid and \aried formal 
development. At any rate, there is little doubt that the modern de\eK>p- 
ments in poetic form would be more rapidl\ assimilated b\ the poetr\- 
loving public. 

Most people whi^ have thought seriously o\' the matter at all uould 
admit that our poetic notation is far from giving a just notion o\ the 
artist's intentions. As long as metric patterns are conventionalK ac- 
cepted as the groundwork of poetry in its formal aspect, it may be that 



944 HI ^ iiliinv 

lU) giciil liiiiin rcsiills. It is wlicii subtler aiul less habitual piosodic 
leatuies need to be given expression that clilTieulties arise. I'ree verse 
uiulDubtedly sutlers lri>ni this iiiiperleetion of the written medium. Re- 
taiclatii>ns and aeeelerations of tempo, pauses, and lime units are merely 
iMiiilied. It IS far IVom unthinkable that verse may ultimately be driven 
to introduee new notational features, partieularly sueh as relate to lime. 
It is a pity, lor instance, that empty time units, in other wortls pauses, 
which sometimes have a genuine metrical significance, cannot be di- 
rectly indicated. In I rosfs lines: 

Kclani llio sun vvilli fcntlc mist; 
I'lichanl (lie l.iiul willi iimcdiysl. 
Slow, slow! 

is in)t the last line to be scanned 

1-1 • h • >'] M- -'-]'•' 
The silent syllables are enclosed in biackets. What would music be with- 
out its "rests," or mathematics without a zero? 



Iklitorial Note 

Originally iiublished in Joiinid/ oj hjii^lis/i aiul (icrnumic PhHoloy,y 20, 
213-22H. Reprinted by peiinission of the Univeisity of Illinois Press. 

A shortened version of this paper was jirepared by Sapir, under the 
title "What is Verse?," but was nevei published. 



Note 

I ///(• /)/<//. Jan. 17, l«)IS. 



Maii|^ass;iiil aiul ,\ikiU>Ic liancc 

Two types of aesthetic, as distincl Iroiii histoiicil. Iilci.irs criticisin 
are in \i>mie, the objective and the inipiessioiiistie. Ohjeetive cntieisiii 
seeks to jiidiie a work o\' hterar\ art reizardless ol the persofialily ol 
either writer or eiitie. assigning it its niehe in the reahii ol" aesthetic 
\ahies acconhng to certain stantlartls. At least this is its aim. lor in a 
world o\' strong personal bias and constantly shilling standards it is 
ever doomed to partial laihire. I'ssentially more luMiest. if generally 
even wider of the mark, is tiie imjiressionistic method, which .iims to 
set lorlh ciearis the subjective alliliide ol the critic tin\ards the art 
material bel'i^ie him. ()bjecti\e criticism tends to reveal the wt)rk. im- 
pressionistic criticism the critic. Neither reveals the writer. 

And yet a story or play or poem is first and foremost the refracted, 
because conventionally moulded, expression o\'a personality. It cannot 
well be more significant than the persi^nalitv that gives it birth. It may 
be more harmonious, more pleasing, yet it will always fall somewhat 
short o( the intensity, depth, and range o\' the artist's psyche. What we 
might call the "persc^nal" type of criticism, the criticism that accepts the 
personality of the aitist as its starting poml and eiuleavdrs to trace the 
main, and indeed aesthetically determining, features o\' this personalitv 
in the art W(Mk, is fret|uently found mingled in crutle form with both 
objective better absolutistic and impressi(Miistic criticism, but 
rarely as the frankly av(nved object of the critic. Ihis is not surprising. 
Until recent times psychology has, on the whole, ciMitented itself with 
the same sort of colorless and generalized abstractiiMis as characterize 
aesthetic systems, riieie has been little attempt \o seize upon the cimi- 
crete personality as a unit and to ascertain its tlistinctive treiuls Net 
obviously this is the onlv kmd o\' psvcholoi'v ili.il .1 ■'perst)nal" criticism 
could utilize. 

With the advent o\ the I reudian psychologv matters have changed 
somewhat. Imperfect as that psychology is ami must long remain, it 
has given us the first solid approach to an understanding of individual 
personality on the basis of a stutly o\ the fundamental impulses, their 
development, sublimation, and pathology. As this new psychi^logy gams 
in refinement and certainty, its application to aesthetic problems be- 



946 Jtt Culture 

comes more and more assured. In every work of art, after due allowance 
is made for traditional forces, there stand revealed, though still largely 
unread, a hundred symptoms of the instinctive life of the creator. In the 
long run only criticism grounded in individual psychological analysis 
has validity in aesthetic problems. At present we are still largely ob- 
sessed by the notion of justifying our literary estimates by reference to 
a set of aesthetic canons that hover mysteriously [200] in a rarefied 
atmosphere of eternal truth. And we are still at the game of strait- 
jacketing all temperaments into an ideal frame. 

The vast network, partly conscious and partly unconscious, of trends, 
inhibitions, and symbolizations that go to make up the sex impulse, raw 
and sublimated, has been duly, at times unduly, stressed by the Freudian 
psychologists. It goes without saying that no even remotely adequate 
understanding of a personality can be had without knowledge of its 
sexual life. By this is meant not so much the external facts of sexual 
relationship as the deeper sexual dispositions which, though they may 
never explicitly come to light, nevertheless do have a far-reaching influ- 
ence in shaping the personality's general attitude towards Hfe. Probably 
no writer of real significance, no writer whose work is a sincere reflec- 
tion of his individuality, can be fundamentally interpreted without refer- 
ence to the special characteristics of his psycho-sexual constitution. 

Masters of irony - the Maupassants, Anatole Frances, Nietzsches, 
Oscar Wildes, Swifts of literary history - seem to offer very special 
interest from a psychoanalytic standpoint. The sting of their irony, in 
so far as it is sincere and not a mere imitative pose, rests on its genetic 
connection with the element of pain-infliction so frequently found asso- 
ciated with the sexual impulse. In The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar 
Wilde goes so far as to say that there is an element of cruelty in all 
pleasure. Exaggerated as this dictum undoubtedly is, it deserves to be 
reckoned among his flashes of intuitive insight. The pain-inflicting com- 
ponent of the sexual impulse takes either an active (sadistic) or passive 
(masochistic) form. In the latter case pleasure is gained from the endu- 
rance or self-infliction of pain. In actual experience, however, the two 
forms are frequently combined, though generally with emphasis on the 
one or the other. Moreover, the general nature of the sexual disposition 
greatly complicates the operation of these pain-inflicting impulses. It 
would therefore be natural to find that their literary sublimation may 
proceed in different ways and that types of irony that at first sight seem 
directly comparable are to be credited to fairly distinct sources. 



Five: Aesthetics 947 

One o[' the \cr> best examples of a pure sadislie irony, an ironv thai 
takes (rank delight in the tenures it inlliels. is that ol" Maupassant. I 
refer parlieularly to the short stories, ui which we ha\e Maupassant at 
his most characteristic. Equally typical, among the novels, is "Bel-Ami." 
to a less extent also "Une Vie." In such a novel as I-'ort conutw la Mitrt, 
ho\ve\er. the typical Maupassant pungency is largely lacking. It uould 
almost seem as if there were, hidden under a smooth surface, a strt>ng, 
turbulent How of energy in Maupassant's spirit, that needed a rapid and 
explosive outlet and that tended to evaporate if too long husbanded. 
The nalLirc of lliis encrg\ I conceive to be aggressi\e. and mdeed blindK 
so. Examine very carefully a number of the ironical stories - and few 
of the stories arc not ironical - and you will notice before long two 
striking facts about Maupassant's irony. In the fust place, he rarely, if 
ever, shows or implies any sympathy for either the victims or the instru- 
ments o'i his irony; for both sutTerers and causers o\^ suffering he has 
generally nothing but quiet contempt. Lest his readers be beguiled inti^ 
a sentimental s\ mpathy for his human playthings, he is apt to take good 
care to add insult to injury by giving them a ridiculous touch. The 
ignorant peasant of "A Piece of String" that plagues himself to death 
might have aroused our active commiseration, were he not so much 
more interesting as a Joke than as a mere human being. We watch his 
expiring e\olutions with the same fiendish glee with which the bad ho\ 
observes the wiggling o\^ a tly that he has made w ingless and footless. 
[201] Perhaps he suffers - cjuien sahe? But really, he is too funny. Let's 
get our fun out of him. This is the essential Maupassant. 

In the second place, I fmd little or no tendenc\ m Maupassant for 
the irony to revert to the writer. Maupassant is throughout very much 
aloof, he is in no haste to identify his own sou\ with the souls of his Job 
lot of humanity. In this respect also he is the o\ergrown small boy. This 
absence o^ the self-prodding so characteristic of many another ironist 
removes Maupassant from the necessity o\' recei\ ing our sympathy. To 
some temperaments it outlaws him. Other temperaments find his deli- 
cate cruelties quite cliic. It is not altogether to the point to speak o\' the 
"objectivity" o\' Maupassant's art, as a rejoinder to our anal>sis. In so 
far as "objectivity" is not merely a name for a dehumani/ed and frigid 
art. o\' little psychological or aesthetic interest, it denotes a particular 
type, or group o\' types, of "subjectivity." Non-introspcctive tempera- 
ments are most themselves, most "subjecti\e." when conscimisK en- 
gaged with anything but themsebes. On the other hand, the attempt 
of an essentially introspective type o\' mind to produce "objcclivc" arl 



948 JJt Culture 

generally leads to disaster. The special evaluation of "objective" art is 
clearly nothing but an academic shibboleth which mistakes the fruit of 
a specific type of temperament for conformity with an aesthetic ideal. 

That there is an especially strong sexual vein in Maupassant is too 
obvious to need elucidation. A large number of the stories, moreover, 
directly exhibit this vein as strongly colored by the pain-inflicting im- 
pulse. I would refer to certain scenes in "Une Vie" and especially to 
"The Vagabond," one of Maupassant's most self-revealing tales. In this 
story everyone is furious with everyone else, in the case of the hero for 
reasons of hunger, at bottom for the sheer fun of hating, attacking, 
inflicting pain. "He grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing 
to strike the first passerby who might be going home to supper." "Male 
and female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, 
with hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear 
his skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet." As for the 
"objectivity" of this, remember that these people know absolutely noth- 
ing about the vagabond and the offense he is supposed to be guilty of. 

A much more subtle and interesting psychological problem is af- 
forded by the literary work and personality of Anatole France. The 
irony here is of much finer texture and of greater variety of emotional 
depth. In Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard it is tenderly playful, in Le 
Grand Saint Nicholas and Les Sept Femmes de Barbe-Bleue the irony is 
still playful but fantastic and at times mordant, in Les Dieux ont Soif 
it gets to be intensely sardonic, in Thais the irony is savage and sex- 
ridden. The chief difference between the irony of Maupassant and that 
of France, however, does not lie in its quality, but in its direction. All 
of the more important of France's creations are himself; hence the irony, 
particularly when it rises, as in Thais, to passionately cruel heights, is 
essentially self-directed. Wherever we turn, France mocks at himself. 
He is mainly concerned with the task of demolishing his own faiths. 

In the very first paragraph of LTle des Pingouins we read of the re- 
cluse Mael: "II partageait ses heures, selon la regie, entre le chant des 
hymnes, I'etude de la grammaire at la meditation des veritees 
eternelles." Strange company for "the eternal truths"! But why not, 
seeing what trivial baggage "eternal truths" are wont to be? The ostensi- 
ble irony in such passages as this is directed against the monastic ideal, 
the Church, the principles of the French Revolution (France's prin- 
ciples!) [202], or what not, but this irony is only a mask - perhaps an 
unconscious one - for the deeper irony that grins at one's own fond 
illusions. Perhaps only such a mind as France's, weaving graceful fanta- 



Five: Ae.\ the lies 949 

sies out of an iiltci \oiJ, ccuilJ ha\c fathered the dehiilitfiil '■piitol," the 
mueh-talked-of gentleman who does not exist. Putt)i is a symbol o\ 
France's inner world of \alues charming, noble, but non-existent. 

There are many indications in Irance's work of the temperament that 
denies reality and, as surrogate, constructs a cloistered world of its own 
imagining. His predilection foi hermits, celibates, men who stand aloof 
and instrospect, is no merely accidental fondness. Most significant for 
a fundamental understanding of France's personality is the study of the 
monk F^aphnuce in Thai.s. Here we learn what a stream of passion 
seethes at the bottom of France's soul and o\' the doom that withholds 
from this passion its fruition. The same inner check is discernible in 
modified and somewhat conventional form, in Lc Ly.\ Roui^c. still more 
clearly in Lcs Dicu.x out SoiJ. The self-directed cruelty, the tendency to 
shrink from the world into a self-created domain, the blind alley o\' 
frustrated passion - all these are symptoms of the intro\erted tempera- 
ment. We can not but suspect that in France the instincti\e life, of 
unusual passionateness, has not solved the problem of outer adjustment 
and has been content to fume, unconsciously it may be, in ceaseless 
non-satisfaction. We may suspect the soul of France's irony to lie in the 
element of baftled impulse and self-reproach, which is so characteristic 
of the introverted temperament. In a nutshell, the peculiarities o( Fran- 
ce's art are best understood as a sublimation o\' the impulses of such a 
temperament. 

The psychoanalytic approach that I had rapidly sketched to these two 
masters of French literature is only an approach. It does not pretend to 
explain in detail, nor in all probability can it ever explain in detail, the 
art-structures that they have reared. It aims only to disclose the nature 
of the individual instinctive life which, according to the I reudian 
psychology, necessarily determines, in broad outlines, all fi^rms of self- 
expression. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published m /he CanuJiun .\fcii:ci:ine >7. 199-202 (1921). 

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) was a I rench lunclist and writer ol 
acclaimed short stories. Anatole I'rance was the pseudon\m of Jacques- 
Anatole-France Thibault (1S44 1924), a lYench writer. Iiterar\ critic, 
novelist, poet, and dramatist, who recei\cd the Nobel Pri/e for Litera- 
ture in 1921. 



Review of 
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems 

Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Edited, with notes, by Robert Brid- 
ges. London: Humphrey Milford, 1918. 

When the author's preface and the editor's notes are eliminated, we 
have here but a small volume of some eighty-five pages of poetry, and 
of these only a scant sixty-three consist of complete poems, the rest 
being fragments assembled from manuscripts in the Poet Laureate's 
possession. The majority of them date from the years 1876 to 1889; 
only three earlier poems are included. Hopkins is long in coming into 
his own; but it is not too much to say that his own will be secure, 
among the few that know, if not among the crowd, when many a Geor- 
gian name that completely overshadows him for the moment shall have 
become food for the curious. 

For Hopkins' poetry is of the most precious. His voice is easily one 
of the half dozen most individual voices in the whole course of English 
nineteenth-century poetry. One may be repelled by his mannerisms, but 
he cannot be denied that overwhelming authenticity, that almost terrible 
immediacy of utterance, that distinguishes the genius from the man of 
talent. I would compare him to D. H. Lawrence but for his greater 
sensitiveness to the music of words, to the rhythms and ever-changing 
speeds of syllables. In a note pubhshed in Poetry in 1914, [331] Joyce 
Kilmer speaks of his mysticism and of his gloriously original imagery. 
This mysticism of the Jesuit poet is not a poetic manner, it is the very 
breath of his soul. Hopkins simply could not help comparing the Holy 
Virgin to the air we breathe; he was magnificently in earnest about the 
Holy Ghost that 

over the bent 

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. 

As for imagery, there is hardly a line in these eighty-odd pages that 
does not glow with some strange new flower, divinely picked from his 
imagination. 

Undeniably this poet is difficult. He strives for no innocuous Victo- 
rian smoothness. I have referred to his mannerisms, which are numer- 



Five: Aesthetics 95! 

cms and luU always readily assimilable. I'he\ base an i>bscssi\c. lurbu- 
lenl qiiaiilN ahoiil them these repealed ami trebls repealed words, 
the poignantly or rapturousl\ inlerriipling (>l\\ and (//;'s, ihe headlong 
omission of articles and relatives, the sometimes \iolent word order, ihc 
strange yet how often so lovely compounds, the plays on words and. 
most o[' all. his wild ]o\ in the sheer sound o\' words. This phonetic 
passion of Hopkins rushes him into a perfect ma/e o{ rhymes, half- 
rhymes, assonances, alliterations: 

Tallcr-liisscl-tanglcd and dinglc-a-danglcd 
Dand\-luing dainty licad. 

These clangs are not like the nicely calculated jingling lovelinesses of 
Poe or Swinburne. They, no less than the impatient ruggednesses of 
his diction, are the foam-Hakes [332] and eddies of a passionate, su ift- 
streaming expression. To a certain extent Hopkins undoubtedly k>\ed 
difficulty, even obscurity, for its own sake. He may ha\e found in it a 
symbolic retlection of the tumult that raged in his soul. Yet ue must 
beware of exaggerating the external difficulties; they yield u iih unex- 
pected ease to the modicum of good will that Hopkins has a right to 
expect of us. 

Hopkins' prosody, concerning which he has something to sa\ in his 
preface, is worthy of careful study. In his most distincti\e pieces he 
abandons the "running" verse of traditional English poetry and substi- 
tutes for it his own "sprung" rhythms. This new verse of his is not based 
on the smooth flow of regularly recurring stresses. The stres.ses are care- 
fully grouped into line and stanza patterns, but the mo\ement o{ the 
verse is wholly free. The iambic or trochaic foot yields at an\ moment 
to a spondee or a dactyl or a foot of one stressed and three or more 
unstressed syllables. There is, however, no blind groping in this irregular 
movement. It is nicely adjusted to the constantl) shifting speed o\ the 
verse. Hopkins' elTects, with a few exceptions, are in the highest degrcx* 
successful. Read with the ear, never with the e\e. his \crse flovss with 
an entirely new vigor and lightness, while the sian/aic form gi\es it a 
powerful compactness and drive. It is doubtful if the freest \erse ot our 
day is more sensitive in its rhythmic pulsations than the "'sprung" \erse 
of Hopkins. How unexpectedly he has [333] enlarged the possibilities o{ 
the sonnet, his favorite form, will be oh\ious from the two examples 
that I am going to quote. Meanwhile, here are two specimens of his 
more smoothly lowing verse. The first is from '"The I eadcn i cho." a 
maiden's song: 



952 JJJ Culture 

How to keep - is there any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow 

or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key to keep 

Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty ... from vanishing away? 

Oh is there no frowning of these wrinkles, ranked wrinkles deep, 

Down? no waving-off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, 

sad and stealing messengers of grey? 

No there's none, there's none - oh no, there's none! 

Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair - 

Do what you may do, what, do what you may. 

And wisdom is early to despair: 

Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done 

To keep at bay 

Age and age's evils - hoar hair. 

Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death's worst, winding sheets, tombs and 

worms and tumbling to decay; 

So be beginning, be beginning to despair. 

Oh there's none - no no no, there's none: 

Be beginning to despair, to despair, 

Despair, despair, despair, despair. 

This is as free as it can be with its irregular Hne-lengths and its ex- 
treme changes of tempo, yet at no point is there hesitation as the curve 
of the poem rounds out to definite form. For long-breathed, impetuous 
rhythms, wind-like and sea-like, such verse as this of Hopkins' has noth- 
ing to learn from the best of Carl Sandburg. My second quotation is 
from "The Wood-lark," a precious fragment: [334] 

Teevo cheevo cheevio chee: 

Oh where, where can that be? 

Weedio-weedio: there again! 

So tiny a trickle of song-strain; 

And all round not to be found 

For brier, bough, furrow, or green ground 

Before or behind or far or at hand 

Either left, either right. 

Anywhere in the sunlight. 

Well, after all! Ah, but hark - 

"I am the little wood-lark." 

This is sheer music. The stresses fall into place with an altogether 
lovely freshness. 

Yet neither mannerisms of diction and style nor prosody define the 
essential Hopkins. The real Hopkins is a passionate soul unendingly 
in conflict. The consuming mysticism, the intense religious faith are 
unreconciled with a basic sensuality that leaves the poet no peace. He 
is longing to give up the loveliness of the world for that greater loveli- 
ness of the spirit that all but descends to envelop him like a mother; 



/•Mr. Acsihcius 953 

but he is too poignantly aware o\' all sensuous beauts, too nisislcnliv 
haunted by the allurements of the llesh. A I-reudian psychologist mighl 
call him an imperfectly sex-sublimated mystic, (iirlish tenderness is 
masked b\ ruggedness. And his fummg self-torment is exteriori/ed by 
a diction that strains, and by a rh\thmic How that leaps or runs ox 
stamps but never walks. 

Here is 'The Starlight Night." one of his most characteristic sonnets 
- white-heat mysticism forged out of what pathos (<f scnse-ecstasyl 

Look al ihc stars! look, look up at the skies' 
Oh look at all the firc-folk sitting in the air! 
Tlie bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there! 
Down in dini woods the diamond deKes! the elves'-eyes! 
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies! 
Wind-heat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare! 
Flake-do\es sent tloating forth at a farmyard scare! - 
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize. 

Buy then! bid then! - What.' - Prayer, patience, alms. vows. 

Look, look: a May-mess, like on tirchard boughs! 

Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows! 

These are indeed the barn; within doors house 

The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse 

Christ home. Christ and his mother and all his hallows. 

"Ah well! it is all a purchase." You cannot have it for the asking. 
And. finally, this other sonnet, addressed to his own restless soul, 
"with this tormented mind tormenting yet": 

My own heart let me have more pity on; let 
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind. 
Charitable: not live this tormented mind 
With this tormented mind tormenting yet. 
I cast for comfort 1 can no more get 
By groping round my comfortless, than blind 
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find 
Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of uet. 

Soul, sell; come, poor Jackself. I do ad\ ise 

You. jaded, let be; call off thmights awhile 

Elsewhere; leave comfort rooi-roc>m; let joy si/e 

At God knows when to Ciod knows what; whose smile 

's not wrung, see you; unfcMcseen times rather .is skies 

Betweenpie mcnintains lights a loveh mile 

But how many "lo\ely miles" could there ha\e been [.Wi) on the long. 
rocky road traversed b\ this unhapp\ spirit! 



954 /// Culture 

In face of this agonising poem one can only marvel at the Poet Laure- 
ate's imperturbable exegesis of the word ''betweenpie": "This word 
might have delighted William Barnes if the verb 'to pie' existed. It seems 
not to exist, and to be forbidden by homophonic absurdities." From 
our best friends deliver us, O Lord! 



Editorial Note 
Originally pubHshed in Poetry 18, 330-336 (1921). 



Review o\^ 
William A. Mason, A History oj the Art of ll'nfini: 

William A. Mason, A History of (he An of Wriflni^. New York: Mac- 
millan. 1920. 

The history o\'^ our alphabet and of other systems ol' uniiiig histori- 
cally connected or unconnected with it has been often told. \'el there is 
room for a new synthesis of the vast array of facts, something, say, 
that would bring the lay reader into touch with the later tlnds in the 
Mediterranean region and with the newer theories based on these llnds. 
Even more welcome than a merely historical survey of the systems of 
writing as such would be a general review of their development from 
the standpoint [69] of art. Writing at all times has constituted a plastic 
as well as a symbolic problem. The conveyance of thought has been 
only one of its uses; the delineation of pleasing contours, now severe 
and statuesque, now flowing in graceful meanderings, has always been 
something more than a by-product. As one passes fn^ii ideographic 
system to system and from alphabet to alphabet perhaps liie thing that 
most forcibly strikes one is that each and every one o\' them has iis 
individual style. This is corrected by the obscurely di\ ining. con\erging 
hands of thousands of artists, until, at a gi\en moment, the characters 
stand forth as a unique and unified work of art, as self-contained and 
as definitely stylized as any architectural tradition. The historian has no 
difficulty in showing how a certain starting-point gi\es a slant or drill 
to the future development of the system, how the particular forms, for 
instance, of the medieval black-letter are largcK prefigured m the Phoc- 
nician alphabet. But he does not so clearly know just how and uhy the 
various styles develop, just how it is that the .Arabic hand, the Roman 
type, the Armenian, the Hindu alphabets, all derived as they ulltmalch 
are from a single prototype, have so widely di\erged. ha\c their indivi- 
dualities so stamped upon them, that the proof of then common genesis 
is but the coldest of archaeological businesses. 

Much can be said and has been said o\' the controlling power o\ the 
medium. Stone is ditlerent from papyrus and the pen is dilTerent irom 



1)56 lil Culture 

a camel's hair brush. Yet when all this and more is indicated and worked 
out with laborious detail we are really no nearer the central question 
o^ what psychological forces have hurried the national hand on to that 
aesthetic balance which is its ultimate style. We are not concerned to 
solve the batlling problem; we are merely concerned to state its actual- 
ity. It is not otherwise with language, with religion, with the forms of 
social organization. Wherever the human mind has worked collectively 
and unconsciously, it has striven for and often attained unique form. 
The important point is that the evolution of form has a drift in one 
direction, that it seeks poise, and that it rests, relatively speaking, when 
it has found this poise. It is customary to say that sooner or later a 
literary or sacerdotal tradition enjoins conservatism, but is it altogether 
an accident that the injunction is stayed until the style is full-grown? I 
do not believe in this particular accident. To me it is no mere chance 
that the Chinese system of writing did not attain its resting-point until 
it had matured a style, until it had polished off each character, whether 
simple or compounded of "radical" and "phonetic" elements, into a 
design that satisfactorily filled its own field and harmonized with its 
thousands of fellows. A glance at the earlier forms of Chinese writing 
convinces one that it did not always possess true style, interesting and 
original as some of the early characters are. 

Mr. Mason's History of the Art of Writing is a rather unpretentious 
introduction to this large subject, making no claim to completeness and 
developing no new ideas. The pictographic and ideographic origin of 
writing is stressed in the orthodox manner and some idea is also given 
of the way in which most systems have taken a phonetic turn. The book 
gives enough fact and illustrations to make a useful summary, but 
hardly more. Obviously Mr. Mason too much lacks the necessary lin- 
guistic and ethnological equipment to have succeeded in giving his book 
the tone and background we should have liked to have. Far more might 
have been done in half the space. The "Turanians" stride across these 
pages as though they were still living in the reign of Max Miiller, and 
many a passage could be quoted that indicates a docile trust in authori- 
ties and speculations that were. A little annoying, too, is the author's 
insistent sentimentalism. He finds it hard to resist the "quaint." Histori- 
cal anecdotes en passant, good Queen Bess's correspondence, and the 
lines on Shakespeare's tomb leave the sober narrative sadly waiting by 
the roadside. One would have gladly exchanged for all this, some ac- 
count of the interesting Hindu derivatives of the Phoenician alphabet 
(via the South Arabian forms) and of the Tibetan, Burmese, Siamese, 



Five: Aesthetics 957 

and Cambodian otTshoots o\' llicsc Unulii alphabets. In this way, Mr. 
Mason would not only have introduced his readers to some of the most 
fascinating and sl\li/ed alphabets that ha\e ever been e\ol\ed but 
would have splendidly reinforced the point that practicalls all kno\sn 
systems of writing that are in use today were born either on the eastern 
shores o{ the Mediterranean or in China. Surely it is a matter worth 
retlection that the same original historical impulse e\entuall\ provided 
a means for the literary expression of two cultures as nuituall\ antago- 
nistic as those of Occidental Europe and of the forbidden highlands of 
Tibet. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Freeman 4, 68-69 (1921), under the title 
"Writing as History and as Style." 



Review of 
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Collected Poems 

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Collected Poems. New York: Macmillan, 
1921. 

There are poets whose authentic work emerges somewhat precari- 
ously from the interaction of subtly conflicting motives. The chances of 
a flaw appearing somewhere in the too delicate workshop of their spirit 
are so great that the one exquisite success must needs be anticipated by 
a run of half-successes or be followed by a failure. Such a spirit is 
Mr. Edwin Arlington Robinson, whose eight volumes have now been 
assembled in a book of Collected Poems. One fancies, as one turns these 
pages, that a truer idea of Mr. Robinson's very individual artistry might 
have been conveyed in a smaller volume limited to his perfect and more 
nearly perfect poems - to Merlin, all or very nearly all of The Man 
against the Sky, the best lyrics of The Children of the Night and The 
Town down the River, Isaac and Archibald, one or two other things per- 
haps from the Captain Craig volume ("Captain Craig" itself is interest- 
ing rather than satisfying), and Httle or nothing from the last three 
volumes - though possibly "The Mill" and "Lazarus" might have been 
saved out of The Three Taverns. As it is, the inclusion of the inferior 
work blurs the picture that we must form of Mr. Robinson's poetry if 
we are to do it not more than justice. 

To blurt out our case against the Collected Poems, Mr. Robinson's 
poetic range is too limited for quite so large a volume. Aside from 
Merlin, which has been received with an incredibly obtuse frigidity 
where a public truly alive to poetic values would at once have rubbed 
its eyes in glad amazement - aside from this most splendid of poems, 
Mr. Robinson's comment on life is too icy for bulk. Again, his interest 
in the color and detail of the human scene is too languid to save his 
work from a cumulative monotony. Mr. Robinson's art does not, in any 
deeply valid sense, reflect life; it is an error to make the parallel with 
Browning. His art sets in nearly always where life has unravelled itself 
and is waiting for its tart, ironic epitaph. 



Five: Aesthetics 959 

Having said all this in preliminary disparagemenl. \sc ha\c really said 
little that is pertinent. For when we look away tVoni the unsuecessrul 
pieees, weed out of our eritical seKes an\ lingering seFilnnents we may 
still possess in regard to an artist's subjeet-malter. and pomier the 
smaller volume of aehievement that lies scattered within the published 
volume, we realize clearly enough Mr. Robinson's position in contem- 
porary American letters. Mr. Robinson is the one American poet who 
compels, rather than invites, consideration. We may like or dislike Mr. 
Masters or Miss Lowell, but we are not likely to feel in their work the 
presence of a spirit which, for the moment, annihilates us. We may like 
or dislike Mr. Robinson - we may both like and dislike him. hut his 
accents are too authentic, his aloofness too certain, to give our spirits 
the choice whether to attend or not. Mr. Robinson has neither pri>- 
gramme nor audience. He gives us the essence, singularlv intense and 
cerebral, of his lonely, perhaps casual, experience of the world. We note 
instinctively how the cold matter of his thought is vouched for b\ its 
rhythmic expression and have no recourse but to conclude that in this 
man thought is not far from feeling, that what we behold is the genu- 
inely artistic record of a rigorous personality. Mr. Robinson has not 
merely asked himself to think and feel thus and so; he has taken his 
sophisticated, bitter soul for granted and has shown how beaut\ may 
blossom in an artist's desert. There can be no more scientillc demonstra- 
tion of the futility of discussing art in terms o'i content than to look 
from Mr. Robinson's arid acre to Mr. Masters's tumultuous village or 
Miss Lowell's garden of magnificent paper flowers. 

Need one hesitate to apply the term "beautiful" to this poetry'.' Does 
Mr. Robinson's desperate irony comport with 'beauty"*.' 1 can not see 
that an apology is required. Beauty is neither thing nor tla\or; it is a 
relation, a strange accord between content and form. Mr. Robinson's 
forms fit his matter inexorably. If they seem at limes a little luxuriant 
for their drab content, it is because this content is often but a superficies 
behind which one must feel back to the fuller emotii'»ns. This mferential 
art, with its pulsing silences, is probably the fruit of a Puritan reticence, 
overhauled and reinforced by a newer bitterness. At an> rate, it is char- 
acteristic of Mr. Robinson's best piKMry, as of all great poetr\. that \sc 
believe its rhythms rather more than its ieller-press. 

Mr. Robinson has wrung strange \alues out of worn meters. Some o\ 
his ballad-tunes and variations of ballad-tunes seem to mock their own 
movement with a grim tlippancy. in "Bokardo," for instance, the loo 



960 J^l Culture 

insistent melody, wedded to an argumentative diction, give us a know- 
ing kind of doggerel, at once sad and jaunty: 

Well. Bokardo. here we are; 
Make yourself at home. 
Look around - you haven't far 
To look - and why be dumb? 
Not the place that used to be, 
Not so many things to see; 
But there's room for you and me. 
And you - you've come. 

In "The Clinging Vine" the nervous energy of the clipped lines freezes 

behind us as we read: 

No more - I'll never bear it. 
I'm going. I'm like ice. 
My burden? You would share it? 
Forbid the sacrifice! [142] 
Forget so quaint a notion. 
And let no more be told; 
For moon and stars and ocean 
And you and I are cold. 

Very complex in feeling is "John Everdown." Its movement creates a 
sense of breathless mystery on which John's senile lewdness floats as 
hardly more than a suggestion or symbol. Almost equally complex is 
"John Gorham," perhaps the most perfect short poem in the book. In 
this lovers' quarrel the "story," as regularly in Mr. Robinson's work, is 
built up retrospectively by the leakage of a stray bit or two of narrative 
reference - information withdrawn as quickly as it is charily ventured. 
But it is neither inferential narrative nor even drama that makes the 
interest of the poem, rather the confrontation of John's caustic disillu- 
sionment with the girl's mingled coquetry, vexation, and clinging wom- 
anliness. The drama is not so much psychological interplay and back- 
ground as it is a scaffolding for the momentary display of states of 
mind. The technique of "John Gorham" is flawlessly precise. The sylla- 
bles, rapid and retarding, carry a felicitous blend of colloquial and only 
less colloquial images. If ever English rhythm succeeded in fusing wit 
and sentiment, it is in these lines, so familiar and so remote. 

It seems to be customary to think of Mr. Robinson as a pessimistic 
dramatist who has chosen the lyric form because he could in this way 
best practice his arts of compression and inferential diagnosis. 1 believe 
that this opinion seriously misconceives the nature of Mr. Robinson's 
poetic impulse. His observation is far too static for the natural develop- 



Five: Acslhclics 961 

iiicnl of a elraiiialic iiitcicsl. His ihciIukIs of inference are i>nly plausibly 
and in sccoiul degree a sophistiealed technique; nuicli ninre truly lhc\ 
are an e\asion o\' llie dramatic jiiohlein. A lln^rouiihly Mgor^us dra- 
matic awareness presupposes the abilil\ to assimilate and project narra- 
ti\e. an ability that Mr. Robinson can not well be credited \Mlh. llie 
core of his jtoetic pei"sonalit\ is l\ric. and l\ric ak)ne. This is indicated, 
it seems to me, not only by the feeling that he so often transfers to his 
rhythms but by the \ery fact that he can get at the ilou o{ life only 
as something hastily inferred from the \antage-point of an irrevocable 
moment. 

Possibly the famous Shakespeare poem is somewhat \o blame for the 
current view o\' Mr. Robinson's genius. Now, while it is obvious that 
"Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford" is an ama/ingly success- 
ful dramatic portrait. I think it is legitimate to sa\ that this poem is 
somewhat of a lour dc force, that it does not adequalcK represent the 
deeper Robinson, and that there is an air of strain about much of it. It 
is exceedingly fortunate that we have the Merlin, not only for its own 
sake but because it enables us to see the general poetic output o{ its 
creator in a just light. Merlin is a narrative poem, it is true, but it is a 
slow narrative. Its essential beauty lies in its lyric qualities. Here we 
have the imagery that Mr. Robinson had been wistfulK reaching out for 
in all his previous work but which he had nc\er quite allowed himself to 
seize, so habituated had his soul become to the denial o\ sense in the 
world of bitter reality. 

Keener than any of Mr. Robinson's own ironies is the irons which 
doomed him. the unbeliever, to a Puritan asceticism. That part of him 
which was speech could not accept the pagan beaut\ of the world which 
the rhythms of his spirit so ardently desired. None knew better than Mr. 
Robinson himself what he was about when he lost himself in .Arthurian 
romance. If the l\ric imjuilse tlnds little growth in a world too blighted 
for anything but caustic blooms, it has the right to burrow into a subsoil 
of the fancy. Half of Mr. Robinson, the lyric poet, is in the rhythms o\ 
his poems of the denial of life, half in the passion and imagery o^ Mer- 
lin. Mr. Robinst^n the ps\cluilogist is a somewhat uncoininced and sul- 
len substitute for the uiulixidcd Kiist. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in ///c Ircenuin ^. Ml 14.^ d*)::). under the 
title "Poems of Experience." 



Review of 
Maxwell Bodenheim, Introducing Irony 

Maxwell Bodenheim, Introducing Irony, a Book of Poetic Short Stories 
and Poems. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922. 

This volume should become the gospel of sincere and exasperated 
futurists. It is sardonic to a degree, is totally unacquainted with the lisps 
and babblings of marketplace or home, and handles words with the deft 
remorselessness of a slave-driver. Introducing Irony is far more than a 
remarkable or disconcerting document. It is the ironic supplement to 
the more fanciful Minna and Myself, the two together expressing the 
most mordant poetic genius that America possesses. Not addressing 
itself to the thinking mass, but rather to the thought-feeling few, it 
would not know what to do with popularity. We observe in it the same 
eerie familiarity with the secrets of words that Mr. Bodenheim's work 
has always shown. If there is any sign of a let-up, it is, possibly, a 
tendency to slip here and there into the too clever smoothness that has 
been made fashionable by Mr. T. S. Eliot, as in the lines: 

And so the matter ends; conservative 
And radical revise their family-tree, 
While you report this happening with relief 
To liberals and victorious cups of tea. 

It is only rarely that Mr. Bodenheim condescends to such glibness and 
urbanity. Passages like 

Snobs have pockets into which 
They crowd too many trinkets 

and 

Two figures on a subway-platform, 
Pieced together by an old complaint 

have that savage exactness of his for which felicity is too prim a word. 
The ten prose pieces at the end of the volume are less authoritative than 
the verse. It is difficult to see why Mr. Bodenheim should bother to 
write these semi-narratives. 



Five: Aesthetics 
Ediu>i"ial Nolo 



963 



Originally published in The New Republic 31. 341 (1922). 
Maxwell Bodenhcini (1S93-1954) was an American poel. novelist, 
and essayist. 



Review of Maxwell Bodenheim, 
Introducing Irony 

Maxwell Bodenheim, Introducing Irony: A Book of Poetic Short Sto- 
ries and Poems. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922. 

it is a tragic temptation to shuffle the American poets and look for 
the aces. I am foolish enough to yield to the temptation and, with hesi- 
tant gesture rather than assurance, to lay them on the table. If Mr. 
Robinson, Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Aiken, and Mr. Bodenheim are not the 
real aces (and I regret that my pack, not intended for pinochle, limits 
me to four aces), I still believe that Mr. Bodenheim is one of the four. 
He does not seem to be as well known as he should be, being a poet 
for partly "unpoetic" reasons. 

Mr. Bodenheim has been called a poet of word overtones. This is a 
true statement so far as it goes, but it is a little misleading. He gets his 
"overtones" not by insisting on the word, not by listening hard for the 
dying clang of its marginal associations, but by a somewhat high- 
handed, and therefore refreshing, method of juxtaposition. His words, 
as he sets them down in sequences, make strange companions. They put 
each other to acid tests, cutting irrelevances out of each other's vitals, 
and constructing themselves into lines of thought that have the fresh- 
ness of corroded contours. Mathematics runs through all of his work, 
as he himself explains in the exhilarating Talmudic exercise entitled "An 
Acrobat, a Violinist, and a Chambermaid Celebrate." Take this passage 
from "The Turmoil in a Morgue": 

Impulsive doll made of rubbish 

On which a spark descended and ended. 

The while servant-girl, without question or answer, 

Accepts the jest of a universe. 

It is a summary, very precise and appropriately impertinent, of the white 
servant-girl's erotic experience and cosmic philosophy. It has almost as 
little grease in it as one of those tortuously simple demonstrations, that 
we remember to have witnessed, of Euclid's more difficult theorems. 



Five: Acs i In- tics 965 

What makes Mr. BtKlcnliLMiii a pocu aiul no[ merely a surgeon and 
applied gec^metriciaii. is his tancy. Ihis quality o\' his work appears 
even more clearly in Minna uml A/r.vc// (which deserves a \astly greater 
accessibility than its publishers have gi\en it) than in the present vol- 
ume. In ''Old Man." "Seaweed from Mars/" and a number ot other 
pieces the fancN is clabcMate and, ifaititlcuiL legitimately so. Numerous 
images, such as 'the rock-like protest of knees," ha\e a \alue far be- 
yond that o\' a merely intellectual symbolism. Yet it cannot be denied 
that Mr. Bodenheim's fancy plays with less abandon in Introducini; Irony 
than in his previous work. His passion for the knife has led him to 
prune too much; in excising the irrelevant he has also cut into the quick 
of his imagination and drained it of some of its life-blood. It is a pity 
that bitterness should have made a murderer of his fancy, in Minna it 
was more of a dreamer. And Mifuia. while less intellectual, is heller 
poetry. 

The sardonic intellectualism of this book proceeds not from heartless- 
ness, not truly from philosophic aloofness, but from sulTering. It is im- 
possible to disentangle the poet's love and his hatred, to dissever deri- 
sion from his pity. Irony is here a substitute for tears. The following 
passages from "The Scrub-Woman," significantly styled "a sentimental 
poem," illustrate Mr. Bodenheim's method of dodging the direct expres- 
sion of the pity that he feels: 

Time has placed his careful insuU 

Upon your body ... 

Neat nonsense, stamped with checks and stripes. 

Fondles the deeply marked sneer 

Thai Time has dropped upon you. ... 

When you grunt and touch your hair 

I perceive your exhaustion 

Reaching for a bit o^ pit\ 

And carefully rearranging it. 

And perhaps the paralyzing turmoil o[^ lo\e and hate has ne\er been 
more poignantly rendered than in ihe closing luics of ".lack Rose" 

And when her brolher died Jack sal beside 

Her grief and played a moulh-harp while she cried. 

But when she raised her iicad and smiled at hiin 

A smile intensely stripped and subtK grim - 

His hale fell o\erawed and in a trap. 

And suddenly his head fell to her lap 

For some lime she sal stillly in ihe chair. 

Then slowiv raised her hand and stri>ked his hair. 



966 JJJ Culture 

Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Nation 114, 751 (1922). Copyright 1922; 
reprinted by permission of The Nation Magazine/The Nation Publishing 
Company, Inc. 



Review o( 
John Maseficld, Kiiii^ Cole 

John Masefield, King Cole. London, William Heincman, 1921. 

An Indian tribe of Vancouver Island has a quainll\ beauliful belief 
that for a brief space during one unknown night o\' the year all things 
are loosed from their moorings to hover in a drowsy glamour. The sea 
comes up into the land, the houses shift about tluid and gentle, and the 
sober tyranny of usual things is suspended. No one has even been 
known to witness this holiday of nature, for there is no warning o\' its 
coming and there is an insidious drowsiness in the air which lulls mor- 
tals into an unwilled slumber. Yet were anyone thus to catch things on 
the turn, he would be greatly blessed with the fulfilment ol" his prayers. 

If I understand Mr. Masefield aright, his eye is set to catch the glam- 
orous twinkles in life. Once caught and nursed in the s>mpath\ o\' his 
imagination, they are united with hard and bracing actualities. The 
spirit of Mr. Masefield is thus ever striving to realize in a strange, pica- 
resque unity the lust of the real and a less tangible longing which he 
himself is in the habit of spelling Beauty, sometimes Wisdom. This does 
not mean that he digs so deep into the earth that, sooner or later, he 
strikes gold. Mr. Masefield is not akin to Mr. Conrad, flis interest in 
life is only surface-deep. Of its intimate texture, his imagination seizes 
clearly the exposed rim, item on item; of its dilTused fire, only such 
flames as blow out at vent-holes. Thus the beaui\ that Mr. Masefield 
fashions out of life comes but rarely or nc\cr from an c\pU>ration of 
its recesses. It is rather a beauty caught in certain da/ed nuMnenis. when 
the hard exterior of things, stared at rather than stared through, sud- 
denly takes on a glamorous mist that melts away all rigidities and ob- 
scures the relief. Rephrasing one's anaKsis of Mr. Masetleld's aesthetic 
sensibility from the standpoint of craftsmanship, one nias sas that il 
seems to move on from the laying out of isolated, though numerous. 
points of observation to the application of a patina. (."^49] 

The leap from Mr. Masefield's "rear" to Mr, Masefield's "beaulilur' 
does not necessarily deliver him to sentimentalit>, though it lends lo do 



968 /// Culture 

so. What does result is that it is ditTicult for Mr. Masefield to convince 
us of his integrations. Only too often, as in "The Daffodil Fields," do 
the observed life and its romance separate into strata. If he has given 
us both the quest of glamour in many of his sonnets, and daubs of 
crude life, it is not so much because he is securely himself on various 
unrelated levels as that the kind of imaginative blending which he intu- 
itively craves is a too delicate undertaking. It is an interesting symptom 
of his sensibility that he runs in his expression to opposite poles. A 
synthesis such as he demands is possible, but I do not believe that he 
has often compassed it. Wholly successful is perhaps only "The Tragedy 
of Nan," which appears to me to be the poet at his best. 

King Cole is an unconscious exposition of Mr. Masefield's sensibility 
and method. The Showman and his company, their bedraggled vans, 
their disappointments and their ambitions, embody the particular kind 
of reality, jaunty rather than coarse, plain-spoken rather than veracious, 
which Mr. Masefield likes to single out for his background. King Cole, 
the eternal piper, incarnates that other, remoter scheme of values which 
is the romance of the folk. When the Showman's luck had slid from 
bad to worse, 

... King Cole 

Slipped from the van to head the leading team. 

He breathed into his flute his very soul, 

A noise like waters in a pebbly stream. 

And lo, a marvellous thing, the gouted clay, 
Splashed on the wagons and the horses, glowed. 
They shone like embers as they trod the road. 

The glamorous moment of transmutation has come, the drab world of 
the ordinary is loosed from its moorings, and for the rest of the narra- 
tive the spirit of King Cole reigns once more. The Showman's luck 
turns, a prince and all the town march out to visit the circus, and when 
King Cole fades away at the hour of twelve, it is another troupe that 
he leaves behind him. Blessings have softened the heart of humanity. 

The real, the folk-loristic, and the symbolic are skilfully mingled in 
this most typical of Mr. Masefield's poems. The mingling can not and 
does not generate the power that grows from a unitary conception, but 
within its fundamental limitations King Cole is a highly successful 
poem. In it the poet has chosen a theme, a background, and a simple 
motivation that exactly suit his genius. In no sense does it reflect the 
spirit of our age. Like most of Mr. Masefield, it is the Chaucer of the 



Five: Aesthetics Vt>9 

Prologue fillcrcd ihrough ihc RoniaiUic pi>cls. The \erse is not as bril- 
liant as the best passages o( Duuhcr. bui it is as warm and as rapid as 
an\ thing that Mr. Masetleld has yet done. I'nfortunateh it has some 
of llie usual e\idenees of his too speed\ I'aeilitN. 



Editorial Nolo 

Originally published in The ircenuin 5, 548-549 (1922), under the 
title "The Manner o\^ Mr. Masetleld." 



Review of John Masefield, 
Esther and Berenice 

John Masefield, Esther and Berenice: Two Plays. New York: Macmil- 
lan, 1922. 

There is no reason why poets should not enjoy the human privilege 
of inconsistency. Now that we have our Masefield well in hand as a gilt- 
edged, romanticizing, and altogether lovable swashbuckler, it is quite in 
order that we should allow ourselves to be shocked, ever so slightly, by 
the entry of gentle John Masefield, Englisher of the pleasant melanchol- 
ies and decorous passions of Racine, one-time dramatic historiographer 
in the manner, somewhat dead, of Louis Quatorze. It would be folly to 
look this little gift too curiously in the mouth. The adapter-translator 
goes half out of his way to parry criticism when he states in his preface 
that the adaptations "were made for the use of a little company of 
amateur players who wished to try their art in verse-plays, yet found 
that of the many fine poetical plays in the English language, not many 
suited their needs." The innocence of the result is fairly commensurate 
with the innocence of the intention. Only here and there is there a Ma- 
sefieldian touch that refreshes us, notably in Esther Most of the book 
jogs along in placid semi-prose, and occasionally drowses off into prose 
simple. The volume adds nothing to our knowledge of Masefield unless 
it be to remind us forcibly of the careless good nature of his artistic 
conscience. Nor does it introduce Racine to English readers. The French 
have always held religiously to the sweet, polished Alexandrines of this 
tragedian, whose charm too evidently disappears in foreign vesture. Mr. 
Masefield's English versions but rub and denature the originals. Their 
rhetorical bulk is somewhat reduced, but the courtliness of phrase is 
gone. 



Editorial Note 

Originally pubHshed in The Freeman 5, 526 (1922). 
John Masefield (1878-1967) was an English poet, playwright, and 
novelist; he was Poet Laureate of England for many years. 



Review of Edgar Lcc Masters, 
The Open Sea 

Edgar Lee Masters. The Open Sea. New York: Macniillan. 1921. 

Of the excessive badness ot^ Mr. Masters's new \oluinc of poems there 
can be no doubt. There nia\ be those who will mistake a big programme 
for a great conception, an awkward and breathless awareness of things 
for vitality, and an unleashed rush of words for the How of fire, and 
who, so confounding crude intention with the rapid and exquisite delib- 
erateness of art at work, tlnd it no grotesque thing to speak o^ poetry 
here. One hopes there are not many such readers. 

Mr. Masters never claimed to be nice with his chisel, but the headstones 
of Spoon River were hacked out with an economy and with a ferocit\ that 
fairly entitled them to be classified as a new kind of poetical sculpture. 
Somehow it seemed a healthful and invigorating thing to take a da\ ofT 
for a visit to Mr. Masters's cemetery, sprawl on our bellies, and peer at 
these inscriptions. In the delight of overhearing kitchen gossip combmed 
with the pleasure of watching the anatomist demonstrate on the human 
carcass, we found ourselves entertained and purged. We vagueh remem- 
bered our Aristotle and crowned Mr. Masters poet laureate. 

Mr. Masters had every reason to infer that he had achieved a notable 
volume. He then set about the practicall) ine\itable business i-tf folKnvmg 
up his achievement with a series o\' undistinguished collections, packed 
with all manner of juvenilities, screaming with a rhetoric sadK unhu- 
morous. displaying in ever clearer outlines the spirit o\' a man at iMice 
stridently in revolt and not deeply dissatislled with the Inmlalions o^ 
his soul and of his environment. His incisi\cncss did not desert him a! 
once, but with each \olunie Mr. Masters seemed to be progressisely 
losing himself in a slough, out of earshot o{ the cleaner-cut. alerler 
poetry which is quietly raising its voice in .America. Ihe word ceased to 
interest hnn. the rush of feeling seemed in itself sufllcient warrant for 
what expression il monicnlarily shaped itself into. Meanwhile. Mr Mas- 
ters was forgetting the cruel truth that banality c^Muporls well with the 
red-hottest feeling. Had he had the incredible restraint \o lea\e the 
Spoon River Anlholoi^y without a successor. Mr. Masters would now Ix* 



972 lU Culture 

fresh in our memories, as is the author of the lone Shropshire Lad. As it 
is, the later Masters is almost forcing us to forget our early, spontaneous 
acceptance of his bitter git\. He insists on becoming vieux jeii. 

It is wellnigh a pity to have to quote from The Open Sea, yet such 
harsh criticism as we have ventured needs justification. There is in this 
book sheer, dead ugliness of phrase, as in: 

Tlie Queen and Antony 

Had joined the Inimitable Livers, now they joined 

The Diers together, 

or: 

He's fifty-six. and knows the human breed. 

Sees man as body hiding a canal 

For passing food along, a little brain 

That watches, loves, attends the said canal. [334] 

There are yard-lengths of inferior journalistic prose cut up into line- 
lengths of "blank verse." Let one passage suffice: 

Few years are left in which he may achieve 

His democratic ideas, for he sought 

No gain in power, but chance to do his work, 

Fulfil his genius. Well, he takes the Senate 

And breaks its aristocracy, then frees 

The groaning debtors; reduces the congestion 

Of stifled Italy, founds colonies, 

Helps agriculture, executes the laws. 

Crime skulks before him, luxury he checks. 

The franchise is enlarged, he codifies 

The Roman laws, and founds a money-system; 

Collects a library, and takes a census; 

Reforms the calendar, and thus bestrode 

The world with work accomplished. 

Had not Mr. Masters bethought himself of the hoary privilege of inver- 
sion ("luxury he checks"), we should not have guessed that this was in- 
deed poetry. The lifelessness of many of the lines is appalling; for example: 

I step from my door to a step, and from that right into the street, 
or: 

I'm surprised. 

I know more mathematics than they do, 
And more of everything. I thought an officer 
Was educated. Well, I am surprised. 

And so are we. Mr. Masters is almost too good to be true when he 
waxes indignant. It is downright malice to quote from "A Republic," 
which the author himself, one hopes, regrets having failed to throw into 



Five: Ai'stlu'tics 973 

the wastebaskcl iiniiicdialcl\ aflcr conipt)siln)n (possibly Mr. Masters 
tk)cs lun know ihal ihis is a favorilc pastime uitli nearly all his fcllow- 
pocls). yet it is hard to resist the last two lines: 

A gianlcss grvnMiiL; linger, duller i^t tniiul. 
Her gUmd pituitary being lust. 

And all because the wietched republic voted dry! 

Like Shakespeare, Mr. Masters does not niuice m liie matter of his- 
torical appropriateness. At the Mermaid TaNern they talk of the "work- 
ing class" o[' Caesar's day and do not hesitate to use the psychological 
jargon o'i our time ("reaction"); Marat is referred to as a "nihilist." 
Such anachronisms are due to the carelessness of ignorance or genius. 
Were the literary workmanship of the book not so fantastically below 
all thinkable aesthetic standards, it might have been of some interest to 
consider Mr. Masters's historical themes - the conception o'( Brutus- 
Charlotte Corday-Booth (mistaken tyrannicide) \s. Caesar-Marai-Lin- 
coln (savior of the people) or the modernizations of New Testament 
episodes. But it is useless to discuss the conceptions or philosophy of a 
book which can hardly be said to exist. An unembodied conception is. 
in art, no conception at all. One piece should perhaps be excepted from 
the general condemnation. "Charlotte Corday," while hardl\ a poem, 
is good rhetoric moulded into an excellent dramatic scene. 

The saddest, the most chastening, thought that ihc Open Sea suggests 
is that of the essential rawness and primitiveness of a culture in w hich po- 
etry of this type can be allowed to come to tlower. Mr. Masters himself 
can not bear the entire blame. A decidedl\ "extro\ erted" type of persmial- 
ity, he has not found w ithin his own soul the subtlety of apprehension that 
his cultural environment has so signally failed to encourage. Sp(u>n River 
Anthology showed clearly enough that there is a distincti\c bite to \li 
Masters's spirit. His artistic failure is, to a disconcerting degree, the mea- 
sure of the formlessness and aridity of our .American culture of toda> . Ihis 
is not the whole story, of course, but it has an important share in it. 



Editi^rial Note 

Originally published in I'hc hrcnum 5, 333-334 (1922), under the 
title "Mr. Masters's Later Work." Also published in The Caniulum Hook- 
num. April, 1922, 132, 140, under the title "Spoon River Muddles," 

Edgar Lee Masters (1869- 1950) was an AiiuTican poet, lunelisi. and 
biographer. 



Review of Edgar Lee Masters, 
Children of the Market Place 

Edgar Lee Masters, Children of the Market Place. New York: Macmil- 
lan, 1922. 

[This] is not so much a historical novel as an attempt to be a history 
and novel at one and the same time. The history centers in the personal- 
ity of Stephen Douglas, the great northern Democrat of the decades 
before the Civil War. The rapid development of Illinois, the slavery 
question, the advent of Lincoln, come in for a treatment that is neither 
informative nor distinguished. The novel that elbows its way through 
Mr. Masters' historical lumber is curiously devoid of human interest. 
The characters are as placidly dead as those found in any rural album 
of family photographs, and a number of them are the excuse for a bit 
of harmless philosophizing to boot. The deadness of the book is in 
contrast to its galvanic and not always grammatical style. Closing this 
volume one blinks with incredulity. One remembers the prophets who 
concluded their reviews of Spoon River Anthology with the remarks that 
Mr. Masters had the instinct of portraiture, that he had strayed into 
verse under a slight misunderstanding, and that he ought and probably 
would turn to prose narrative. These prophets were not wholly wrong. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published (unsigned) in The Dial 73, 457 (1922). 



Review ofCjilbert MurraN, 
Tradition and Progress 

Gilbert Murray, Tradition and Progress. Boston: Houghti>n MilTlin. 
1922. 

[This] is a somewhat curiously assorted group of ten essays, all re- 
prints of papers and lectures previously published. The first five of these 
pleasingly written essays deal with some of the larger aspects of classical 
scholarship, the sixth with Literature as Revelation, the remainder of 
the volume consists of thoughts on social and international ethics. The 
translator of Euripides is at his best in the earlier papers. He does suc- 
ceed in setting such topics as the war-satire of Aristophanes, the bitter- 
ness of Euripides, the Stoic philosophy, and the poetic defmitions of 
Aristotle in some relation to our interests of today. The paper on Poesis 
and Mimesis is particularly penetrating in its insistence on the necessity 
of taking due account, in literary criticism, of the formal genius of the 
language in which the artist does his work. Not a great deal is to be 
said of the latter half of the book. Professor Murray oscillates rather 
comfortably between optimism and despair, makes the usual high- 
souled march along the smooth ridge of English liberalism, animad\eris 
feelingly on the elements of wickedness and goodness in contemporary 
politics, and is careful to put in the parentheses needed to prevent a 
charge of excessive radicalism. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published (unsigned) in ///c Dial 7.\ .V^5 ( W22). 



Review of 
Ellen C. Babbitt, More Jataka Tales 

Ellen C. Babbitt, More Jataka Tales. New York: Century, 1922. 

All children, young and old alike, will welcome a second volume of 
Buddhist "birth stories" that has just appeared. There are twenty-one 
short tales in this volume, and they are nearly all about our animal 
cousins - tricky wolves and foolhardy wolves, vainglorious lions, wise 
goats, and friendly elephants, woodpeckers, turtles and deer. We learn 
a great deal about these beasts and about their strategems, disap- 
pointments, and heroisms; and we also learn, by inference, what is gen- 
erally considered more important, something about the mental and 
moral constitution of Man, the most active member of the animal king- 
dom. For a pleasing introduction to the sciences of folk-lore, zoology, 
psychology, and ethics it would be difficult to find a match for this 
slender volume, which contains, moreover, much good-natured, whim- 
sical, and sly-winking drama, a form of entertainment not often found 
in the more formal treatises devoted to natural and historical science. 

It is not easy to say exactly wherein consists the charm of these unpre- 
tentious tales. There are many little stories for children that are simply 
told and well, but I have read few which so unerringly use the right 
words; moreover, they are quite free from that over-simplicity which is 
condescension to the child. Mr. Ellsworth Young, the illustrator, con- 
tributes a good deal to the effect with his spirited and charmingly deco- 
rative charcoal-sketches. I like particularly the picture on page 45, 
which shows how the monkeys passed from one mango tree to another 
over the back of their devoted chief, who had made a bridge of himself 
with the help of his long tail. 

More subtly appealing than the style of the translator or the lines of 
the illustrations, however, is a certain gentleness of spirit that pervades 
the stories themselves. It would be interesting to compare them on this 
score with Grimm's fairy tales and with the fables of Aesop. The folk- 
world of the Grimm stories is "uncensored" to a degree. The delighted 
ego indulges in unheard-of triumphs and tramples on its resistant envi- 



Five: Aesthetics 977 

ronnicnl with cruclls aiul jo\. Ihcrc is a draslic ci>niplclcncss in ihc 
victory c^f Cinderella that aioiiscs inisgi\ings. Has il c\cr been pointed 
out thai her horrid sisters deser\ed at least the pretence of consider- 
ation? Recollecting what an uncomfortable time they had with their 
bleeding feet. I llnd il difficult to forgive the ultra-moralistic birds fi)r 
depri\ing them o\ their jealous eyesight. Grimm's fairy tales have all 
the egoistic ferocity of a day-dreaming child who has just been given 
an undeserved spanking. Aesop is a terribly eiricient schmilmaster, 
squeezing all the life and fancy out o\' the Oriental tales that fell into 
his hands. It is agreeable to remember that this Hellenic grandfather o'i 
our elTiciency-experts and Methodist deacons was only a slave after all. 
It has not yet been satisfactorily explained b\ historians hens his master 
was able to tolerate him. 

The Jataka tales are not so luimaniianan as entirely to rule out a 
primitive wish-fulfilment that mauls the opposing personalitN. nor do 
they hesitate to wave a careless hand at the moral an.xiously awaiting 
round the corner; yet their prevailing tone is civilized, restrained, casual. 
There are not a few passages, and there are even a couple of entire tales, 
that must seem a bit pointless to the strenuous da\-dreamer or upliltei. 
and yet they embody the essential charm of the book as a \\ hole. Pun- 
ishment is meted out. but without vindicti\eness. In "The Bra\e Little 
Bowman," the big man who takes undue credit to himself for his page's 
archery is punished by the exhibition o'i his own cowardice, not by 
having his ears lopped off, as would undoubtedly ha\e happened in 
Grimmland. In short, these ancient Jataka stories retlect the courtei>us. 
humane, and nuanced sentiments of a folk that had long learned the 
art of gentle living. Between their innocent lines there is much food for 
our spirits. 



Editorial Nine 

Originally published in The I'recnhin >. 404 ( U)2:). under the title 
Peep at the Hindu Spirit." 



Review of 
Louis Untermeyer, Heavens 

Louis Untermeyer, Heavens. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922. 

This book is neatly gotten up and has a futuristic cover design and 
frontispiece. The contents consist of first, what purport to be extrava- 
ganzas on the nature of heaven in the respective manners of Chesterton, 
Wells, George Moore, Cabell and Sinclair Lewis, with a prologue and 
four intermissions; second, five "previews" (a "preview" is carefully de- 
fined on the publishers' jacket as "a review of an unwritten book"), the 
last of which parodies seventeen American poets, ranging from Edwin 
Arlington Robinson to Robert W. Service. 

There is an air of good humor and high spirits in this collection of 
parodies and literary chit-chat. But if one is not exactly primed to meet 
Mr. Untermeyer halfway, or a bit more than halfway, he will find that 
the cleverness seems obvious, the allusions too thick-set and insistent, 
and will accumulate weariness as he proceeds. Parody, one fancies, is a 
dangerous art, requiring to be stunningly well done if it is to be done 
at all. Mr. Untermeyer is rather the alertly gesticulating and amused 
cicerone than the irresponsible, sprightly, yet somewhat nonchalant Ar- 
iel that he should be. His unflagging, urban up-to-the-minuteness has 
the flattening effect of an interminable run of electric lights on Broad- 
way, 10 p.m. 

It is impossible to avoid the comparison with Max Beerbohm. The 
Wells, for instance, of Heavens is an industriously assembled pastiche 
of the various items that Mr. Untermeyer had entered in his unwritten 
concordance to the works of his victim. Mr. Wells is cut up but does 
not bleed. In A Christmas Garland Mr. Beerbohm gives Wells a gay run 
for his Hfe and manages to get him. His good humor and grace capture 
the victim just because these qualities are but the last refinement of a 
lust for blood. While Mr. Beerbohm cannot leave himself out of the 
game - for it is, after all, his game - Mr. Untermeyer, keen and volu- 
ble, does not succeed in getting himself into it. 



Five: Aesthetics 

Edilurial Nolc 



979 



Origmallv published in The Sew Rcpuhlic 30, 351 (1^^::). 
Louis I'lilcinicvcr (1SS> \^)11 ) was an American poel. edilor. and 
anthoK>eisl. 



Review of 
Edward Thomas, Collected Poems 

Edward Thomas, Collected Poems. New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1921. 

There are many sweet bits to reward the reader of Edward Thomas's 
poems, but in all justice it cannot be denied that this volume of his 
collected work is somewhat of a disappointment. It is not so much that 
his range of expression is limited, that he exercises too severe a restraint, 
or that he is content to treasure moments of too evanescent a substance. 
These shortcomings are no less virtues than defects. But Thomas's 
limitations of theme and form seem to result from the abandonment 
rather than the mastery of experience. It is a deep sense of futility, even 
fear, that leads him to toy with the sweet names of things; to hold on 
to the dear, safe memories of a past whose grief has lost its passion. It 
is as though the poet had not carved a tiny and precious demesne for 
himself out of the vast jungle of life, but had been shouldered out to its 
confines and was satisfied perforce to hug to his heart the minimum of 
things. 

The technique of these poems requires a word. It is said that Thomas 
was much infiuenced by our own Frost, and in a rather loose way the 
resemblances between the two poets are obvious. But whereas Frost's 
drabness has a dry compactness that just prevents his verse from being 
as dull as it ought to be, Thomas's more slender talent and more refined 
sensibility need a less leisurely and prosaic diction than he chose to use. 
The stubborn rhythms too frequently lack poignancy, and his studied 
simplicity of phrase runs more often to flatness than to the naive and 
unpretentious grace that the poet strove to capture. What Thomas 
might have done if he had looked more sharply to his syllables we may 
only surmise from an occasionally beautiful stanza. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The New Republic 32, 226 (1922). 
Edward Thomas (1878-1917) was an Enghsh poet, critic, and essay- 
ist. 



Review of Arthur Davison Ficke, 
Mr. Faust 

Arthur Davison Ficke, Mr. Fiiust. New York: Frank Shay. 1922. 

Mr. Faust is a four-acl pla> ihal was pioduccd al ihc Fro\inccloun 
Players theater. New York, early in 1922. Mr. Faust himself symbolizes 
the philosophic spirit of man, aloof, disillusioned, but not c\nical. His 
two friends, Brander and Oldham, stand respectively for romantic ac- 
ceptance and escape from reality. Satan has lost his horns and other 
picturesque attachments; his mission is to throw alluring negations in 
the path of man, sensual delight and the quest of power for the coarser- 
grained, self-obliterating Nirvanas and Christian humilities for aspiring 
souls. There is uncertainly in the workmanship o[^ this play. The blank 
verse lacks flow, the diction seems to hesitate between the colloquial 
and the "poetic," and the action has not the realit\ that is pmscrlul 
enough to attract us to a symbolic interpretation. Mr I'uu.st is very 
much the kind o\^ play we should expect from an averagely good lyric 
poet. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published (unsigned) in The Dial 73. 2.^.> (1922). 



Review of George Saintsbury, 
A Letter Book 

George Saintsbury, A Letter Book, selected with an Introduction on 
the History and Art of Letter-Writing. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922. 

A tithe of Mr. Saintsbury's acquaintance with the byways of Hterature 
would caparison a normal knight of today's reading world for the high- 
ways. Mr. Saintsbury has the gayest freedom of both road-systems, in- 
cluding all connecting lines. He both delights and affrights us by the 
devouring gusto of his reUshes in letters. The long Introduction is full 
of bantering erudition and has as pleasing irrelevances as are needed to 
introduce a casual kind of anthology. The book itself, an "appendix" 
to the introduction, begins with a proper sprinkling of classical letters 
and picks its way, not too systematically and with good editorial tips, 
through the imposing volumes of EngHsh "epistolers," to use Mr. 
Saintsbury's word, from the dim Pastons down to Robert Louis Steven- 
son. To presume to say whether the precisely right choice is here offered 
is to pretend to an encyclopaedic vision such as not even a reviewer can 
possibly possess. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published (unsigned) in The Dial 73, 235 (1922). 
George Saintsbury (1845-1933) was an EngHsh critic, journalist, and 
educator. 



Review oi^ Sclma Lagerlof, 
The Outcast 

Selma Lagcrlof, The Outcast. Translated by W. Worsler. New York: 
Doubleday, Page, 1922. 

The Oiitccist is another example of the somewhat disjointed, episodic 
no\el which is so peculiar lo the genius o'i this Swedish slor\ -teller. 
There are passages in it which recall the homely strength and smiplicity 
of the old Icelandic sagas. Its atmosphere, as in so much o^ Selma 
Lagerlo fs work, is a curious blend of the archaic mood o{' the folk and 
the soil and the all-suffering, all-forgiving Christ idea. The characters, 
though they speak with a Swedish accent, are members of an elemental 
and timeless commonwealth; their bodies are but \essels for de\ouring 
ideas and feelings, they move towards the borderland oi insanity. The 
Outcast lacks the firmness o^ Jerusalem and sutlers, possibly, from a not 
completely convincing germinal idea. It is doubtful if the cannibalism o^ 
the hero and his Arctic companions, under the direst extremes of hunger 
and delirium, can be rightly assumed to evoke quite the passion o^ 
loathing which Miss Lagerlo f demands. There is an unfortunate strain 
here; too much is made of our instincts. Nor was it necessar> to dis- 
prove the charge, so far as the hero was concerned, at a sentimental 
last moment. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published (unsigned) in Ihc Duil 1}, }>A (1922). 

Selma Lagerlo f ( 1858- 1940), a Swedish no\elist, was awarded the 
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909. and was ihc In si woman member o\ 
the Swedish Academy. 



Review of Edwin Bjorkman, 
77?^ Soul of a Child 

Edwin Bjorkman, The Soul of a Child. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 
1922. 

It is not unlikely that the first three decades of the twentieth century 
will come to be remembered as the period of the gradual lifting of sex 
taboos in writing, in open discussion, in conversation, in the privacy of 
one's thoughts - for who can doubt that the most tyrannous "verhoten" 
of all is that which is issued, with the unconscious cunning and hypoc- 
risy of silence, by the ego to its lone, bewildered self? We are in the 
exciting thick of this lifting of the taboo, hardly more, it may be, than 
a feverishly self-conscious return to a lost freedom. It is not strange, 
therefore, that we tend to shift the emphasis from the uses to which our 
new-found defiance may lead us to the fact of defiance itself. We toler- 
ate on the wave of our release much rubbishy flotsam and jetsam of the 
sexual genus, seeing rather to what outlines the wave than to what the 
wave carries. Later on, when the facts of sex, normal and abnormal, 
will have been calmly accepted as the mere facts that they are and the 
mention of sexual activities, performed or desired, will, as activities, no 
more make a piece of literature than an apple tree, as apple tree, makes 
a beautiful landscape, it will be possible to forget about the discovery 
of sex and to look to the added range and power that may have come 
to literature in the process of discovery. A literary artist can hardly have 
the entree to too many sorts of really existing human fancies and human 
relations. Meanwhile, whatever helps along the growing sexual honesty 
should be welcome. 

Mr. Edwin Bjorkman's first novel, if novel it may be truly called, is 
such an honest book. Not that it revels in sexuality or even that it 
devotes a great part of its volume to sexual matters. The important 
point is that it does not dodge either the existence or the significance of 
sexual curiosity and sexual desire in the years of innocence which pre- 
cede full-blown adolescence. Vague and mysterious stirrings trouble 
young Keith from time to time, "bad boys" give him a snickering half 



Five: Aesthetics 985 

knowledge oi" things which lie feels are somehow waiting for discovery. 
he experiences a tentatue satisfaction in the blind alley of autocroti- 
cism. All this comes in for no more than casual and malter-of-facl treat- 
ment; sex is here neither a ri>manlic island in a sea o\ drabness nor a 
carefully tucked a\\a\ zero. And this is as it should be. It is agreeable 
to fmd a reporter of childhood who is doubly honest, being neither 
discreetly silent nor clamorous and hectic. Only a fren/ied prude ct>uld 
lift up his \oice against Mr. Bjorkman. only such spotless deni/ens o\ 
Eden as keep "gentlemen cows" in their menageries. Less immaculate 
mortals will llnd his pages perfectly cool and white and rather more 
honest than the records of Tom Sawyer and [79] Huck F'inn. Such a 
book as The Soul of a Child does indeed light up the artificiality of 
Mark Twain's conception of roughneck boyhood, that blissful state of 
desperate and lovable wickedness flowering out of a snow-cmered soi\ 
of innocence. 

Far be it from me to deny the uses o\^ Iluckleherry Finn, delectable 
and romantic. But if the truth, too. has its \alue - and we seem tc^ be 
minded these days to know something of it there can be no ciuesiion 
that Mr. Bjorkman has more of it to give us than our humorist. His 
book is hardly a "novel." despite the publisher's quite legitimate at- 
tempt to persuade us that it is. It is a sober, categorical narrati\e of a 
poor boy's life, inner and outer, in the not very colorful Stockholm o\' 
Mr. Bjorkman's memory. It is just because the author has refrained 
from composing his incidents and characters into a story, has set down 
his little irrelevances as they occur to him in retrospect, and has refused 
to mould his Keith to a preconceived type that we trust him implicitly. 
We know that what he has to tell us is true. There is nothing strange, 
nothing unexpected in his narrative, but there is plenty of that stubborn 
individuality of the real that we all harbor in our recollections and that 
no no\elist has ever succeeded in iinenting out o\' whole cloth. How 
grandma sla\s in the kitchen with apologetic pride, how a well-to-do 
playmate fraternizes and snubs at one and the same time, hovs a se\ere 
and virtuous aunt lets out ad\ice. such mcidents Mr. Bjorkman tells 
clearly and simply. They have \alue for us. as disconnected and unexcit- 
ing pictures out oi' our childhiH>d ha\e never ceased to seem worth 
holding on to. 

Keith's childhood is typical o\' a certain si\le of boy He is an onl> 
son, sensitive and impressionable. His mother attaches him firmls to 
herself, far more compellingly than is giving to be gocxi for him. Psycho- 
analysts see a "molher Hxation" forming which is destined to hold him 



986 III Culture 

for many troublous years. Thrown back largely on himself, for his fa- 
ther comes home tired and moody, the boys downstairs are not nice, 
and home is too cramped to make guests other than a nuisance, Keith 
develops into a quiet, timid and introspective child. He tends to hero- 
worship, to lone friendships. A growing sense of his parents' poverty 
and social inferiority create a mingled self-contempt and resentment in 
his soul which will one day find shape and compensation in a radical 
faith. The love of beautiful things lies dormant in him, there is little or 
nothing to stimulate it into expression. Petty virtues and meaningless 
faiths are all about to strangle him. Between his father and himself there 
is an abyss of silence, a growing misunderstanding which expresses itself 
too sparsely to come to a head; the mother is both too clinging and too 
imperious in her love to be of intelligent assistance. Books are his ref- 
uge, knowledge his ideal. Keith is rapidly becoming an "introverted" 
personality and though, at the end of the book, he revolts against the 
compulsions of school life and seeks independence in an office, it is a 
fair guess that he will need greater luck or a more kindly and under- 
standing sympathy to weather the coming storms than the average boy 
can count on. 

There is nothing lugubrious or clinical about The Soul of a Child. The 
shadows, present and threatening, are offset by many cheerful episodes. 
There is [80] Christmas, with endless gifts and lots and lots to eat, and 
there are pleasant vacations in the country. But as one lays down the 
book, he asks, with a Hngering wistfulness, "Is childhood really so 
happy as we would have it?" and finds it strangely difficult to peer into 
the mist that hangs through the life of emotion of our early years. As 
the child looks forward to the time when he will be grown up and free, 
so we, one suspects, have created for ourselves the myth of childish 
irresponsibility and freedom. The child and the aduh escape into the 
dream of the other's far distant happiness. Certainly Keith, as he is 
presented to us in this book, was not what we should gladly call 
"happy," but perhaps it takes the retrospective analysis of as keen and 
retentive a mind as Mr. Bjorkman's to prove how far from happy he 
was and to imply how happy he might have been. Such books as The 
Soul of a Child do more to create sympathy for the very real sufferings 
of childhood than any amount of psychological research and theory. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in The Double Dealer 5, 78-80 (1923). 



Review of A. E. Housniaii. 
Last Poems 

A. E. Housman, Last Poems. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1^)22 

Laying down iliis liule volume, as bitter as it is uistlul and as gentle 
and strong to break futile things as a man's strength on a twig, one 
muses back to its predecessor of nearly thirty years ago. How A Shnt/y- 
shire Laii sang out honestly from gallows' heights, how it gave sadness 
and the beauty of the countryside a new hardness, and how, beside its 
clear, silver, inexorable voice all the organ music of the aesthetes quickly 
hushed into dead velvet - all this we remember. Last Poems speaks 
with a slightly new accent, while telling of the same spiritual country. 
The former volume drew exact lines on the land and noted carefulls the 
passionate steps of puppets, each on his given line, each to his useless 
point. In Last Poems there is less drama, less interested amusement in 
the process, a more explicit concern with the journey's end. Where i 
Shropshire Lad wds athletically grim and waved its pessimistic formula 
with a blitheness that was not all mockery, the later poems rellect and 
mutter and sigh. Tis the same tale, but there's a dilTerent telling on'l. 
And so, while our memory of the more significant book is as of a clear 
view in the cool, green morning, we come out of its successor's pages 
with eyes half-closed and with a dreaminess of sunset. 

The contrast finds illustration within the covers of the book itself, for 
some of it is pure Shropshire Lad, notably "Eight O'clock": 

He stood, and heard the steeple 
Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town. 
One, two, three, four, to market-place and pci^ple 
It tossed them down. 

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour. 

He stood and counted them and cursed his luck: 

And then the clock collected in the tower 

Its strength, and struck. 

This is as tart and unwinking as you will, with all o\ its philosi^plu 
carefully held down in the implications. There are no remarks, there is 
no squeal. Its futility is not a meditated thing, rather fates iniix-rlinencc 



988 /// Culture 

till list \\\\o ihc impatience and the lust of life, for of the hours we are 
told that he "counted them and cursed his luck." They are still worth 
the counting. Futility has not yet sunk into the heart of man. Elsewhere 
we are told: 

Could man he drunk forever 

Wiih liquor, love, or fights. 

Lief should I rouse at morning 

And lief lie down of nights. 

But men at whiles are sober 

And think by fits and starts, 

And if they think, they fasten 

Their hands upon their hearts. 

Explicit futility, a nicely cherished disgust that the poet has made over 
into a pessimism too sweet to smart. Such poems as this make of A 
Shropshire Lad a sort of protesting hillock on the smooth, verdant plain 
of Victorian-Georgian paisa. The "continuous excitement" of 1895 that 
Mr. Housman speaks of in his preface had lifted him safely above the 
plain. He walks the plain now, not in the dead-earnest fashion of a real 
Victorian-Georgian, to be sure, rather with a foreign grace, with a re- 
serve which somehow fails to realize the company he is in. We even find 
stratified poems, poems in which an honest workmanship of any per- 
fectly honest squire ("Oh, to the bed oi: ocean. To Africk and to Ind") 
supports (or undermines) another layer ("And the dead call the dying 
And finger at the doors"). 

A Shropshire Lad had in much of its imagery something cold, sharp, 
precipitated, something of the momentaneous power that we attribute 
to an unexpected rustle in dead leaves. There is less of this quality in 
Last Poems, but it is present. The first poem is full of it: 

The sun is down and drinks away 
From air and land the lees of day, [190] 

The long cloud and the single pine 
Sentinel the ending line, 

Oh lad, I fear that yon's the sea 
Where they fished for you and me. 

These strangenesses are not awkward, not sought. They have more sud- 
denness than ingenuity; they suggest omens, possibly, rather than pic- 
tures. Even the slightly euphuistic passages ring true, such as: 

And let not yet the swimmer leave 
His clothes upon the sands of eve. 

It is ungracious and pedagogical to contrast, to mark off epochs. Yet 
a brief glance at our current exasperation, the better to fix Mr. Hous- 



Fixe: Aesthetics 989 

man lor our cn\\, a cordial good-bye lo what is in> longer slriclly ours. 
and a \ain c|iicslion \mII not he ihoughl loo heavy a load of analysis. 
For, ha\ing laid down the Last Poc/ns and nuised ol the lad. we find 
ourselves autoniatieally closing the little book and the manner of its 
closing is a symbol not curtly, with a businesslike inditlerence. nor 
too lingeringly. with man\ browsings back and forth between the reluc- 
tantly closing covers, but sKnvly and decisi\el>. We should like to feel 
ourselves more excitedly in the midst o( Mr. Housman's wi>rk. but it 
will not go. A truth that we nearly hate whispers to us that there is no 
use pretending, that these lines lilt loo doggedly and too s\seetl\ [o tall 
in quite with our more exigent, half-undiscovered harmonies, that many 
o\' the magic turns catch us cruelly absent-minded. And. most disap- 
pointing of all. for we are a little disappointed, and vexed at being so, 
we cannot seem lo pool Mr. Housman's pessimism with ouv own. We 
seem to feel thai ouv zero does not equate with his. that each has a 
diflerent mathematical "sense" or tendency. 

We discover, as we prove into our puzzling discord, thai we already 
love the Shropshire lad as we love our Coleridge and our Blake and 
begin to di\ine thai we were a little hasty in dating our modern drift 
from Mr. Housman's first volume. Its Hare and its protest were a psy- 
chological, a temperamental phenomenon, not a strictly cultural one. 
Its disillusionment was rooted in personality, [I'-.^l] not largely in a sens- 
ing of the proximate age. Hence while Mr. Housman seems lo anticipate 
and now to join with us in our despair, he is serene and bitter where 
we are bitter and distraught. His cultural world was an accepted one, 
though he chose to deny its conscious values; our own perturbations, 
could they penetrate into the marrow of his bone, would uoi find him 
a sympathetic sufferer. In the larger perspective his best work is seen 
to be a highly personal culmination point in a p^^etic tradition that is 
thoroughly alien to us of today, and nothing demonstrates this more 
forcibly than the apparent backwash in some of the Iai.m Poems lliere 
is no backwash in spirit or in sl\lc. there is simply the lessened intensiiv 
that allows general, underlying cultural traits to emerge. His zero and 
our zero do not equate for the reason that his is personal where ours is 
cultural. 

I'inally. the \ain question. Such work as \1i Ihuisman's. admirably 
simple and clear, classical, as it is, once more rai.ses the doubt as lo 
whether we can truly be said to be expressing ourselves until our moods 
become less frenetic, our ideas less palpable and self-ci>nscious. and. 
above all. our forms less hesitant. Our eccenlricilies have much interest 



990 tit Culture 

and diagnostic \aluc to ourselves, but should it not be possible to cabin 
their power in forms that are at once more gracious and less discussible? 
One wonders whether there is not in store for English poetry some 
tremendous simplification. One prays for a Heine who may give us all 
our mordancies, all our harmonies, and our stirrings of new Hfe with 
simpler and subtler apparatus. There is room for a new Shropshire Lad. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Dial 75, 188-191 (1923) under the title 
"Mr. Housman's Last Poems." 

A(lfred). E(dward). Housman (1859-1936) was an English poet and 
scholar. 



Twelve Novelists in Search of a Reason 

A Son of Review 

The \'(>vel of loniorrow unci (he Seope of Fielion. b\ lucKc American 
Novelists. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1922. 

i Enter Editors of thh Niw Ripubi ic. They proefaim tlmm\ih a ^reat. 
flaring niei^apfione whieh hides their individual faees l.Oyc/., oyez, oyc/! 
Be it known that we do hereby exile into the Great American [X^sert 
all tritlers and tellers of idle tales. And in especial ha\e \se singled out 
for our early displeasure a round dozen of this folk, so they may find 
them and their kind a dwelling in the desert. But if they come to us 
bearing a fit reason for this their habit of speaking \ain words, then 
may we relent and reassign them, for their sole use. sundry garrets m 
our beloved city of New York. {Exeunt Editors.) 

(Enter, dolefully and in alphabetical order. S.wu 1 1 Hoi'kins Adams. 
Mary Austin. Jamls Branch Cabill. Floyd Di i.i . Wai do Frank. 
Zona Gale, Joseph Hergesheimer. Robert Herric k. Harm y O'Mk;- 
GiNS, Henry Kitchell Webster. William Allen Wiiiii <///</ I diim 
Franklin Wyatt.) 

Cabell: So this is the Prairie! - Bui where is the Gopher"' 

White: Under the Prairie. 

Cabell: And where is Queen Pollyanna? They told me of her m m\ 
dreams. 

White: Under the Gopher. Lowest, but peifectK legilnnate, level. 
Subterranean Marshmallow. one might say but Fm not a highbrow 
(Eyes Eran/< provoeative/y. Franl\ seems not to luive heard: meditates.) 

Cabi:ll: And where is Main Street'.' 

HiRCiiSHiiMiR: Every pebble on this prairie has a Mam Street run- 
ning right through it. Every Main Street bisects the universe mlo two 
useless halves. 

Wi;bsti:r (a little impatiently): Well, friends, our topography is a bit 
mystical. Where shall we sit down and have it out' Or rather let us sil 
down anywhere and begin at once. One chunk o^ reality is as real as 
another, one acre of prairie as comfortable as anoihei I suggest 



992 IJf Culture 

Miss Wyatt (interrupts quickly): Oh dear no! We must have [192] 
preferences. Can not some one annihilate this prairie and bring us to 
the sun-Ht spaces? (Looks sweetly at Zona Gale.) 

(Zona Galf whistles long and musically. Pegasus comes sailing down. 
Halts before the novelists, who all believe they should have been poets. 
Instinctively they clamber on his back, but before they have disposed them- 
selves securely, they are being whisked through space in improvised citti- 
tude.Zo>iA Galf: hugs the horse's neck, Frank stands on his back in mag- 
isterial unconcern. White clitjgs one-handed to his tail; others ad libitum 
lectoris. They are landed softly on a cloud; Pegasus disappears. ) 

Cabell: Another alcove. One should be able to talk beautifully here, 
if not convincingly. There are no listeners. 

Dell (with the excitement of a new discovery): And off yonder ob- 
serve the Prairie, how it shimmers in softest gold! We do not know 
what is really there, but nothing hinders our turning it all into the most 
beautiful and intelligible of fairy tales. The millions of Main Streets now 
weave themselves into a close tapestry . . . 

Frank: Of which the pattern is ourselves, our creative fantasy; not 
the miserable truth of the warp and woof - what is reahsm anyway? - 
but the creative truth in the artist's eye and in his heart. 

White cmd Webster (sotto voce): Tut, tut! 

Adams: Anyway, I am glad I've come. There is here not a whiff of 
the malodorous Society for the Prevention of the Perpetration of Vice 
in Literature. I die happy. (Having no taste for argument, he sinks into 
a peaceful slumber ) 

Herrick: And there at last is America, the Prairie, looking up to us 
with mute and pathetic appeal. Too long have the Gopherites and sub- 
Gopherites doped themselves, between whiles, with that treacly ro- 
mance which is better known as slush. They are now in a fit mood . . . 

White: If slush is what the gopher wants, give him slush, say I. Goph- 
ers are not fond of Paris green. What's the use of highbrow-beating 
them into it? 

Herrick (pays no attention): They are not in a fit mood to be rightly 
diagnosed, to be properly done. 

Hergesheimer: High time too! they've done us long enough. I could 
tell you royalty tales that would make your hair stand on end. 

Three Ladies: Oh Mr. Hergesheimer! We are on a fleecy cloud. This 
is no place for puns. Royalties are an impertinence here! 

(Seven other waking Gentlemen have a far-away, dreamy, noble look.) 

Hergesheimer (mutters savagely) : Hypocrites! 



Five: Aesthetics 993 

Hhrrick: To be piopcils done, li is \crv possible thai the cmoiional 
soil o\' the Prairie is too thin lor business. In that case we shall have lo 
wait - a little longer. Rome was not built in a day nt)r can the (19.^j 
Great American Novel e.xpect to be born when its parents ha\e scarccK 
met. In any event, it is not mainly a question ot" craftsmanship. Wc arc 
all. I lake it. perfectly competent craftsmen - if The New Republic 
doesn't know what's what, who does? - perfectly competent. But one 
must be more than competent. One must happen to be living at the 
right time and in the right place. Give the F^rairie time and it will become 
a greater, heavier, profounder Prairie. Give the gophers time and they 
will become subtler, more interesting psychologically and more inter- 
ested in psychology - in a word, more like Russian gophers, or what- 
ever name they are known by out there. Then and onl\ then can one ^^^ 
us or all o\^ us hope to write something that won't look silly when put 
on the shelf alongside of 'The Idiot." Then and then only can an Ameri- 
can novel have a reasonable chance of being fa\cnirabl\ re\ie\sed in The 
Dial. 

Whith: Why The Dial? The Saturday Evening Post is good enough 
for me. 

Cabhll: But why can't we simply pretend the gopher is all he might 
be, all we wish him to be, all he might ha\e been, and pay no further 
attention to him? It seems to me the proper method is simple enough. 
We retire into the privacy of a comtbrtable and ine\pensi\e alco\e. close 
our eyes, forget the Prairie and its overrated inhabitants, and systemati- 
cally and ingeniously dream of a land of our own devising, till the CJreat 
Reaper, finding us blissfully absent-minded, makes short work o\ us. 

Mary Austin: Your frivolity, Mr. Cabell, is shocking. Our task is a 
serious one. oi", if yours isn't, mine is. ^'ou are apparentK one of these 
newly named, if not newly invented, what \ou mas call "ems' looks 
appcaliiii^ly a I Floyd Di:ll.) 

Di;ll: Introverts. 

Cabkll: And why not'.' Wh\ lun leave me to mv centaurs and harm- 
less contraptions of one kind and another".' I hough I suppv>se that even 
so harmless a thing as a staff must be psvclu>analv/ed and called a 
spade! 

Dhll: Absolutely! Only a slatT is never a spade in psychoanalysis. 

O'HiGGiNs: And is it psychoanalysis ye're talking about'.' I'm with 
you. Do you know, 1 consider it absolutely useless to talk of the \ovm. 
the scope, and the every other abstract noun that can be put m front o\ 
the novel, while under our cui-and-dned thinking is a vagabond o\ a 



994 Jll Culture 

dreamer who knows too much about reahty to be taken in by it. Every 
time you go to sleep you have a new dream and wake up with a new 
reality - or an old headache. So what's the use of talking? 

Cabell: O'Higgins, I think we might develop a mutually satisfactory 
philosophy. We seem to have been born under the same sign. 

Mary Austin: The trouble with most of you gentlemen is that you'd 
rather be thought mistaken but clever or original or paradoxical or 
[194] something else that is equally useless than mistaken though 
honest. What we need is not dream psychology but sociology, or rather 
social psychology. We need a more intimate contact with the collective 
mind. We must feel the rhythms of the group vibrating sympathetically 
with our own, we must learn to be at home in all the shifting back- 
grounds of the Prairie. Above all, we must think less consciously of art 
and style and words and more of the life that we seek to understand 
and interpret. Never mind form just yet. It cannot be perfected until 
the life about us is molded into an organic unity. A prematurely ripened 
form will bear as little relation to the unformed life it undertakes to 
report as a grand piano misplaced on a haystack bears to the farm 
population. 

Herrick: Though I do think, Mrs. Austin, that outward realism is 
far less important than inner truth. 

Zona Gale: Oh thank you, Mr. Herrick, I'm sure there is an indepen- 
dent spiritual world that it is the duty of each and every one of us to 
look for. Esoteric beauty is the only beauty that really matters. The 
glitter of the external should be contemplated only by the short-story 
writers of the magazines, it seems to me. What a pity that while we 
have all worked hard to make of the old fatty novel a bare and powerful 
instrument, ready for the subtlest of revelations, we have not yet done 
much more than skirmish about in preliminary jousts and canters! We 
seem to be confounding the husk of reality with its mystic kernel. Right 
in our commonplace midst is an all but undreamt of world of remoter, 
spiritual beauty. It is useless to write novels as long as "Pamela" or 
Wells' "Outline of History" unless they are borne aloft on the wings of 
that understanding which is synonymous with the quest of beauty. 

Miss Wyatt: And you. Zona, have shown us how to go about the 
quest. What unexpected beauty leaps out of the simplest and most com- 
monplace scenes in your tales! And it does seem to me that we dream 
our novels not to escape from life but to realize life. We dream true, 
getting some hint within the covers of a book of all those multitudinous 
forms of life that are so sadly denied us in reality. In the novel we meet 



Five: Aesthetics 995 

nian> delightful people that \se coukl iidI alTord Id be seen with. K>r 
my pari. I am more al home with your disreputable aequainlanccs, Mr. 
Hergesheimer, than with my relati\es o{ Hesh and blood. Zona dear, 
the day is lovely. Let us look for the little blue (lowers that the (icrman 
idealistie poets used to talk about before 1870. This is a likely plaee for 
them. {To the rcs{):Vsfc shan't he long, i i'.xcum /onu (mlc ami Miw 
Wyatt. ) 

Wurn:: Say, I hope this isn't going to deselop mto a stag party. 

Hi RCii SHiiMi r: And all the while there is no blinking the faet that 
people don't read our great novels - even the super-( jopherites don't. 
Who's going to read "Rahab" when it's so much easier to buy the New 
Republic and glance at the literary editor's review o\' it'.' Time's too 
[195] \aluable and, besides, society has no place for literature. Literature 
today is merely a genteel echo which is useful to soften the grmi silence 
of efficiency. It should be heard o\\ not heard. .And how long l\o you 
suppose society will condescend to hear of it? Do 1 catch someone re- 
marking that only beauty is more durable than time'.' True, but who or 
what wants to endure these days'.' 

White: You're an incurable pessimist. 

HtiRGESHEiMER (pwucUy): Of course I am. Who but an incurable sap- 
head is not'.' 

White: Easy now, easy. The tact is you're complaining o{ not getting 
lowbrow royalties on highbrow stuff You can't have your cake and eat 
it, man. If you and Frank and the rest of you insist on pur\ eying for 
the half dozen freaks that live on toadstools and ca\iar. why rail at the 
regular, roast-beef fellows for not shelling out'.' And w hy get red in the 
face when the marshmallow hordes, the bulk and possibly the pride o\' 
our citizenry, imagine Mr. Hergesheimer's "Java Head" is a neu plug 
tobacco'.' Take it from me: there are three levels. F:ach Ie\el has its con- 
sumers, who care not a rap for what is served upstairs or dinsnsiairs 
And posterity doesn't give a whoop for an\ o\' us. 

Frank: Speak tor yourself, sir! It is not the business o\ the artist !o 
wheedle Tom or coddle Dick or slap Harry on the back. Nor is it his 
business to record or interpret this somewhat accidental thing called 
life. Still less can he condescend to dream it a\\a\. He neither chronicles 
nor forgets. He creates. He creates lilc. He gi\es meaning and value !o 
what without his ministrations is but a protoplasmic jelly. And if the 
people o\' that incredible Prairie out there do not realize this, di'* not 
recognize in the artist their saviour and their ^o<\, it is the> \Uio \m1I be 
the losers. Society cannot long endure on the crumbs o{ the past It 



996 lit Culture 

does not know its own yearning, it needs the artist's creative expression 
of its unrest, which is his own. For creation is but the objectifying of 
impulses that clamor for a voice, for birth. 

WhBSii;R: This, I presume, is the accoucheuse theory of the novel. For 
my part, I like to think of the poor reader. I like even to flirt with the 
heresy that the novel exists only in its readers. The novelist must have 
some onlooking intelligence in mind - at the very least the onlooking 
intelligence which is the part of himself that is not writing the book. 

Dfxl: You advocate dissociation of the personality? 

Webster: Never mind ideas, is what I say. Let universality and all 
that kind of hocus pocus severely alone. Just give the reader your ex- 
perience as you have honestly experienced it and as he sees it, for the 
two are not as distinguishable as the professors of the unconscious have 
it. Do not look away from the concrete facts of experience. Do not ask 
yourself, "Is that experience drab or is it colorful?" If you cannot find 
your subject in it, you have nothing to write about, for you will not 
interest your reader in what you cannot give chapter and verse for. [196] 

Cabell: Would you object to an occasional centaur? 

Dell: Anyhow, this experience that Webster speaks of is not the self- 
evident, tangible, recognizable thing that he fondly imagines it to be. 
We never know what it is that impinges on our selective, evaluating 
consciousness until we have assimilated the normative feeling of the 
past - in other words, until we have learned the fairy tales of our 
ancestors. Sooner or later experience gives the lie to our stock of fairy 
tales. It is up to us to supply new and ever new bits of folklore, so that 
the chasm between life and our understanding of hfe may not so widen 
as to imperil our sanity and comfort. 

Frank: Life grows with what our mythopoeic intuitions bring to it. 

Cabell: And the more you live the more you have to lie to get out 
of it. 

(Zona Gale and Miss Wyatt come rushing in, breathless.) 

Zona Gale: There is not a moment to lose! He's coming. 

Adams (suddenly awakening) : Is it the Vice Crusade? 
Enter Pegasus (bowing to the company): Ladies and gentlemen, I 
am afraid I have made a grave mistake, for which, I fear, the historian 
of American literature will take me to task. When I heard the whistling 
call down below, I thought it was the American Poetic Renaissance 
asking for a free ride and a change of scene. Since then I have learned 
- it would not be courteous to explain how or where - that you are a 
perfectly respectable gathering. I humbly apologize. Will you kindly 



Five Ai'.\ihciic.\ 997 

take your scats in alphahctical order.' ilwy do .so.) I shall be more 
cardiil this linic. //( s<//7.v i/own s/owlv, witlumi nuiking (iLsconccriing or 
(li.sa)/)U)i()i/lni^ niovcnicnts of Uny kind. He lands the mncli.si.s on the Prai- 
rie, riiey di.snionnl. whereupon /\'\;u.sii.s .sails off to headc/uarters in Chua- 
go. ) 

Enter F.diioks oi i m-; Ni;w Ri im \\\ u iis before. ( Thnnigh their mega- 
phone): Wc have heard you coming. What lidiiigs. pray, do you bring 
us from the Desert? 

Twii \i Novi-I.ISTS i all at onee. Iiaeh i^ive.s his own report In the en.su- 
///.Lf hahel one ean hut faintly disliniiuish a Jen eatehwords. siuh a.s "high- 
brow." "lowbrow." "truth." "lies." "ereative." "psyehoanalytie" 

T\\\ Editors tin despair, throwing away their megaphone ' . Nc\ci 
mind. What's the use o( bluning'.' We have found, since you left us and 
the home folks have been limited for Sunday diversion to our editorials 
and book-reviews, that the less innocent forms o\' \ ice ha\e multiplied 
appallingly. Come. then, and may the Lord prosper you in your tr.ide. 
f The .\ovelists and Editors enter the eity. not neees.sarily in alpluibeti- 
cal order arm in arm amid the plaudits of the multitude. I 

Cabell (murmurs to himself): And ihc move \ou li\e the nu>re \ou 
have to lie to ^et out o( it. 



Editorial Note 
Originally published in The Stratford Monthly n.s. 1. \')\ \')h ( \')Z-\) 



Review of 
H. D., Collected Poems 

Collected Poems of H. D. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1925. 

Seldom does a volume of collected poems present so even, so un- 
changing a texture as this. The consistency of form is remarkable, and 
it is a form which is neither more nor less convincing in the latest pieces 
than it was in Sea Garden, which manifested a swift and perfect control 
of free verse such as perhaps no other American poet - or English 
poet, for that matter - has attained. There is no rhythmic fumbling in 
H. D.'s work. Monotony there is, but it is the necessary and excellent 
monotony of waves that tell always the same story and yet never the 
same. In some of the later poems there is rhyme, even regular stanzaic 
pattern, as in the beautiful "Lethe." These incidental concessions to, or 
echoes of, the tradition neither contradict nor perfect the prevailing line 
of the verse. The occasional rhymes are but faint fire-fly illuminations 
of a form which is already sufficiently well defined as movement, of a 
delicately modulated speed which is always a little brusque yet always 
flowing. The clipped, eager cadences of such poems out of Sea Garden 
as "The Helmsman": 

But now, our boat climbs - hesitates - drops - 

climbs - hesitates - crawls back — 

climbs - hesitates - 

O be swift - 

we have always known you wanted us. 

or "The Shrine": 

You are useless, 

O grave, O beautiful, 

the landsmen tell it - I have heard - 

you are useless, 

are the same, psychologically if not prosodically, as the exquisitely high- 
whimsical dance of, say, "Holy Satyr," which belongs to the latest vol- 
ume, the Heliodora set: 



Five: Aesthetics 999 

Most holy Sat\i", 

like a jzoat. 

with hi>rns and homes 

to match tin coal [212] 

of russet brown, 

I niake leaf-circlets 

and a crown o\ honev-llowers 

for th\ thrcvtt. 

There it was the full rush and impact of the wave - breaker and spra\. 
here it is the same wave on the recoil, smoothed and foaming. 

This poet is individual - it has been said over and over again and 
very beautiful. Is it therefore necessary to sa\ that she is strangely un- 
American or that she is a Greek, out o'i time? As for her Hellenism. 1 
tlnd it as little in her work as in the very French hexameters o{ Racine 
or in the lush beauties of the completely English Keats. H. D.'s world 
of content is either a highly personalized sea and rock and overlooked 
flower or it dissolves into the warmer lineaments of Aegean figures. 
Each world is symbol and nostalgia. But there is this dilTerence, that the 
exquisite harshness of the earlier world was a more direct and intuitive 
expression of the poet's spirit; the later is more carefully discovered, 
more studiously colonized. For this reason 1 think there can be little 
doubt that for those who are more interested in the quick way o\' the 
spirit, however remotely it may happen to fall out from the known 
haunts of expression, than in the rediscovery of ancient and beautiful 
ways made apt once again for the hungering spirit - for such cultural 
dissenters Sea Gcirden remains H. D.'s most \aluable gift. .And this 
need one expressly say? - is not to make light o\' the poems in which 
she has chosen the more easily recognizable, yet. for her. more devious, 
symbols. 

H. D. is not un-American - far from it. Personal and remote as are 
her images, there breathes through her work a spirit which it would not 
be easy to come upon in an\ other quarter o\ the gU^be. The impatience 
of the rhythms and the voluptuous harshness and bleakness o\' the sea 
and shore and woodland images manifest it. Such violent restraint, such 
a passionate pleasure in the beauty of the denuded scene and the cutting 
thrust, themselves but inverse symbols of caress. louUI onl\ develop in 
a culture that hungers for what it despises 111) is o\' those highly 
characteristic and most subtly moving American tenifXTaments that 
long for an emotional wealth of expression, whether in terms i>f culture 
or of personal experience, that they cannot wholehearledl) desire - 
and must not, if they are to be true to themselves. 



1 ()()() /// Culture 

Editorial Note 

Originally published in The Nation 121, 211-212 (1925), under the 
title "An American Poet." Copyright 1925; reprinted by permission of 
The Nation Magazine/The Nation Publishing Company, Inc. 

H(ilda). D{oolittle). (1886-1961) was an American poet and novelist. 



Review o\' 
Emily Dickinson. The Coniplcic Poems 

FmiK Dickinson, The Complete Poems (ff f-jnily Diikinson. \\iih an 
inlroduclion by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Boston: I.itllc, Brown and 
Co.. 1925; Martha Dickinson Bianchi, The Life and Letters of Emily 
Diekinsoii. New York: Houghton Miftlin Co.. 1925. 

Though hniily Dickinson lias been dead these lorlN years, it is doiibl- 
ful if it is quite time to read her poetry aright. There is some brush- 
clearing to be done before we can begin to see her true significance. It 
is customary to speak ot her work as a forerunner of the contemporary 
spirit of American verse, if such a spirit there be. It would be far more 
to the point to describe it as the forerunner of a spirit that has not \el 
succeeded in shaping itself. In the wiser chroiu^log\ of the future histor\ 
of American literature, she is likely to be counted the spiritual succe>M>r. 
and possibly destroyer, of our belated romantics, cerebralists. and ven- 
dors o'i "'jeweled bindings."" 

This may seem an unnecessaril\ tall program for a slender woman 
who wrote verse but furtively and with a painful lack of ease, but it i> 
not half so arduous as it sounds. Emil\ DickinsiMi's distinction and 
importance lie in the groove of her superficial Innitations. She was not 
"in the swim" of anything, she had but casual contacts with the culture 
of her da\; and. above all. an iiiihapi\\ lo\e experience shut her m fi>r 
the whole period of her creative life withm the austere halls of a pasMi>n- 
ate spirit. She was left to herself and her own devices. She gamed so\\- 
tude, and held on to a despair that was linked to joy by their common 
ecstasy. Hence all her poems, the \er\ poorest with the line and beauti- 
ful ones, are protected from the slightest allo\ of sham. Where she failed 
- and she failed [99] or only half-succeeded perhaps as i>flen as she 
won through to complete expression it was never because her vision 
was imsure. but over and over again because she had no tools ready lo 
hand. Yet so ardent was her spirit that an almost comic s^aueherie in the 
finding o\^ rhymes could not prevent her from disciuenng lo us the 
promise of a fresh, primitive, and relentless school of poctr> thai is slill 
i"»n the way. 



1002 /// Culture 

This "primitive" school may be detected in occasional poems or lines 
or images among our contemporary poets, chiefly among the lesser 
known names; it has certainly found no commanding voice. In order to 
understand it in even the vaguest way it is necessary to do a little of 
the brush-clearing that more competent critics may be trusted to do in 
circumstantial detail. The American Poetic Renaissance, as we are sadly 
beginning to discover, is as yet no true rebirth but merely a strange 
medley of discordant voices. The Walt Whitman tradition, contrary to 
the usual critical formula, is not a vital one for poetry, and has probably 
done us at least as much harm as good. It is valuable in so far as it has 
cleared away the literary detritus that clogged sincere expression; but 
its frantic attempt to find the soul in anything but the soul itself, its 
insistence on the mystic beauty of an externalized world, and above 
all its maudlin idealization of democracy, could not but lead to the 
deterioration of poetic values. So far from combating the materialistic 
ideal, it has fed it by vainly attempting to read spirit into it. The results 
have [100] been disastrous. Poetry has become externalized, and the 
intuitive hunger of the soul for the beautiful moulding of experience 
actually felt, not fiddled with or stared at, is not often stilled. The bulk 
of contemporary verse, with its terrifyingly high average of excellence, 
gives us everything but the ecstasy that is the language of unhampered 
intuitive living. We have shrewd observation, fantasy, the vivid life of 
the senses, pensive grace, eloquence, subtle explorations of the intellect, 
and a great many other interesting things, but curiously little spiritual 
life. Very few poets seem willing, or able, to take their true selves seri- 
ously without either indulging in irrelevant biography or fleeing into 
the remoter chambers of some ivory tower. 

Emily Dickinson was able to discover herself because she was power- 
fully assisted by two negations. She drank very sparingly, as we have 
seen, of the stream of literary culture, and she was somehow unaware 
of the fact that we are living in a material age. The materialism that 
was even then weighing on sensitive spirits she had neither to conquer 
by embrace nor evade by flight. This naive and necessary obliviousness 
of hers, lacking all resentment, is the primary requisite for further ad- 
vances in American poetry. Nothing is more dangerous to the poetic 
spirit than to have its energy stung into intellectual fury or impassioned 
protest or fear. If we turn to the best of Emily Dickinson's poems, we 
find the fruits of her healthy ignorances in a strange, unsought, and 
almost clairvoyant freshness - in such lines as: [101] 



Five: Ac si fw lies \{)()} 



Or: 



A UDuiidcti deer k'Aps luiilicst. 
Tvc heard ihe luinier tell; 
Tis but llie ecs(as\ iif death. 
And then llie brake is still 



And kingdoms, like the orehard. 
Flit riissetly away. 



Or the whole poem beginning "Through lane it lay/" froni which wc 
quote the hist two stanzas: 

The tempest touehed our garments. 
The liglilning's poignards gleamed; 
Fierce from the crag above us 
The hungry \ulturc screamed. 

The satyr's fingers beckoned. 
The valley murmured "Come" — 
These were the mates, and this the road. 
Those children fluttered home. 

Because o\^ this perennial freshness of sight it was natural for l-.inilN 
Dickinson to use the homeliest images of the fireside in the expressuMi 
of ecstasy, or agony, or joy in nature. Only a primitive could ha\e fol- 
lowed the lines: 

Transporting must the moment be. 
Brewed from decades of agony! 

in a poem of death imaged as belated homecoming, with: 

To think just how the fire will burn. 
Just how long-cheated eyes will turn. 
To wonder what myself will sa\. 

And only one undeterred by cultural associations could ha\c made such 
a discovery as: [102] 

Nature was in her ber\l apron. 
Mixing fresher air - 

or could have written such a poem as "Bring mc the sunset in a cup." 
with its "debauchee o\^ dews" and 

Who counts the wampum ol the night. 
To see that none is due'.' 

Some o{' her most magical cffiMis aic reached h\ means as homely as 
these, as in: 



1004 /// Cu/iu)-c 

You cannot fold a flood 
And put it in a drawer - 
Because the winds would find it out. 
And tell your cedar floor. 

This is at once too simple and too strange to be merely quaint. Distance 
from the hopelessly beloved, and the emotional nearness to him which 
is brought by the hourly acceptance of releasing death, flow intuitively 
into the household image of a door ajar: 

So we must keep apart - 

You there, I here - 

With just the door ajar 

That oceans are. 

And prayer. 

And that pale sustenance. 

Despair! 

Another example of this familiar magic is the poem, "I started early, 
took my dog," too long to quote. 

Emily Dickinson is often abstract, sometimes even verbal, but she is 
always saved from the merely allusive cleverness of our cerebralists by 
the passion which runs [103] through all her poetry like a consuming 
flame. Of no other American poet can it be so truly said that the spirit 
burns out the body. She has herself best expressed her conception of 
the life of the soul in the wonderful poem beginning, "Do you see a 
soul at the white heat?" The luminous impatience of the spirit could 
not be more exactly apprehended than in its last two lines: 

Least village boasts its blacksmith. 
Whose anvil's even din 
Stands symbol for the finer forge 
That sounds tugless within; 

Refining these impatient ores 
With hammer and with blaze, 
Until the designated light 
Repudiate the forge. 

Her spiritual passion is all the more a thing of wonder because it so 
steadfastly refused to identify itself with any of our accepted faiths or 
symbols. "God" is hardly more than one of the marginal landmarks of 
the spirit: in the love-poem. Doubt me, my dim companion! he is impetu- 
ously subordinated to earthly love. But earthly love is not what defines 
the spirit: her love is no amatory frenzy, it is simply one of the temporal 
embodiments of an ecstasy which has life in its own right. In short, 
Emily Dickinson's poetry leads straight to the conception of an intu- 



Five: AiMficlics UX)5 

itively fell spirit whicli can he siihoriliiiatccl iicilhcr to any t>r its experi- 
enced fmnis nor lo an\ kiiul ol" ahsi)liilc standing wiihoui. .>Vs she puis 
it. 

There is a si^liliidc of space |l"4| 

A solitude o\' sea. 

A solitude of death; but these 

Society shall be. 

Compared with tiiat prort)uiKler site. 

That polar pri\ae\. 

A Soul admitted to Itself: 

Finite Infinity. 

Il is because she asks nolhiiiLi fiirlher ol ihe soul thiin thai il be ilscit 
and because she can ihink of luMhiiiL: essential lo add to its inherent 
dignilN that slie is able lo sa\. ahnost casually: 

Lay this laurel on the one 
Too intrinsic for renown. 

We have left ourselves no space for discussion o\' the technical quali- 
ties oi' Einih Dickinson's \erse. This can be prell\ well dispensed with, 
as her importance in American poelr\. uhich \se believe to be very 
great, does not lie in technique, it is enough to remark tluit uhile her 
outward patterned form is fi"equentl\ unsatistying e\en uithin its unpre- 
tentious range, the essential significant form, as idea in imaged embodi- 
ment, is nearly always perfect and somelimes transcendenlly beautiful. 

The specific nature of her imager\ is uorth a word or two. Its vilalit) 
is dependent not so much on the e\e. in spile o\' the primitise freshness 
o\^ Emily Dickinson's vision, as on a sense of nunemenl that gi\es the 
verse an interior e.xcitemenl. \elocil\. aiul imminence, a qucdit\ that she 
shares with other intuitive poets, such as Shelle>. Here is an example or 
two out of a countless number: [105] 

While I stale - the si>lemn petals 
Far as North and Fast. 
Far as South and West expaiKlmi:. 
Culminate in rest. 

The o\ertakelessness o{ tlu^se 
Who have accomplished Death. 
Majestic is to me beyond 

The majesties o\' I'arth. 

The Life und Letters are an interesting pendant to the /\nni\. but 
they add little to what is implicit in these. I iniK Dickinson's life was 
all o[' a piece, her poetry and her letters are but a single expression. 



1006 /// Culture 

Because of the many ellipses in thought, and their highly figurative 
style, the letters are more ditTicult to follow than the poems. Her corre- 
spondents must have been at a loss at times to interpret her whimsicali- 
ties and nights of fancy. They are full of inspired nothings, as when she 
remarks that "Life is so fast it will run away, notwithstanding our sweet- 
est w'lwcr; or, "It is lonely without the birds today, for it rains badly, 
and the little poets have no umbrellas." Here is her conception of life: 

You speak of "disillusion" - that is one of the few subjects on which I am an 
infidel. Life is so strong a vision, not one of it shall fail. Not what the stars have 
done, but what they are to do, is what detains the sky. 

And here, finally, is what she has to say to Colonel Higginson about 
poetry: 

If I read a book, and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, 
I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I 
know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way? 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in Poetry 26, 97-105 (1925), under the title 
"Emily Dickinson, a Primitive." 

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet; her works were 
published posthumously. 



Review of Edwin Aiiingion RobinsiMi. 
Dionysus in Pouhi 

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Dlonvsus in Ihmhi. New York: Macmil- 

lan. 1925. 

This latest volume of Mr. Robinson's sL-cms neither to add nor seri- 
ously to detract from his poetic achie\einent, 1 he four long pcK*ms. with 
the possible exception of "Mortmain." are rather like studies in the 
Robinson manner - indirection, hiatus, and pregnant hml than vi\id 
further contributions to the Robinson matter. Fhere is a loo self-con- 
scious tartness about the speeches, Dionysus sneers and scolds too 
much, and we are not greatly interested. "Mortmain," too heavy to be 
wholly convincing, has at least a new theme: locked in low \ulh her 
brother, who has died many many years ago. the cultured and s\mpa- 
thetic spinster cannot resign herself to her friend and io\er, who. if he 
analyzed less, might perhaps have carried her away by storm - so one 
likes to guess. One is thankful, too. for the magnificent lines that con- 
clude the narrative: 

He went slowly home. 

Imagining, as a fond improvisation. 

That waves huger than Andes or Sierras 

Would soon be overwhelming, as before. 

A ship that would be sunk for the last time 

With all on board, and far from Tilbury Town 

It is the eighteen sonnets of the book that sa\e it. "The Sheas es." 
which will be much quoted, for it is a lovely poem, makes us wish that 
Mr. Robinson had found it in his heart to \ield more i>flen \o his e\er 
recurring impulse to sensuous imagery. There were a few such surren- 
ders in The Man against the Sky and Merlin too betrayed the fact that 
Mr. Robinson was not all austerity and tragic chuckle. It is a great pily. 
this splendid reticence of his, for in sober truth he is by Nature's intent 
a lyric poet, not the gingerly dramatist his proud introspection doomed 
him to be. 

Most of these sonnets are difficult the> \\ouk\ hardh be Mr. Rob- 
inson's if they were not - but they well repay reix-aled reading. Tlicy 



1{)()8 /// Culture 

are full of that peculiar gaunt strength that is next door to quaintness, 
like the knuckles of a New England farmer, or even drollery, though 
generally of a dolorous cast: 

... and to our vision it was plain 

Where thrift, outshivering fear, had let remain 

Some chairs that were Hke skeletons of home. 

And from the fulness of his heart he fished 
A dime for Jesus who had died for men. 

Now and then the utmost simplicity, following on a chain of indirec- 
tions, will yield a new and rather unexpected strength, as in: 

The same old stars will soon be overhead. 
But not so friendly and not quite so near, 

which should be read in its context (see the sonnet "Reunion"). 

Yet when all is said; after one has fully mastered and savored the 
irony of "New England" or "If the Lord would make Windows in 
Heaven," and overcome the sheer difficulties of such sonnets as "The 
Laggards" and "As it looked then," one is not truly satisfied. It is be- 
coming increasingly clear that the time for all these subtleties of doubt 
and failure and mockery is well nigh exhausted, that the voice of John 
the Baptist, destroyer of old ways and prophet but not builder of the 
new, is not a voice in the wilderness but a formula in the lecture hall. 
We cannot live forever on even the most neatly turned of negations. A 
considerable number of the younger American poets have addressed 
themselves with what talents they possess to the recapturing of beauty, 
even of ecstasy. To such the doubts of Dionysus and the involutions of 
sonnets which are little more than question marks will not seem of the 
utmost consequence. They are willing to have learned something from 
irony and cerebralism, which is the post-Robinson dispensation, if only 
to be in the modern swim, yet Heaven's doors cannot forever remain 
unassailed, even in these days of obvious Hell. To glimpse the hardly 
less obvious bits of Heaven that half-opened doors disclose is given 
only to certain of those who are willing to take a chance, who are 
brazen enough or indifferent enough to be caught unhumorous and 
rapt. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in Voices, November 1925, 64-65, under the 
title "The Tragic Chuckle." 



Preface and Inlroduclion [o I-olk Smi^^.s o/ I'rcm/i 
Camida, Marius Barbcau and Edward Sapir (U)2^) 

Preface 

The present \oIume is an outgrowth o{ the work o\' the Canadian 
National Museum. Both eollaborators belong to the stalTofthis institu- 
tion. In his study o{^ Huron folklore Mr. Barbeau eame to realize that 
some knowledge of European traditions was neeessary to separate the 
native elements from those which the Indians oue to then- while neigh- 
bors. This led to the independent investigation, by Mr. Barbeau and his 
assistants, of the whole subject o{ French Canadian l\>lkIore tales, 
songs, beliefs and industries. 

Out of the wealth of original material secured b\ these investigators 
for the Museum, we have selected for this \ olume some fort\ folk songs. 
In the separate introductions we have referred to all the accessible 
French parallels. It was our intention to avoid the two extremes o\' 
technicality and of sentimentalism, and we have tried to reach both the 
folklore student and the general reader who wishes to get a taste o\' a 
fascinating folk literature. 

Mr. Barbeau is responsible for the French texts, the general introduc- 
tion and the shorter explanations prefacing the songs, and for the musi- 
cal transcriptions; Mr. Sapir, tor the English translations o^ the songs 
and a revision of the explanatory matter. But each o\' the collaborators 
has gained far more from the counsel of the other than can be indicated 
by stating his separate share in the work. 

A word as to the translations. Those interested in the problem o\' 
rendering the spirit of folk song into a foreign language ma\ judge lor 
themselves what measure of success has been achieved. While extreme 
literalness is neither allainable nor eiesirable, we lui\e allowed ourscKes 
no serious departure from the original. The rhsme schemes, assonances 
and metrical forms have usually been preserved. Ihe reader will bear in 
mind that the song burdens, which are printed in italics, and the re- 
peated lines are given in full onl> in the first stan/a. 



1010 /// Culture 

In conclusion, we desire to thank the Director of the Museum, Dr. 
William Mclnnes, for permission to use the source material in this book 
of folk songs. 
Marius Barbeau, 
Edward Sapir. 
Ottawa, February 28, 1924. 



Introduction 

Folk songs were once part of the everyday life of French America. 
They seemed as familiar as barley-bread to the pioneer settlers of the 
St. Lawrence Valley; and they escorted through rain and shine the coure- 
urs-des-hois in their early ventures along the trails and rivers of the Far 
West. So we read in our century-old chronicles of travel and explora- 
tion. The raftsmen on the eastern Canadian rivers, as late as forty years 
ago, enlivened the woods with the echoes of their rustic melodies; 
threshing and winnowing in the barn moved on to the rhythm of work 
tunes, as did spinning, weaving and beating the wash by the fireside. 

Not many song records, however, have come down to us that ante- 
date 1860. Larue, about this time, broached the subject in Le Foyer 
camidien of Quebec, and in 1865 Ernest Gagnon published his Chansons 
popidaires du Canada. The idea soon went abroad that these efforts, 
modest though they were, had drained the fount of local tradition. 
When modern life hushed all folk singers alike, few doubted that song, 
tale and legend had vanished forever, along with most other relics of a 
bygone age. 

We shared this illusion ourselves, until some significant survivals by 
the roadside piqued our curiosity. Our researches then unexpectedly 
disclosed wide vistas. It was no longer possible to believe that the tradi- 
tions of a people could sink into oblivion from morning to night. The 
trails of the past were not so quickly obscured, their luxuriant byways 
not so easily forsaken. The newly recovered domain of French folklore 
in America has proved immensely rich. Tales and anecdotes by the hun- 
dred and songs by the thousand have in the past few years of investiga- 
tion fallen into our hands from all parts of eastern Canada and New 
England. Yet the work is far from done, the resources of the field are 
still unspent. 

A small sheaf from this song harvest -forty-one numbers in all -is 
here presented to the reader; and we claim no higher merit for it than 
that it is fairly representative of the main types. 



Five: Ac. st he tics 10 1 1 

Our JisL\ncr> lined lis \\\\o ihc hope o\ spying I'dIR songs in ihc 
making. Such coniposiiions, according lo a ihcory inhcrilcd from 
Grimm and still current in the l-nglish-speakmg world. \Kcrc ihc fruit 
of collecti\e inspiration. A handlul ol snigcrs \sould sponlancousK 
burst into song on the spur ol the moment, (ienius, usually denied ihe 
indiNidiial. wcuilJ at limes grace the latent pt)wers of the mob and gne 
birth to poems and tunes that were uorth\ to pass on lo posleril\. 

In the light o\^ this presumption uc chose i>ur Held of obser\alu>n 
among the isolated and unspoilt settlers o^ the Unvcr St. Lawrence 
Valley. There, among our rustic hosts assembled in singing parlies. \se 
might fmd the object of our quest -the song anonymously begotten 
from the midst o( the motley crowd. 

We were not wholly disappointed. The pei>ple uere still fond of eve- 
ning gatherings devoted to song, the dance and the old-time convivial- 
ity. Solo and chorus alternated freely w hile we look down ihe words and 
registered the melodies on the phonograph. lYom Charlevoix County in 
Quebec we passed to Chicoutimi; and. in the lollowing summers, lo 
Temiscouata, Beauce, Gaspe and Bona\enture. .\ few collaborators- 
MM. E.-Z. Massicotte, A. Godbout. A. Lambert, and others -exlended 
the search to the neighborhood of Quebec and Montreal, even to New 
Hampshire. As a result, over five thousand song records, all from or.il 
sources, are now classified and carefully annotated in the tiles o^ the 
National Museum ol' Canada, at Ottawa; and problems of origin have 
again come into their own. 

Our expectation meanwhile was to find the countrv-folk in the iiuhkI 
of unlrammeled uttei"ance. in the yet uni>bserved process of song-mak- 
ing: we overlooked no likely o|")pi>riumt\. on the seashore or in the 
fields, by the fireside or in occasional festive gatherings. Our folk singers 
were genial and talented, their memorv was prolific and their slock o( 
songs nearly inexhaustible. But they lacked the verv gifi which was lo 
enlighten us in our ciuest. Ihev would not give free rein \o impulse or 
fancy, they wc>iild not tread new paths, wouki not venture beyond the 
mere iteration of what had passed down to them readv-made friMii their 
relatives and friends, from untold generations o{ peasant singers. Nor 
was this due \o an unlucky star, lor all the country-folk we met were 
nuicli alike; ihe\ were not creators of rhvmes or tunes, but i>nly instru- 
ments for their preservation. Irue enough, we heard o\ some pi>els ol 
the backwoods who could siring rhymes and slan/as u>gelher on a given 
theme to suit the local demand. But these were without mystic power. 
Their manner seemeel not unlike that of ordinary poets, but far cruder. 



1012 /// Culture 

They plodded individually over their tasks and tallied their Hnes to a 
familiar tune. The outcome was invariably uncouth and commonplace. 
There was nowhere a fresh source of inspiration; only imitation, obvi- 
ous and slavish. 

There is thus a wide discrepancy between our observations and the 
theory of Grimm et al. on the mysterious flashes of the communal spirit 
in the folk songs of the past. This we could no longer ignore. How 
puzzling it all seemed when set beside the report of American negroes 
and humble peasants of the Balkans still indulging in spontaneous po- 
etic effusions when gathered together for group singing! Our folk sing- 
ers were not their inferiors; we found them keenly intelligent, if unedu- 
cated. Their conservatism still resisted the blight of industrialism, they 
remained faithful to the tradition of their ancestors who, in the days of 
Richelieu, landed on these shores from the northwestern provinces of 
France. If illiterate folk truly possess the collective gift of lyric utter- 
ance, why not they as well as their forefathers or the Serbians or the 
negroes of the lower Mississippi? 

The reader may decide as he will. For our part, we have lost all faith 
in the century-old theory as applied to the French field in America. 
Tabulating our five thousand song variants and comparing them with 
the records from the French provinces, we find that, say, nineteen out of 
twenty songs are ancient; they have come with the seventeenth-century 
immigrants from overseas to their new woodland homes. The remainder 
form a miscellaneous group from the pen of unknown scribes and cler- 
ics or from the brain of rustic bards. 

Among the first -the songs from ancient France -we count our most 
valuable records, and they are many. The bulk is of a high order for 
both form and content. The style is pure and crisp, the theme clear- 
cut and tersely developed. There prevails throughout a fragrance of 
refinement, sometimes there is a touch of genius. Here is decidedly not 
the drawl of untutored peasants nor a growth due to chance, but the 
work of poets whose mature art had inherited an ample stock of metric 
patterns and an ancient lore common to many European races. 

Our folk songs as a whole were an indirect legacy from the trouba- 
dours of mediaeval France; so we were at first inclined to think. But we 
had reasons to demur. Troubadour and minstrel songs were written on 
parchment mostly for the privilege of the nobility; they belonged on the 
whole to the aristocracy and the learned, not to the people; they affected 
the mannerisms, the verbosity and the lyrical finesse of the Latin deca- 
dence; and they were preferably composed in the Limousin and 



Five Ai'sthetics 1 01 3 

Provenval dialects o\' soiilhcrii Irancc. The lroubadi)iirs themselves la- 
bored between the elexeiith and l\uii teeiitli eeiitunes. \shile many of our 
best songs belonged to the two luindied years that loliovKed What is 
more, upon going through eolleelions ot their poems we tailed \o meet 
the familiar landmarks; the spirit, the technique and the themes had 
little or nothing in common with those of our records. Tliey were two 
worlds apart; and we fail to see how the chasm can CNer be bridged. 

The origin of our songs, the folk songs of ancient France, still remains 
a problem. If our experience in the North American fields serves to 
dispel a few current misconceplK)ns. it has not gone far enough to un- 
ravel the puzzle of ultimate authorship. Our only surmise is that, while 
the troubadours journeyed from castle to castle and penned their metic- 
ulous lines for the lords o{ the land, another class o\ poets sang their 
songs among the common people, who were not so easily beguiled by 
a more fashionable art. 

We have read of the humble />>//,!,' /t'///-.s dc tone a\k\ Joni^li-urs crnmts 
of the ancient days, whose pranks were sometimes derided in the manu- 
scripts of the troubadours and the minstrels. Their profession \Kas natu- 
rally the butt of society. But as lhe\ were lun apparently addicted to 
writing, no tangible evidence is left to vindicate their memiuy. .\ student 
of medieval France. Jeanroy, has already pointed out that while the 
troubadours had their day in the south, an obscure literary upheaval, 
freer from Latin influence, took place in the oil provinces of the Loire 
River, that is, in the very home of most o\' our traditional lore. Who 
were the local poets if not the jongleurs o\' the north ihemsehes'.' And 
if their art was oral, why should it not have taken rocU in the soil among 
the older traditions of the time? Why should not our folk songs be their 
work, now partly recovered or distlgured'.' 

Whatever these Loire River bards be called, they were ni> mere up- 
starts, if we take their lyrics into account. .At their best the composed 
songs which not only courted the pi^pular fancy but which, because o\ 
their vitality and charm. t>utli\cd the forms of academic piK*lry. Tlieir 
prosodic resources, besides, were not onl\ copious and largeK ditVerent 
from those of the higher literature, but they went back to the \er> 
bedrock of the Romance languages. Unlike the troubadours, who were 
the representatives of medieval latinit\. these poets had never given their 
allegiance to a foreign language since the birth of the Low Latin vernac- 
ulars in France. Spain. Portugal and Italy. Ihev had inherited and 
maintained the older traditions of the land, lluis we find that the metric 
rules in their songs are comparable to those o{ Spanish, Portuguese or 



1014 /// Cull lire 

Italian poetry rather than to the rules proper to Limousin and written 
French verse. In other words, the folk songs of France as recovered in 
America mostly represent an ancient stratum in French literature, one 
that was never wholly submerged by the influx throughout the Middle 
Ages of Neo-Latin influences from the south. 

The folk singers we consulted by the score were not poets, with the 
best will in the world. They proved most disappointing when ap- 
proached in that light. It was merely their wont to rehearse what had 
come down to them from the dim past. They would give us a song five 
centuries old next to one dating back two generations. Some Gaspe 
fisher-folk would call the age-worn complainte of "The Tragic Home- 
coming" by the name of Poirier, a singer still remembered by the elders. 
Others claimed that the candcle of "Alexis" was as much as a hundred 
years old, while it is more nearly a thousand. It soon became evident 
that their notions of origin were not worth serious consideration. 

One endowment, however, was strikingly their own. This is their 
memory. Not everyone could sing; and only a few, at this late day, could 
boast of an extensive repertory. But we can only admire the gifts of 
the best singers we have known, such as Saint-Laurent, de Repentigny, 
Roussell, Lambert, Mme. Dorion, Hovington, Soucy, Louis "I'aveugle," 
Mme. Bouchard, and many others. Without the slightest effort they 
dictated to us from day to day numerous songs ranging in length from 
ten to seventy and, in rare cases, over one hundred lines. Both Saint- 
Laurent and de Repentigny exceeded three hundred songs each, while 
others were not far behind. And yet folk memory is not as retentive as 
it used to be; reading and writing have played havoc with it. 

The only rich havens of folk tales and folk songs now left among the 
French settlers in America lie in rather isolated districts -the more re- 
mote the richer, as a rule. Peasants, lumbermen and fisher-folk in their 
hamlets recite the ballads without faltering, whereas the chance singer 
in town is unable to muster more than scraps, unless he is country born 
and bred. 

Songs were learned from relatives and friends early in life, almost 
invariably between five and sixteen years of age. Octogenarians de- 
lighted in the songs of their teens and groped in vain for those of their 
maturity. Thus, in one way at least, youth stubbornly survived into old 
age. And it seemed strange for human memory to surrender, as repeat- 
edly happened, a whole ballad or a chantey that had not been sung in 
the last fifty or sixty years. 



Five: Acs the tics 1 01 5 

There was often some dinieullN m lenieinbering the \ery existence. 
or the initial Inies. of a stMig; not hi its lull utterance, once a hint \^as 
furnished or the notion o\' it had Hashed upon the mind. Aware o\' ihis. 
most singers resorted to a mnemonic device as a izuide io their menial 
stores. One would think o\' his mother's or his fathers songs, or those 
from other sources, one alter another, as they had marked the course of 
his life. Francois Saint-Laurent, a fisherman from La Tourelle (CJaspc). 
never experienced any trouble in listing his possessions, for they were all 
neatly sorted out in his memory according to the cardinal points. Now 
he would dig out his songs o\'' the north or o\' the south, then o\ the 
northwest, the west, and so forth. I he hitch occurred only when the 
three hundredth number was reached, for the assigned piles were spent 
and the only one left was a "hea|^ in (he ciMner."" a mixed U>t uithout 
mental tag. 

The work of collection in our tleki had lo proceed with discrimina- 
tion; judicious elimination was a necessary part o\' the experience. The 
songs, particularly at points within reach o\' town, were not all of folk 
extraction. A singer's repertory was like a curiosity shop; tritles or re- 
cent accessions vied with old-time jewels. The Irench "romances** ol' 
1810 or 1840 occurred from time to time. They were once the fashion. 
Not a few found their way, in print or otherwise, into .Xmerica and 
filtered down into the older strata of local lore, where they still persist, 
such as the satires on Bonaparte, long after their demise m the home- 
land. Compilations printed in Canada and ballad sheets imported irom 
Frances {imageries d'Epinal) spread their intluence to main quarters. 
The archaic canticle of Saint Alexis, for instance, might occur in two 
forms; the first, out of the Cautiqucs dc Marseilles, the oldest song-book 
known in Canada, and the second from hitherto unrecorded sources o\ 
the past. Many songs, moreover, would pass from mouth to mouth 
until they no longer remained the exclusne la\orites o\' school or bar- 
racks. Some singers would be on the lookout for just such novelties as 
a folklorist is careful to dodge. 

The songs as they come from the indi\idual interpreters are noi all 
in a perfect state of preservation; far from it. Centuries have elapsed 
since their inception and ha\e left ihein uith man\ sears Words. \Khen 
they do not belong to the current \ocabulary. are at times deformed; 
the lines are not infrequently mangled, the rhymes lost; and the slan/as 
do not always appear in their pn^per sequence. Lhe student is thus 
confronted by a question o\' method m gathering and preserving his 



1016 fit Culture 

materials. If these are faulty, must he rest satisfied with single versions? 
Must he publish his records as they stand, blunders and all? 

While the integral presentation of these documents may be a matter 
of choice or circumstances, everyone will agree on the value of as many 
versions as can be compiled, particularly when they issue from divergent 
sources. The peregrinations of a song cannot be understood without 
them. No two recorded occurrences or versions are quite the same, un- 
less they are directly related; their variations increase in proportion to 
the lapse of time and to their distance from each other. To a folk song 
these versions are like the limbs of a tree. They appear in clusters at the 
top. but can be traced to older branches which ultimately converge to 
a single trunk at the bottom. Our few Charlevoix versions of "The Pas- 
sion of Our Lord," for instance, were fairly uniform throughout, al- 
though somewhat different from those of Temiscouata, across the St. 
Lawrence. A real gap, however, intervened between them and the Aca- 
dian records from New Brunswick. Upon comparison we found that 
both forms were fairly ancient and went back to a bifurcation that had 
taken place long ago in the ancestral home overseas. 

Flaws and local deviations cannot long escape scrutiny. Being spo- 
radic, they tend to eliminate each other in the light of many versions 
from widely scattered areas. A song can thus be rendered more satisfac- 
tory in every way and may even be restored according to the original 
intention of the author who fashioned it long ago. 

The French field in the New World may appear to an outsider as 
somewhat lacking in variety. But let us not be deceived! The nine thou- 
sand original settlers who landed on these shores before 1680 were, it 
is true, mostly from northwestern France, that is, from oi'l provinces. 
They embarked at Saint-Malo, on the English Channel, or at La Ro- 
chelle, on the Atlantic, according to their place of origin -Normandy 
or the basin of the Loire River. Aunis, Poitou and Anjou, on the very 
frontiers of oc, in the south, furnished large numbers, and the northern- 
most districts not a few. The immigrants belong to many stocks and 
spoke various dialects. Never quite the same in the past, they still pre- 
serve part of their individuality. The French Canadians of Quebec and 
the Acadians of New Brunswick, Nova Scofia or Louisiana, have long 
felt their differences, even, at times, to the point of mutual antipathy. 
Quebec itself, though more compact, consists of three groups -those of 
Quebec proper, Three Rivers and Montreal -which are not interchange- 
able. This variety of tradition cannot be ignored by the folklorist, else 



Five .U'stlutus 1017 

valuable historical clues uuglii he lost, \ariants neglected and the local 
sources confused in a hopeless tangle. 

The best claim to rect^gnition o^ the Irench tolk songs oi America 
undcnibtedly rests in their comparati\e antK|uily; lor the> ha\e largel> 
remained unchanged smce the da>s oi lleiui 1\' and Louis Xill. three 
or lour centuries ago. Sheltered m woodland recesses, far from the polit- 
ical commotions of the Old World, they ha\e preserved much of their 
sparkling, archaic Havor. And. in the years to come. the\ cannot tail to 
contribute materially to the histor\ o\' the folk songs of l-rancc and o{ 
the rest o^ Europe. 



Editorial note 

Folk Songs of French Canada, co-authored by Marius Barbeau and fid- 
ward Sapir, was published by Yale Uni\ersity Press (New Haven. \^)2>) 
Reprinted by permission of Yale University. 



Review of 
Harold Vinal, Nor Youth nor Age 

Harold Vinal, Nor Youth fior Age: Poems, 1924-1925. New York: H. 
Vinal, 1925. 

This slender and beautifully printed volume is far from negligible. It 
makes no obvious bid for this or that kind of recognition, indulges in 
no ear-marked profundities, treats diction with a courteous normality, 
is never strained. Mr. Vinal is a poet of chaste and convincing rhythms 
and of a distinction which results from the somewhat curious and all 
too rare art of constantly skirting the commonplace yet rarely attaining 
it. His mind is graceful, beautifully poised, refreshingly at home. 

It is difficult to lay critical hands on an art that is so alertly bland, 
so subtly obvious and disconcertingly individual in its very obviousness. 
Perhaps a careful study of Mr. Vinal's technique would reveal the fact 
that his most successful effects are attained by refraining from the use 
of words and phrases that a less urbane artist would have been too 
naive to steer clear of. One gets the effect throughout the volume of 
rigor toned down to softness, of a passionless air in which crispness is 
nicely commingled with mellowness. 

Here are some lines that seem to me to illustrate Mr. Vinal's manner, 
which it would be as unrewarding to imitate as Racine, so intimately 
do its light gestures proceed from a temperament rather than a method. 
She is as water to the mind. 

Only the things unseen between the earth 
And heaven have a chance of an escape. 

Far from his father's blowing corn 

And closer to a fall of ax. 

He finds a wall to sit upon, 

Where the spruce boughs are dripping wax. 

But miles of water hot with sun. 

Yet sometimes standing on the outer rim 

Of pastures when the heaven was a flood 

Of moody stars and the land seemed good to him. 

He felt the smarting sod take wing and bud. 



Five Aesthetics 1019 

Evcr\ now and ihcn one is siarllcd b\ lamt recall olA Dices U>ng thought 
dead. b\ an einirel> irreproachable reliini to a reeling iK>t of this age 
bill of the lale, pre-riMiiantic eiuhleeiith ceiUiir). The rollowing passages 
may be \eniLired in support of this impression: 

Bill ulicii long shadows touch a spar 
With clarkiK'ss. luMiK'Mck c\cs can mark 
The outline ol" a diHM ajar. 
A lading barn against the dark. 

A robin Hurries from a tree 

And lakes a red-streaked llighl elsewhere. 

Day for you u ill ne\er break. 
Nor the tender lledgeling cheep: 
Rust will gather on the rake. 
Wool grow heavy on the sheep. 
Now the dark swords overtake. 
Have your centuries of sleep. 

Though Mr. Vinal does not tower or stand ou\ sliarpK. he quietly and 
persistently has a very special distinctiveness among American poets o( 
today. His work amply repays a genth peering, patient, listening kind 
of reading. 



Editorial Note 

Previously unpublished; from an undated l\pescript in the possessimi 
of the Sapir family. 



Review of 
Mabel Simpson, Poems 

Mabel Simpson, Poems. New York: Harold Vinal, 1925. 

Of any liquid but the cool and purest spring water there is something 
to be said, but of this most grateful draught there is hardly anything to 
say except that it slakes the thirst better than any other thing that could 
be thought of. And so it is with these poems of Mabel Simpson's. There 
is little that one can say about them, they are so tiny and so radiant in 
their simplicity. The diction is not rich, the thought is not involved, the 
imagery is simple and often even obvious. They are the limpid, sedu- 
lously undecorated outpourings and musings oi a highly inward spirit, 
intuitive to a degree, preoccupied with the divested self and with the 
barest and most fundamental of spiritual values. The environing world 
is not grasped in its richness, it is clairvoyantly apprehended in its sim- 
plest terms - earth, grass, tree, wind, river - and then more as symbol 
than as fact. Yet these poems are strangely satisfying, as the cool 
draught of water is satisfying, to return to our metaphor. 

The volume is not likely to satisfy those who demand close-woven 
textures of sensation, as in Keats, or of feeling, as in Francis Thompson. 
But it will go clean to the heart of the intuitives, those who sense the 
lie of warp and woof better than the tapestry. To put it somewhat dif- 
ferently, it will appeal to such as find the spare and leaping quality of 
Blake and Emily Dickinson not trying nor strained but easy and natu- 
ral. It is the leaping quality of the ideas, the irrational thought se- 
quences, set in an utmost simplicity of rhythm, that give many of these 
poems their "magical" air, say "Lonely Autumn Wind": 

Yellow leaves 
Everywhere, 
Who will come 
Comb my hair? 

Rolling burrs 
Murmuring, 
Who will hear 
When I sing? 



Five: .U'sthclics 1021 

Sleepiness 
On the hill. 
Do not ciMiic ... 

1 am still. 

This is perhaps an artless, folk-song c|iialil\, as is the refrain, whieh 
Miss Simpson sometimes uses with an almost hearl-breaking ctVccl. as 
in "Earth": 

We all eome back lo her aiiain. 
Certain as seasons and the ram. 

Though drinking deep from other streams. 
Though wandering m cither dreams. 

We all come back to her again. 
Certain as seasons and the rain 

Simple as are the rhythms o{ this poet, she ean often e\i>ke the most 
poignant of feehngs through rh\thm alone. I'nless my ear deecives mc. 
it is to the mingled speed and retard o\' the last two Imes o'i "Vesper" 
that the beauty of the poem is mainl\ dtie: 

I heard a meadow breathing grass 
On a silent summer day, 
I saw a glimmering insect pass. 
And a petal drop away. 

I laid my cheek against the ground. 
My joy was as sharp as a grief. 
The wind went by with a lovely sound. 
And the night fell like a leaf 

But analysis is little rewarding in these poems. They should be read 
and heard as slow rains are heard and seen, with a rapt attention that 
catehes something beyond the monotoncnis fall and soft uater-lighl. 1 
shall elose by quoting the two poems thai seem to me to be the most 
beautiful in the book and among the most beautiful in eontemporarv 
American and English literature. The first is "Song"; 

O Earth, how lonely you would be 
Without the Wind, without the Sea. 

We ciMiie and go. we li\e aiul die. 
At last within \o\n breast we lie. 

And all the lo\ely words we say. 
And all the lo\ely prayers we pray. 

Are put away, are put away. 
Only the Winds and Waters stay. 



1022 /// Culture 

And "Vigil," which has a most fresh and lovely excitement, and which 
no editor or committee would ever dream of giving a prize to, so beauti- 
ful is it: 

No one will ever really know 
Where I come from nor where I go. 

This is not I, this body's mold. 

The hair that you touch nor the hands you hold. 

A voice to hear and a face to see, 
These are the outward signs of me. 

Come close, come close, come near, come near, 
I am keeping a vigil here. 

Here in a little house of clay 
Something is now that will go away. 

Something leaping and something light 
To go like a flame on a windy night, 

To go like a flame in a windy sky, 
O this is I, this is I! 



Editorial Note 

Previously unpublished; from a typescript in the possession of the 
Sapir family. 



Review o\' 
Leonie Adams, Those Xoi Elect 

Leonie Adams. Those Sot TJca. New ^o^k: Rc^bcrl M. McRridc, 
1925. 

Those Not Elect is a volume of bcaiiliriil j^ocms. The word "bcaulifur' 
is so sadly abused, so much a habit o[' hi/y criticism, that it requires a 
little courage to choose it as the sign manual o^ a bi>d> o\' \erse. \\:\ 
there is no other word that describes Miss Adams' work half so accu- 
rately. Her poetry is beautiful in a pre-eminent degree and in e\er\ sense 
of the word. It is beautiful in diclii>n. beautiful in its highl> sophisti- 
cated rhythms, beautiful above all in the quality of its feeling and m the 
movement of its thought, at once sensuous and mystical. The ver\ titles 
are beautiful - "Companions of the Morass." [276] "Night o'i L'nshed 
Tears,'' "Heaven's Paradox" - not so much, one feels, out o^ a desue 
to escape the obvious as because it is natural for Miss Adams lo express 
herself beautifully. 

Cease to preen, O shining pigeons! 
A jewel eye and breast of quiet. 
Rainbow neck, will purchase here 
Never rest nor wholesome diel. 

And - 

Lovers said then loo o\' death 

How more than the worm's mouth was owing 

One that drew a flower of lust; 

And then were no such churls to >icld 

Delicacy like hers to dust. 

Such passages as these have the same certain self-contanied beaut> m 
the very presence of what is unlovely as a queen might in the nudsi o\ 
squalor and want. 

Beautv. however, is but a first ai^j^nmnuilion touard the dellnition 
of Miss Adams' very peculiar quality. If her verse is beautiful, this does 
not mean that it is notably graceful or felicitous. The obv iously graceful 
and the merely felicitous are. indeed, almost religiously eschewed for 
graces more difficult and withdrawn and more subtly revvarding. for 



1024 /// Culture 

Miss Adams has but the air of playing with precious things. In essence 
her style is never precious, never a thing of technique, but always the 
subtle, even tortured, embodiment of a spirit that is at least as subtle 
and as tortured. Were Miss Adams more obviously, instead of com- 
pletely, modern in feeling, she would have shrunk from the consistent 
use of verbal beauties, she [277] would have feared to be caught in 
rapture over Elizabethan turns of phrase. It is the charming paradox of 
her finest poetry that it creates an utterly fresh and breathless beauty 
out of materials that are almost worn with loveliness. 

The spirit that animates these poems is, frankly, the lovely unhappi- 
ness that the Germans have dubbed Weltschmerz. There is nothing stri- 
dent about it, it has no self-pity, though it is not lacking in a certain 
naive, disarming self-indulgence. Yet the naivete, one fears, is sophisti- 
cated rather than unconscious. As Miss Adams puts it in the very first 
stanza of the volume: 

Never, being damned, see Paradise. 
The heart will sweeten at its look; 
Nor hell was known, till Paradise 
Our senses shook. 

And, later, in the same poem: 

Never taste that fruit with the soul 
Whereof the body may not eat. 
Lest flesh at length lay waste the soul 
In its sick heat. 

Miss Adams has chosen to withdraw, she neither apologizes nor glo- 
ries. A little back of the surface of reality, which shines with a beauty 
she prefers to neglect, are many faint paths, some worn, some hidden 
in underbrush, that take her to another world, where beauty is more 
nearly of her own devising. This world holds her seriously, she does not 
often glance wistfully at the commoner world of easy, yet hopeless, bliss. 
It is a question [278] if the artist has not a complete right to citizenship 
in whatever world of values his spirit creates for itself. Yet there are 
limits beyond which it seems dangerous to travel, and some at least of 
Miss Adams' admirers will be a little apprehensive of her future. They 
will feel that withdrawal may be the impulse for a supremely beautiful 
first harvest but that the gods of denial are not permanently alert with 
blessings. In a sense, however, all this is not criticism but speculative 
biography, and therefore to be ruled out of court. 

Perhaps no poem in the volume so well illustrates Miss Adams' power 
to move us with the gentle strangled passion of desolation as "Bird and 
Bosom - Apocalyptic." I shall close with this exquisite poem: 



Five: AcsihctUs 1U25 



Turniniz wiiliiii the body, the ghostly pari 
Said, When al last dissciiibline llcsh is riven, 
A little instant when the llesh is cast. 
Then thou most poor, sleadtasl, defeated heart. 
Thou wilt stay dissolution, thou thus shrisen. 
And we be known at last. 

This holy \isitMi there shall be: 

The desolate breast, the pinioned bud thai smus. 

The breast-bone's whited ivory. 

The bird more fair than phoenix-wings. 

And hurt, more politic to shun. 

It gentles only b\ its sighs. 

And most on the forbidden inie 

Drop pity and love from the bird's eyes; 

And what lips profit not to speak. 

Is silver chords on the bird's beak. 

Alas! 

At the dream's end the ghostly member said. 
Before these walls are rotted, which enmesh 
Thai bird round, is the sweet bird dead. 

The swan, they say. 

An earthly bird. 

Dies all upon a golden breath. 

But here is heard 

Only the body's rattle against death. 

And cried. No way. no way! 

And beat this way and thai upon the llesh. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in Piwtvy 27, 275-279 ( 1926). 
Leonie Adams Fuiller (b. 1899) was an American piKM 



Review of James Weldon Johnson, 
The Book of American Negro Spirituals 

The Book of American Negro Spirituals. Edited with an Introduction by 
James Weldon Johnson. Musical Arrangements by J. Rosamond John- 
son, Additional numbers by Lawrence Brown. New York, The Viking 
Press, 1925; 187 pp. 

The Book of American Negro Spirituals has now been before the pub- 
lic for several years and a Second Book has come to prove the popularity 
of the first. It is a deserved popularity, not wholly due to the present 
vogue of the spiritual on the concert stage but to the intrinsic merits of 
the book itself. Mr. Johnson is not a scientific student of music, he is 
an enthusiast who is fired with the desire to proclaim the beauties of 
Negro religious poetry and music to a white public sentimentally dis- 
posed, more or less, to agree with him. A laborious analysis and qualifi- 
cation of his views, expressed in a long and rather unnecessary preface, 
is hardly warranted, for the book is essentially an anthology, not a 
monograph. 

That Mr. Johnson is a better lover of his folk than a dispassionate 
critic of its verse is evident. Consider the following passage (pp. 15, 
16): "The white people among whom the slaves lived did not originate 
anything comparable even to the mere titles of the Spirituals. In truth 
the power to frame the poetic phrases that make the titles of so many 
of the Spirituals betokens the power to create the songs. Consider the 
sheer magic of [ten selected titles of spirituals] and confess that none 
but an artistically endowed people could have evolved it." Yet what 
could be more threadbare in the English poetic tradition than such titles 
- to quote but two of those that Mr. Johnson cites - as "Singing with 
a Sword in my Hand" or "Death's Coin' to Lay His Cold, Icy Hand 
on Me?" Does not Mr. Johnson know that death has been "laying his 
cold, icy hand" on generations of unfortunate whites? And if the point 
of the second title lies in the charm and naivete of the "goin' to" and 
"on me," what is that but a point of silent conspiracy on the part of 
the whites to give the negro idiom the benefit of a charming and naive 
interpretation? 



Five: .icMhciics 1027 

Mr. Johnson's enthusiasm also licIs ihc hcltcr o\' his judgnicnl when 
he says: "Among ihi>sc who knou ahDiit art ii is generally recognized 
that the modern school of painting and sciilpliire in liurope and Amer- 
ica is almost entirely the result o\' the tlirecl intluence ol" African art. 
following the discovery that it was art." I i.\o not know how tar back 
Mr. Johnson would date "the modern schtnil o\ painting and sculpture 
in Europe and America," but surely even the most up-to-date inter- 
pretation of the phrase would hardly justify one in attributing to .Afri- 
can wood-carving more than a part intluence in the mouldmL' ot moil- 
ern art tendencies, it is not necessary to overstate a case. 

And so with Mr. Johnson's analysis of American Negro music. I'hal 
the Negroes have a wonderful musical gift - or, what prc^bably comes 
to the same thing in a practical sense, a rich musical tradition that goes 
back to the pre-slave days of Africa - is doubted by none. That a group 
of Jewish or Irish or Italian slaves, living in conditions precisely parallel 
to those in which the Africans evolved their Americanized culture, could 
have developed the spirituals and blues is all but inconceivable. It does 
not follow, as Mr. Johnson seems to think, that American Negro music 
is merely a carry-over of a specifically African tradition, that it owes 
little or nothing to the white man's musical stock in trade. The truth 
would seem to be far from simple and not at all easy to state either 
historically or psychologically. No doubt the African tradition as such 
was entirely lost, or nearly so, but in adapting themselves to the new 
environment the Negroes could not take over the hymnology o\' their 
masters without allowing certain deep seated habits of musical deliverv 
to ring through. In spirit Mr. Johnson may be essentially sound but his 
formulation is certainly far too specific. It is simply not true, for in- 
stance, that the rhythms of American Negro music are African rhythms. 
The most that one can say is that they are European-American rhythms 
unconsciously modified by habits which require for their explanation a 
soil of forgotten African rhythms. In this, as in countless i>ther cultural 
cases of a similarly complex nature, one ma\ speak of a "predisposi- 
tion," provided one is prudent enough to steer clear o\' commitments 
on the score of racial inheritance in a biological sense. 

But I shall not rest content with stating my own opinion, which is 
perhaps only a bias. There has just come to hand, opportunely enough, 
an excellent article on African Negro Music in the first number of a new 
journal, edited by Diedrich Westermann, entitled Africa. Journal of the 
International Institute of African I.ani^uai^cs ami Cultures (Januarv h^28: 
pp. 30-62). This article is by Erich M. von Ilornbostel. probably the 



1028 /// Culture 

most competent authority on primitive music that we have. As for the 
African background, the following citation will be significant: "In Afri- 
can music, three features stand out above all others, and have been 
noticed and stressed accordingly by all those who have heard Negroes 
sing: antiphony (here understood to be the alternate singing of solo and 
chorus), part-singing, and highly developed rhythm." But as for the 
supposed continuity (I mean culturally, not merely psychologically) of 
American Negro with African Negro music, this is what von Hornbostel 
has to say: "The African Negroes are uncommonly gifted for music - 
probably, on an average, more so than the white race. This is clear not 
only from the high development of African music, especially as regards 
polyphony and rhythm, but a very curious fact, unparalleled, perhaps, 
in history, makes it even more evident; namely, the fact that the negro 
slaves in America and their descendants, abandoning their original mu- 
sical style, have adapted themselves to that of their white masters and 
produced a new kind of folk-music in that style. Presumably no other 
people would have accomplished this. (In fact the plantation songs and 
spirituals, and also the blues and rag-times which have launched or 
helped to launch our modern dance-music, are the only remarkable 
kinds of music brought forth in America by immigrants.) At the same 
time this shows how readily the Negro abandons his own style of music 
for that of the European." 

In another passage von Hornbostel states that "the gulf between Afri- 
can and European music" has proved to be so wide that any attempt 
at bridging it is out of the question. African, like any other non-Euro- 
pean music, is founded on melody, European music on harmony ... 
African rhythm springs from the drummer's motions and has far out- 
stripped European rhythm, which does not depend on motion but on 
the ear." Possibly there is something about the American Negro's sway- 
ing of head and body and the irregular balance of the right-hand beat 
against that of the left, which Mr. Johnson says is so essential to the 
production of the "swing" characteristic of the spirituals, that is deriva- 
tive of the habits of the African drummer and dancer dominated by the 
spirit of the drum. If this is so - and it would require a pretty piece of 
research to prove it - we would have between African and American 
Negro music a connection on the plane of socialized motor habit, a far 
deeper and more elusive plane than that of specific cultural patterning. 
It would not be difficult to find analogies. Thus, in the speech of thou- 
sands of New Yorkers, not necessarily themselves Jewish, a sensitive ear 
may readily detect melodic contours that are plainly derivative of some 



Five: Aesthetics 1029 

o^ the cadences jtcciiluii lo ^ ulclish. a laniriiaiic \Nhich ina\ ho iiiicrly 
iinkmuMi to ihc speakers. 

It is a great pleasure to turn to the st)iius lhenisel\cs.Mdn> ol ihcm. 
needless to say, are beautiful. It is hardly necessary in a review of this 
sort to do more than point to the nc^bility o\' reeling nianilesled in such 
songs as "Go down Moses" or "Swing \o\\ sueet chariot" or "Up on 
de mountain." which, simple and austere, is in the reviewer's opinii>n 
perhaps the most wonderful song in the book. Mr. Johnson wtnild prob- 
ably pick out "Go down Moses" as his especial fa\orile and not 
without reason, though its melodic cur\e is of a more obviously accept- 
able nobility than the strangely elusive, long-breathed line of "Up on 
de mountain." Often the nobility of the st>ngs is relie\ed by a delicaleU 
toying spirit, as in the case o\' "ScMnebi>d\'s knockin' at \o' do*" or. 
with more abandon, in "Who'll he a witness for my l.ord'.'" or "l.ilMe 
David play on yo' harp." This spirit ne\er degenerates into the \ ulgariiy 
of jazz. 

The settings, most of which are h\ .1. Rosamond Johnson, are excel- 
lent. In the case of a number o\' the songs, such as "Somebody's 
knockin' at yo' do'," the musician has intrtuiuced just enough counter- 
rhythm in the accompaniment to bring out the latent rh\thmic feeling 
of the song itself. But alwa\s with discretion. The settings hold close to 
the essential rhythmic qualit\ o\^ the songs and are done with a fine, 
musicianly tact. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in the Jourmil of Anurldin I'lflk-Lorc 41. 
172-179 (1928). Reprinted by permission of the American l-olklore So- 
ciety. 



Review of Clarence Day, 
Thoughts without Words 

Clarence Day, Thoughts without Words. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 
1928. 

"There are times," says Mr. Day, "when a man doesn't care to talk 
or write to his friends." There are indeed. Words, those chronic errand- 
boys of man, suddenly go leaden to the ear. We would have more light- 
ning-footed messengers, capture some of that complex dispatch which 
does business for us in eye leaping to eye, in the involuntary slip of foot 
or hand, in all that by-play of intercourse which so often takes the 
words out of the mouth of speech, turning it into a belated, and not 
even an accurate, echo of its own intention. There is no doubt that our 
world of thought is a heavily verbal one. But why should the tracks of 
words, running in endless mazes from ear to ear, be endlessly rehearsed? 

Words, and therefore thoughts, have been lit up in the forge of society 
with the kaleidoscopic comment of revealing motion and poise. This 
comment is far from self-explanatory in a purely physical sense, it is all 
of words and more - unspoken. The gesture accompanying "Mark my 
words" (see page 74 of Mr. Day's book) is a significant message only, 
or primarily, in so far as it can be glossed as "Mark my words"; it is 
probably not a "universal" token in that vaster world in which words 
are not even a nuisance, for there they are not at all. In this world, 
which is naturally that of the artist pure and simple, belong pictures of 
an honest-to-goodness cat, however abbreviated as to line, or of a 
woman holding a child, or, for that matter, a checkerboard design. Such 
pictures can, of course, be verbified too, and the less purely aesthetic 
one's reaction, the greater will be the tendency to so verbify, but they do 
not require the explicit comment of formulated, word-bound thought. 

Mr. Day's excellent fooling in line does require just such comment, 
and he is far from spoofing us when he remarks, "Some writers may 
object that they cannot draw. Neither can I. But it isn't works of art that 
we're speaking of; it's merely picture-writing." Only, to be complete, Mr. 
Day might have added, "picture-writing in a style that clamors for a 



Five: Aesthetics 1031 

verbal inlcrprclatic^n." Aiul. on scci'.iul llu>iii;lii. this is probably what 
he means when he reiiuirks. "All thai aii\ one needs is a legible style. " 
The title o\' the book is ciMiect, theret\)re, only if it is uiulersloiKl lo 
mean *To-be-\erbali/ed lluuights. uiih only siieh aetual vsords \oueh- 
safed as one needs lo gel on to the draftsman's notions." Irequenlly 
the inlerprclation of word and drawing is eomplele and satisfying, as in 
■'I he resurrection of Mrs. Fili/.a Bainwiek Kelly, as imagined h> herself 
(p. 79). Such a picture may be said lo be \sord-saturaled. If there vserc 
no such word as "resurrection" in our language, with all that it connotes 
of American theosophic speculation against the background of a de- 
cayed meeting-house ideology the picture umild be all. Just as elabo- 
rately buzzing with verbal overtones is the colloquy of Original Sm and 
Mr. Chitt (p. 81). Again, the title "Chivalry" (p. 54) uould barel\ make 
the picture come otT, but the uhimsical rh\me. 

To rescue a damsel in disiicss 

Is an absolute rule o\' the old noblesse, 

quickens our whimsical zest, shoves the poor fellow in the scoulike 
rowboat a perceptible couple of paces toward the quarter of the horizon 
sacred to Don Quixote, and, all in all, lets us in for quite a bit of social 
philosophy. Now and then Mr. Day's imaginatii^i advances to purely 
evocative line, as in the benign, circumambient m\siicism of " The I gg" 
(p. 6), or in the rollicking, sliding abandon o\' the men's legs in "'nie 
Spinster" (p. 18), or in the \\orld-t>ld concern in the l)r>ad's father's 
face (p. 28). 

This book of diawings and rh\mes is an excellent thing to ha\e and 
to pore over at odd moments of an evening. There is much philosophy 
in it. but the philosophy is not too maliciously keen. Humor healthiK 
outv\eighs wit. The sort o\' sophisticate for whom I'lunmhts niihoui 
H'onis is intended is not of the enraged l>pe; rather is he o\ that uisel> 
tolerant category which, one knows, is destined to come to fruition in 
our country when the exotic, analytical sa\ager\ o\ the current l:uro- 
pean intelligence shall have nibbled all along the roundness of our origi- 
nal bonhommie sufficiently to carve it into a shape not unuv>rth> o\\i 
true culture. Mr. Day guarantees for us that our .America. i>\er which 
so many intelligent New Yorkers shake their heads, is neither decaying 
nor exploding. It is good to know there are people as sane as he. 



I tliloiKil Nolo 
Originally published in .\tu }()ik llcntlil Trihunc Books 4. xii (I92S). 



Review of Knut Hamsun, 
The Women at the Pump 

Knut Hamsun, 77?^ Women at the Pump. Translated from the Norwe- 
gian by Arthur G. Chater. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. 

This novel lacks the strong grain and the intensity of Growth of the 
Soul but it displays once more Hamsun's superb mastery of Norwegian 
small-town types and daily talk. The plot is not so much a plot as a 
skillful accumulation of episodes, or hints for a number of plots, built 
around sundry firmly conceived, though by no means elaborately 
drawn, characters. In the earlier portion of the book the episodic tech- 
nique, accentuated by Hamsun's chatty, sardonic whimsicality, lulls the 
reader into a certain undemandingness as to structure. But as the story 
rounds to its own particular kind of climax, at once casual and wilful, 
the reader is suddenly confronted by a well planned, retrospective pic- 
ture in which the loosely assembled story is in the background, while 
the characters are the subject. 

Hamsun is nothing if not a portraitist. But his people - and herein 
lies his peculiar excellence - are not so much insets in life as autono- 
mous existences which by their secret and necessary hostilities create 
life, with its deceptive smoothness of texture., This means that Hamsun, 
for all his apparent realism, is at heart an anti-cultural romantic, ever 
creating the light in which he sees his people out of the heat of his own 
none-too-carefully-masked loves and angers. It is strange and refreshing 
in this day to experience a writer who is romantic and dogged, stub- 
born, not romantic and soft. If to be "modern" is to be yielding but 
callous, Hamsun is no modern. 



Editorial Note 

Originally published in The New Republic 56, 335 (1928). 

Knut Hamsun was the pseudonym of Knut Pedersen (1859-1952), 
Norwegian novelist, poet, and dramatist; he was awarded the Nobel 
Prize for Literature in 1920. 



References, Sections loin aiul I i\c 

Arnold. Matthew 

1868 Ciihiiiv and .Uuiithv ( 'amhruk'o ( .unhi uIih- I'iii\.-rMi\ F'ross 
[1%3]. 
Benedict. Ruth 

1934 Anthropology and the Abnormal. Jinunul t>t (icmrul I'wiliol'-'^ '" 
(2), 59-82. hi Mead (cd.) 1959. 262-283. 
Boas, Franz 

1911 (ed.) Hiuulhook of Anicricun Indian lAiHi^uiii^iy J'uri J. liiiic.iu ^-i 
American Ethnology, Bulletin 40. Washington, D. C: Smithsonian 
Institution. 

1925 What Is a Race. Nation 3 1 OS, 89 -91. 
Dewey, John 

1916 American Education and Culture, flic \c\\ Rcpuhlii (Jul\ h, 
215-217. 

Lowell, Amy 

1914 Vers Libre and Metrical Prose. Poetry 3, 213-220. 

1918 The Rhythms of Free Verse. The Dial 64. 51 56 
Lowie, Robert H. 

1965 (ed.) Letters from Edwaril Sapir to Ro/urt If I.nwii- Berkcic). Pri- 
vately published. 
Masters, Edgar Lee 

1917 Mars Has Descended. Poetry 10. 88-92. 
Mead, Margaret 

1959 (ed.) An Anthropoloi^ist at ll'ork. The l\ritini;\ of Ruth H •• '■ ■ 
Boston: Houghton Miftlin. 
Monroe, Harriet 

1917 What May War Do'.' Poetrv 10. 142 145. 
Radin, Paul 

1924 Monotheism Amonj^ Primitive Peoples. Being the Seventh ".\rthur 
Davis Memorial Lecture." delivered before the Jewish Historical 
Society at Univeristy College on Sunday. April 22. 1924 London: 
George Allen and Unwin. 
Sapir, Edward 

1912 Review of Carl Stumpl, Die Anldn\ie der \tiisik Current Anthmpo- 
logieal Literature 1, 275-282. 

1913 Methods and Principles. Review o( l-rich \on Hornbostci. ( tnr em 
akustisehes Kriteriuni Jitr Kulturzusammenh.iw, Cun.nt Anihwpo- 
logieal Literature 2, 69-72. 



1034 /// Culture 

1916a Culture in the Melting Pot. The Nation Supplement (December 21), 
1-2. 

1916b Percy Grainger and Primitive Music. American Anthropologist 18, 
592-597. 

1917a The Twilight of Rhyme. The Dial 63, 98-100. 

1917b A Frigid Introduction to Strauss. Review of Henry T. Finck, Rich- 
ard Strauss, the Man and His Works. The Dial 62, 584-586. 

1917c Psychoanalysis as a Pathfinder. Review of Oskar Pfister, The Psy- 
choanalytic Method. The Dial 63, 267-269. 

191 7d Realism in Prose Fiction. The Dial 62, 503-506. 

1920a The Poetry Prize Contest. The Canadian Magazine 54, 349-352. 

1920b The Heuristic Value of Rhyme. Queen's Quarterly 27, 309-312. 

1921a Writing as History and as Style. Review of W. A. Mason, A History 
of the Art of Writing. The Freeman 4, 68 — 69. 

1921b The Musical Foundations of Verse. Journal of English and Germanic 
Philology 20, 2U-22^. 

1921c Maupassant and Anatole France. The Canadian Magazine 57, 
199-202. 

192 Id Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. New York: Har- 
court, Brace. 

1921e Gerard Hopkins. Review of Robert Bridges, ed.. Poems of Gerard 
Manley Hopkins. Poetry 18, 330-336. 

1921 f The Ends of Man. Review of J. M. Tyler, The New Stone Age in 
Northern Europe; Stewart Paton, Human Behavior; E. G. Conklin, 
The Direction of Human Evolution. The Nation 113, 237-238. 

1922a Mr. Masters' Later Work. Review of Edgar Lee Masters, 77?^ Open 
Sea. The Freeman 5, 333-334. 

1922b An Orthodox Psychology. Review of R. S. Woodworth, Psychology: 
A Study of Mental Life. The Freeman 5, 619. 

1922c A Peep at the Hindu Spirit. Review of More Jataka Tales, retold by 
Ellen C. Babbitt. The Freeman 5, 404. 

1922d Poems of Experience. Review of Edwin Arlington Robinson, Col- 
lected Poems. The Freeman 5, 141-142. 

1923 Mr. Housman's Last Poems. Review of A. E. Housman, Last 
Poems. The Dial 75, 188-191. 

1924a Racial Superiority. The Menorah Journal 10, 200-212. 

1924b Culture, Genuine and Spurious. American Journal of Sociology 29, 
401-429. 

1924c The Grammarian and His Language. American Mercury 1, 
149-155. 

1925a Let Race Alone. The Nation. 120, 211-213. 

1925b Sound Patterns in Language. Language I, 37-51. 

1925c Is Monotheism Jewish? Review of Radin 1924. The Menorah Jour- 
nal 11, 524-527. 



Five: Acs the lies 10.^5 

1925d Emily Dickinson, a Pnnuii\c Kc\icu ol Ilu Complete Foeim of 
Emily Dickinson, and M I) Bianchi. The Life ami I a'I ten of Entity 

Dickinson. Poetry 2(\ 97 105. 

1926 Rcvievs o\' Ludwii: Ix'wisohn. Israel Pie Menoruh Journal 12. 
214 2IS. 

1927 The Unconsciinis Paticmniu ol IkhaMor in Socici\ in Dummcr. 
F.St., ccl.. Ilic Lnconsci(nis I Svmposmm i\iu >'. .rli 
pp. 114 142. 

1928 Observations on the Sex Prohleni in America. American Journal oj 
Psychiatry 8, 519-534. 

1929a Franz Boas. Review of 1 ran/ Woas. .inthropoloi^v and Modern Life. 
The New Repiihlic 57. 278-279. 

1929h The Skepticism o\' BertraiKJ Russell. Re\ieu oi Bciii.uui Kiisscll. 
Sceptical Essays. The Sew Rcpiihlii 57. 196 

19.^0 Our Business Ci\ili/ation. Rc\ ie\s of James Iruslou .Adams. Our 
Business Civilization: Some Aspects of American Culture. Current 
History 32, 426-428. 

1932 Cultural Anthropology and Ps\chiatr\. Journal of Ahnormal and 
Social Psychology 27.^229 - 242. 

1938 Review ofThurman W. .Arnold. The folklore of C apitaiism. Psychi- 
atry 1. 145-147. 
Stocking, George W.. Jr. 

1968 Race, Culture, and Evolution. New ^ork: Iree Press. 
Tocqueville, Alexis de 

1835- Democracy in America. Trans, llenrs Reeve. New ^ork: Knopf 

1840 [1945]. 
Weber. Ma.x 

1905 The Protestant Ethic ami the Spirit of Capitalism. Trans. Talcol Par- 
sons. New York: Scribners [195S|. 



ikIcx 



Abstraction, sec Methodology 

Abyssinia, 502 

Acculturation. 200, 246-48, 328, 5%. 

612-13 
Adams, James Truslow, 955-57 
Adams, Leonie. 1023-25 
Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 991-97 
Adaptation, 399, 473, 496. 534, 573, 603. 

613, 627 (see Individual adjustment) 
Adler, Alfred, 316-17, 555, 622, 677 
Aesthetics, 370, 426, 430, 460-61, 482- 

83, 493, 494-95, 524, 532, 534, 537- 

42, 552, 557. 588. 607, 627-28. 643 (see 

Art; Music; Literature) 
Africa. 503, 665 
African languages, 516 
Agriculture. 499-500, 502 
Aiken, Conrad. 964 
Alaska, 508 

Aldington, Richard. 931-32 
Alexander, Franz. 345, 592. 601 
Algonquian(s). 141 
Algonquin languages. 516 
Allport. Floyd, 147, 150 
Allport. Gordon. 148. 201. 204 06. 234. 

243 
Alphabet. 360. 487. 500-02. 508 (see Lan- 
guage - orthography) 
Altaic culture area, 506 
Ambivalence. 225-26 
America. 477. 483. 494, 500, 602 

- society and culture, 423. 431. 467. 

469, 482, 494-95, 535. 541. 542. 547. 

575, 587, 594, 597-98, 602, 608, 612. 

637. 663 
American culture, critique of. 44. 57, 60 

61. 178. 240. 269, 691. 709 10 
American F:thnological Society, 507 
American family. 299 
American Negro. 95 



American PNychiatne /\j»siKialii 

147. 173 
Amerindians. 477. 595 
Analytical. 161 
Anatom\ ol mind. 701 
Anderson. John f I"4 ITS IRl K4 19? 

201. 244 
Anderson, William. 20 1, 204 -U6 
Anecdote. 87 
AngU>-.Saxons. 540 

peoples and culture. 476. 477 
Angyal. Andras. 410. 651 
Animism. 140 
Anlhropogeographcrs. 48 1 
Anthropology, autonomy of. 27 
Anthropology. 391 92, 394-%, 433-37. 

441-46, 448. 450-57. 459, 461-63. 

468-475, 490-91. 497-99. 502-506. 

512, 525, 545-48, 554-57. 580. 587. 

593. 615. 623. 639. 655. 657. 658. 660, 

662 

Boasian . 39.S 97 

- compared with economics and lin- 
guistics. 6 1 5 

- compared \Mth hision. (discipline 
oO, 608 

- compared with psychiatry. 588-W, 
615,621.624.626 

- compared with psychoU'cy 
585 

(see Archaeology; Ethnography; Flh- 

nology ) 
. term i>f. 92 
Arab culture. W>6 
Arapaho. 1 14. 444 
Arbitrariness of classification. 34 
Arnold. Thurman W.. 858-62 
Art and artists. 47. 66-67. 401. 429 ~.M). 

4.VV 448. 450. 453. 467. 484. 493-95. 

511. 528. 537. 539. 568. 587. 628. 633 



1038 



Index 



Navajo sand-paintings, 426 

Northwest Coast art, 521-22, 539 

(sec Aesthetics) 
As-if personality, 73 
As-if psychology, 399. 591-603, 605-06, 

612-13 
Asia, 506, 511 
Athabascans, 104 
Athens, society and culture, 47, 68, 71, 

424, 597 
Attitude, 54. 64, 100, 140, 158 
Austen, Jane, 549 
Austen, Mary, 991-97 
Australia, aboriginal, 101, 104, 107, 114, 

256, 491, 499, 595-96 
Austria, 622 
Archaic, 285 
Arrow of experience, 370 

Babbitt, Ellen C, 976-77 

Bach. Johann Sebastian, 29, 537, 903 

Background, 61, 63, 94, 95, 126, 129, 173, 

180. 191, 216, 372 
Baker, N. D., 335 
Bantu, 114 

Barbeau, C. Marius, 913, 1009 
Beaglehole, Ernest, 252-53, 402, 406, 

408, 507, 650, 672 
Beaglehole, Pearl, 403 
Beck, Walter, 403, 408, 637, 649, 652 
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 538, 543, 576, 

901,902,904 
Behaviour, religious, 133 
Behaviourism, 156, 711-12, 719, 720 
Belief, 137, 140 
Bella Coola, 180, 539 
Benedict, Ruth, 21, 25, 44, 73, 343, 363- 

64. 367, 396, 399, 420, 507, 527, 591, 

593, 595, 600-01, 677 
Bennett, Arnold, 883 
Bentley, Madison, 327, 329-30 
Bergson, Henri, 577, 583 
Berlioz, Hector, 900 



Bias, 91, 313 

Bible, 508 

Bingham, 331 

Biography, 443, 444, 620, 656, 657 

Biology, 439, 441-42, 445, 447. 452-53, 
457, 461, 468, 470, 486, 510, 580, 628 
Biological needs, 482, 484, 494, 590 
Discipline of -, 446, 448, 504, 549, 659 

— of individual organism, 398, 433, 
436, 441, 482, 547-49, 552, 587, 618, 
627, 646, 655 

- vs. history, 472, 623 
Bjorkman, Edwin, 984-86 
Bismarck, Otto von, 568 
Blackfoot, 139, 150, 186, 505 
Blake, Francis, 327 

Blake, William, 575, 989, 1020 

Blatz, William A., 174, 189 

Blossoming (of culture), 61 

Blumer, Herbert, 174, 194, 343. 601 

Blurred distinctions, 77 

Boas, Franz, 21, 26, 30, 40, 99, 195, 255, 

280, 395-96, 487, 504, 508, 625, 677, 

816, 845-46 

Boas school 30, 32, 691 

Boasians, conflict among, 27 
Bodenheim, Maxwell, 962, 963-64 
Borderland fields, 328 
Borrowing, cultural, 432-33, 503 (see 

Diffusion) 
Bott, Edward, 201 

Bowman, Isaiah, 201, 235-237, 328 
Brahms, Johannes, 900 
Brill, Abraham Arden, 507 
British Association for the Advancement 

of Science, 529 
British Columbia Indians, 425—26 
Britten, Marion Hale, 327 
Brownell, Baker, 133 
Bull-roarer, 499 

Burgess, Ernest W., 147, 150, 174-75, 192 
Burns, Robert, 922 
Burrow, Trigant. 601 



Index 



1039 



Bushmen. 47 

HuiIlt. Saimid. 577. 756-59 

Cabell. James Btaneh, 991 97 

Cadmus. 500 

Caesar, Julius, 620 

Calilornia. 488. 508. 524. 641. 651 

tribes. 104. 247 
California. I'niversily of (Berkeley), 402 
Calvin, John, 564 
Canadian Indians, 477 
Cannan. Gilbert, 759 
Capitalism. 484 
Captain of industry, 9 
Caribbean area, 402 
Carlson, Fred A., 487 
Carlyle, Thomas, 438, 608 
Carnegie, Andrew, 564 
Casamajor, Louis, 174, 175 
Cattaraugus, 508 
Cattell, J. MeLean. 327, 689 
Caueasus. 473 
Celtic peoples, 471 

Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 788, 816 
Chapin, Stuart, 201 
Chase. Stuart. 133 
Chauncey, Johnny John. 447, 499 
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. 430. 878 
Chesterton, Gilbert K., 909-12. 978 
Cheyenne, 505 
Chicago, city, 511, 602, 624 
Chicago, University of, 389, 392-93, 403. 

404. 406-08, 413. 437, 527, 529. 530, 

628, 629 

- sociology, 100 
Children/childhood, 435, 447, 454, 472. 

476. 495, 501, 511, 536, 548, 551-53, 

555, 558-60, 567-70, 577, 595, 609- 

10. 619, 621-23, 638, 651. 658 
China, 403, 588, 598, 602 

Chinese society and culture. 85-88. 

226, 256, 284, 304-05, 413, 423. 424. 



431. 432. 506. 5W. 543. 594. 5%. 619. 

673 

lanyu.i^'c, "^41 1, (>(l^ 
Chinese language, IM 
Chilambar. Theodore P. 403. 408. 581 
Chi>pin. J-rederie, K9K 
Christianity (see Religii>n) 
Chukchi. 606. 619 

Civilization. 28-29. 32. 40. 48. 57. 324 
Class, social. 270-71. 422-28. 438. 483. 

519. 571. 648 (sec SiKial slalus. StKiai 

dilTcrcnliation) 
Classification, principles of. 295 
Classification, unconscious "''''' 
Claudel. Paul. 876. 877 
Clifford. Charles. 487 
Clinical psychology. 316 
Cobb, Stanley. 327 
Cohen, Morris R. 99 
Cole, Fay-Cooper, 133 
Coleridge. Samuel Taylor "^'^^ s77 -7w 

989 
Cologne cathedral. 512. 537 
Columbia rni\ersii\. 392 
Columbus, Christopher. 500 
Commodities. 368 
Community. 178. 260-61. 469. 594 
Comox. 529 
Complex whole. 40 
Complexity. 30. 44. 110. 112. 237 
Conceptual science. 37-38 
Condensation ssmbolism. 319. 321-22 
Confession. 183 
C^mfigurativc psychology. 81 
Confucian literature. 508. 540 
Congo. 47S 

Conklin. I Juin Grant. 761-64 
Conrad. Ji)seph. 577. 883. 967 
Consciousness. 519. 534-36. 541. 547- 

52. 573. 597. 610. 627. 634. 636. 643- 

45 

Sclf-consciousness. 429, W>(» 

(sec Unconscious) 



1040 



Index 



Consensus, 356-357 

Consumer, 273 

Control, 59, 60 

Controlling idea, 340 

Convention, 257 

Con\ergence, cultural, 698 

Cooke Smith, Anne, 402, 406, 408 

Cooley, Charles Horton, 677 

Cowan. William. 411 

Crazy Dog Society, 180, 182 

Creativity. 61. 63 

Cree, 402 

Creeks, 104 

Critical anthropology, 104, 219 

Criticism, spirit of, 65 

Crookshank. Francis Graham, 799 — 800 

Crystallography, 39 

Culture 
Acquisition of -, 609-10 (see Social- 
ization) 

Analysis of -, 307, 348 
-. American, 750-52, 797, 818-32, 
835-44, 855-57, 858-62, 863-66, 999 

- areas, 504-06 

- as program, 587, 689 

- as world of thought, 547 

Causes of -, 394-95, 456-57, 467-88, 

489,611,620,627 

Change in -, 396, 430, 445, 453, 468, 

471, 474, 500, 503-04, 516, 531-43, 

608-09, 611, 620, 628, 655, 661 (see 

Development; Progress; History) 

Complex, culture, 158 

Conceptions of -, 21, 24, 43-71, 77, 

199, 256, 391-94, 396, 398-99, 401 -, 

421-39, 441-66, 468, 484, 489, 490, 

496, 524-27, 546-47 (as world of 

thought), 588, 594, 600, 608, 610, 620, 

628, 646, 655-57, 659-60, 689, 693 

Construction of -, 31 

Creative possibilities of -, 492, 494, 

496-97, 586 

Cultural anthropology, 21-22 



Cultural pattern, language as, 24 
Cultural relativism, 44, 363, 365 
Cultural sentiments, 569 
Cultural theory, culturalists, 484, 585, 
615-17 

'Culture and personality', field of, 25, 
209, 363-64, 410, 618, 655-59 
Definitions of -, 397, 421-39, 441, 
451-57, 465, 484, 489-90, 496, 525, 
547, 610, 620, 628, 647, 659-60 
Emergence of -, 400, 591, 610, 616- 
17, 628, 639 
Giveness of -, 310 
Growth of-, 309 

Homogeneity and internal variation 
in -, 397, 398, 421-28. 455, 469, 473, 
476, 532, 545-47, 586, 603-04, 611, 
617, 639-40, 643-44 
Inertia/conservatism of — , 477, 481, 
498,499, 512, 515-16 
Integration of -, 594 
Locus of -, 278, 281-82, 286, 288-89, 
304, 397, 442, 445, 452, 455-56, 461, 
547, 608, 628, 639, 643-44, 649, 657 
Opportunity for expression in -, 586, 
598, 603, 606, 613, 615, 628, 647, 660 
Symbol, culture as, 26, 690 
Totality of -, 443, 525, 545, 547, 557, 
586, 594, 610, 617 

Traits, elements, inventories of -, 26, 
393, 395, 399, 410, 432-33, 467, 471, 
478, 480, 489-510, 525, 526, 587, 592, 
610 

Typology of -, 399, 594-98, 657 
(see Patterns and configurations of cul- 
ture) 

Cumulative tradition, 75 

Custom, 255-63, 265, 267 

Cycle of fashion, 268 

D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 578 
Dai, Bingham, 403, 408, 619, 649-51 
Dakota, 247 
- Farmers, 500 



///(/(' V 



1041 



Darnell, Rcuna. 403, 410 

Da now. Clarence. 133, 392 

i:)aruin. Charles. 29. 700 

Da\idson, John. 924 

Day. Clarence. 1030 31 

Dehiissy. Claude. 430. 43S. 46.S, S69. 901. 

906. 937, 939 
Defoe. Daniel. 578 
De la Mare, Walter, 933 -.34 
Dell. Kloyd. 991-97 
Descartes. Rene. 563 
Delachnienl. 65 
Development 

- of individual. 439. 536. 555. 609 jo. 
619 (see Socialization: Childhood) 

- of culture, see C\ilture change 
Developmental c\cles in culture. 532, 
537-42 

Dewey, John. 563. 577. 677 

DeWitt. M. E., 853-54 

Dickason. Z.Clark, 147, 150 

Dickinson. Emily, 1001-06, 1020 

Dickens, Charles, 564 

Dictionary. 456. 465 

DilTusion, 106-107, 233. 497-500, 598 

(see Borrowing; Culture traits) 
Disharmony, 259 
Dixon. Roland B.. 564, 582, 776 
Dobu, 593 

Dollard. John. 393. 651 
Dominianian. Leon. 197 
Doohttlc, Hilda, 941,998-99 
Dorsey, George Amos, 444, 692. 719 
Dorsey, J. Owen, 353-55, 358 
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 430 
Doukhobors, 250 
Draper, George, 147, 150 
Dream/vision, 90. 142 
Dreams, 587, 595 
Drift, cultural, 36, 78, 80-81, 83, 265, 762. 

955 
Drift, linguistic. 2.34 
Duke University, 402 



Dummer, I-thcl. 155,677 

Dunlap, Knight. 720-21 

Durkheini. I-milc. 138 

Dutch. 6M 65 

Dsk. Waller. 174. 40."^ 

D\namic psychology. 277. 303. 317 

Eastman, Max. 887-89 

Economics. .394. 410. 423-25. 427. 460 - 

6 1 , 477, 48 1 84. 493 - 94. 496. 520. 564. 

588, 614 

Coinage, 509-10 

l-conomic behaviour. 77 

Economic determinism. 394, 481 -84. 

494, 508 

Economic man'. 367-68. 371. 410. 

460-61. 482. 614 
Education. 403. 431. 436. 490. 493. 502. 

536, 542. 553. 563. 627. 630 (sec Social- 
ization) 

-, American, "t^J '^'> 
Efllciency. 54 

Eggan, Fred. 401. 4(>4, 4U8. 527 
Ego, 274 
Egypt, 501 

Einstein. Albert. 534. 576 
Elizabethan drama. 78. 212. 219 
Elliott. Thomas .Steams. 962 
Emeneau. Murray. 27 
Emotion. 3.39. 422, 423. 427. 429-30. 438. 

4.S0. 456. 472. 473, 498. 552-53. 567. 

610, 617, 619. 649 

and race. 473 - 74 (sec Tcmpcramcnl ) 

- and symbolism, 454, 4.^6, 631-34, 

.363. 643-46, 649. 653 

Atlachmeni to group. 470. 473. 486 

Emotional development. 555. 559. 609 

f-eelini! and thinking. 571 

leelmg t>pc o\ pcrMinaliiy. 568-74. 

577. 579-80. 597. 602 

Eeeling vs, -.571. 583 

InvestmenI in activtiy/situalion J"' 

570. 591 



1042 



Index 



Norms of emotional expression, 592 

Reaction to cultural pattern, 546, 588, 

591 

Transference, 552, 555 
Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, 255, 265, 

293. 313, 349 
England, society and culture, 413, 422- 

24, 476, 495, 501, 507, 538, 571, 597- 

98. 602, 612. 664. 666 
English 

- language, 441, 454-55, 476, 513- 
14, 516-17, 528, 540-41, 546, 627 

- race', 471 

- plural, 162-163 
Energy, 58 
Enrichment, 239 

Environment, 470, 474, 475, 477-81, 483, 
488, 532-33, 559, 562, 564, 570, 580, 
606, 613, 617, 624-25, 627, 638, 651 

- as symbol, 634, 638 

Cultural -, 569, 586, 590, 603, 613 
Cultural definition of -, 478, 617 
Eskimo. 58. 88-89, 104, 179-80, 183, 317 

- language, 428, 469, 626, 627 

- society and culture, 478-79, 487, 
493, 501, 596, 597, 606, 619 

Ethics, 447-48, 464 

Ethnicity, 770-75 

Ethnocentrism, 449, 454 (see Methodolo- 
gy) 

Ethnography, 394, 410, 433, 485, 545, 
590-91, 620 (see Anthropology; Eth- 
nology; Methodology) 

Ethnology, 26, 432, 437, 449, 451, 455, 
459, 478, 496, 497, 502, 512, 539, 
543 564, 619-20, 647 
English school of -, 504 
Kulturkreis school of -, 527 
(see Anthropology; Ethnography) 

Etiquette. 240, 323, 393, 434, 367, 493, 
586, 606, 647-49 

Etruscans, 533 

Eugenics, 28, 470, 761, 800-02, 817 



Europe, 506, 541, 564, 573, 588, 590, 596, 
612. 622, 623 (see Western Society) 

Everyday (behaviour), 244 

Evolution, 37, 92, 470, 504, 531, 623, 700 

Evolution, critique of, 101-05, 338 

Evolution, social, 28, 100, 338 

Evolution, social vs. organic, 28, 30 

Exotic, purveyor of, 24, 173, 256, 309, 349, 
364 

Exotica, 44, 67 

Experimental irresolvability, 37 

Experimentation, 119, 175, 711 

Extravert, extra version, 85—91, 559-65, 
579, 582, 594-97, 649, 714-18 (see In- 
trovert; Personality) 

Family relations and kinship, 105-06, 
424, 425, 429, 438, 474, 493, 499, 503, 
535, 555-56, 559, 586, 609, 622-23, 
632, 636, 659 

Fancy, 236, 239, 259, 696 

Fantasy, 271, 360, 380, 690 

Fashion, 258, 265-74 

Faukner, William, 379 

Feeling, 163, 222 

Feeling-tone, 47 

Ferrero, Leo, 403, 408, 543, 599, 601, 636 

Fetishism, 14 

Fichte, Arthur Davison, 981 

Fiction, 695 

Field, Henry E., 174, 194 

Field ethnographies, 692 

Fieldwork, 186-188, 277 

Finck, Henry T., 898-901 

Finland, 410, 636 

Finot, Jean, 802 

Fire-making, 472, 532-33 

Flugel, John Carl, 677 

Folk cultures, 296 

Folk songs, French Canadian, 913-14, 
1009-17 

Folk tales, 339 

Food and cooking, 429, 452, 478, 479-80, 
489, 493, 494, 510, 602, 635, 648-49 



Index 



1043 



Ford. Guy S.. 201, 2.V\ 243 

Ford, HcniA, ^(A 

Form 

and tiinciion. 477. 491 93. 507. 512. 

518-19, 528. 541. 626-27 

Cultural -. 45. 109 11. 159. 394. 4.^6. 

476. 479. 483-84. 49]. 510, 524-25, 

538-41. 547. 565. 581. 586. 588-89. 

592. 627-28 

Development o\^ -. 537-38, 628 

ideal -.429.433 

Linguistic -. 396. 454. 476, 493, 513- 

19, 524-25, 528. 540-41. 626-27 

- of behavior. 399. 429. 435-36. 444, 
462, 489, 491. 510. 515. 547, 649 

- of symbols, 398, 644 
Formalism, 53, 84 
Formality, 429, 589 
Foster, Michael K.. 411 
Foy, Karl, 489 

France, Anatole, 577, 892, 945-49 
France, society and culture, 403. 413. 429. 

430,438, 598, 602,612, 664 
Franklin and Marshall College 402 
Frank. Lawrence. 147. 149. 174-75. 187- 

88. 200-03. 206-08. 227. 229-30. 235 
Frazer, Sir James. 354. 504. 508 
French culture. 51-52, 84-85 
French language, 515-16, 541 
Freud. Sigmund. 152. 281. 292-93. 313 

316-17, 346, 400-01, 409, 420, 275 

555-56, 559-60, 566-67, 578-79 

581, 584, 621, 628-29, 677, 690. 692 

695-98, 699-701. 705-06. 708-09 

715, 725-26 
Friday Night Club. 404. 408. 420. 61 S 19. 

662, 673 
Frost, Robert, 923, 935-37, 944. 980 
Function. 50. 58. 74, 100. 109 11. 159. 

396. 475. 491-97. .^01. 507. 512. 518 

19, 525, 570.646,661 

- as cultural purpose. 494-97 

- as meaning in language, 513, 528 



Jung's functional types*. 565-79. 597 

- of language. 626-27 
Physiological . 435.452.621 
Psychological . 4''<. 4"»''. V)8. 579. 
582,624-25.627 

F-'unctit)nalism. 435, 4(!l. \bZ. MA\ 4yO. 
507. 525. 543. 691 

Gagnon, Hrnesi, 1 010 

Gale. Zona. 528.991-97 

Galton. Irancis, 28 

Gandhi. Mohandas, 597 

Geist . 428-30. 438 

Geneva, 403 

Genius, incidence of, 29 

Genius, of a nation. 46. 50-51 

Genuine culture. 43-71 

Geography. 394-95, 442. 447. 466. 47.1. 

477, 479-81, 499. 502-06. 6L1. 645. 

652 (see Fn\ironmenl) 
Geological Sur\c\ .>l" ( ■.mnii 689 
Geology. 38 
German 

- language. 515 17 

- philosophers and scholars. 428. 622 

- society and culture. 403. 410. 428. 
431,4.36.4.38. 622.652 

Gesell, Arnold. 174-175. 192. 244 

Gestalt psychology. 155. 69 ^ 

Gesture, 169, 435 -.36, 445. 453. 487. 510. 

580, 600. 6.34-35. 637. 644. 647. 651 
Ghost Dance. 606 
Ciicrlichs. Wilhclni. 41' 
Ciilman. C h.irloltc Perkins. \}> 
Glueck. Sheldon. \A^. 150 
Gobineau. Arthur dc. 788. 802. 816 
Goethe. Joh.mn Wolfgang von. 431, 978. 

899 
("mlden bough. 375 
(M>iden\seiscr. Alexander. 27, 31-32, 99, 

195. 677. 691 
Gorky. Maxim. 4.U) 
Gothic language. 540 



1044 



Index 



Gourmont, Remy de, 433, 438 
Gounod. Charles Francois, 903 
Graebner, Fritz, 489, 498, 500, 505, 507, 

509-10, 527 
Grainger. Percy. 869-75, 899 
Grammar, 307 
Grant, Madison, 816 
Greek 

- ideal. 428 

- language. 428. 540. 626 

- society and culture. 480, 500, 532, 
535, 537, 548-49, 597 

Green Corn Festival, 447 
Grieg, Edvard Hagerup, 899 
Grimm. Jakob. 503 
Group. 293-301 
Group psychology, 300 
Groves, E. R., 148 

Habit, 70, 80, 218. 257-58, 328 

Habitual behaviour. 91 

Haida. 103, 106-07, 109, 111, 114-15, 

147, 179, 539 
Haile, Father Berard, 26 
Hallowell, A. Irving, 27, 327, 332-33. 410 
Halvorsen. Henry, 403, 408, 649, 650 
Hamilton, G. V., 92, 94-95 
Hamsun, Knut, 1032 
Hankins, Frank H., 99, 816-17 
Hanover Conferences, 73, 199, 396, 404, 

409-10, 581, 582,601,662 
Harcourt, Alfred, 23, 389, 390, 403, 410, 

413 
Harris, Zellig, 390, 410 
Hart, Bernhard, 227-28, 677 
Harte. Bret. 582 

Harvard University, 402, 403, 564 
Hauptmann, Gerhart, 876 
Haviland, C. Floyd, 175 
Hawkins. Sir John. 664 
Hayden, Joseph, 537 
Hays, Carlton, 201, 241-43, 335 
H. D. (see Doolittle, Hilda) 



Healy, William. 148-149, 174, 184 

Heine, Heinrich, 922 

Hem lines, 269 

Heredity, 433, 436, 441, 452, 454, 506, 552, 

559, 580, 581, 607 
Hergesheimer, Joseph, 991—97 
Herrick, Robert, 991-97 
Herskovits, Melville, 133, 246 
Herzog, Elizabeth, 390, 401, 410 
Herzog, George, 390 
Hill, Dorothy, 403 
Hill, Willard W., 402, 403, 406. 407 
Hincks. C. M., 201-02, 235 
Hindu culture, 85-88, 317, 413, 431, 432, 

565, 569, 596, 602 (see India) 
Hindu yogi, 158 
Historical 

- conditioning and determinism, 435- 
36, 448, 450, 472-75, 477, 481, 483, 
491, 593, 608, 623, 636, 661 

- development and change, 432, 487, 
500, 536, 547, 618 

- inference, 22 

- particularism, 30 

- reconstruction and interpretation, 
459, 498, 500-03, 509-10, 547, 615 

- spirit, 65 
History, 29, 32, 38 

- and sense of time, 431, 476, 531, 587, 
596 

- as contingency, 428, 458, 498, 500- 
01 

- as continuity, 433-34, 436, 441-43, 
451,453-54, 501, 541 

- as cultural strata, 505, 510 

- as particulars, 432, 442, 452, 458 

- as scholarly pursuit, 565, 574, 608. 
628 

- ignored by psychologists, 475 
(see Culture, change in) 

Hitler, Adolf, 483 
Hoijer, Harry, 27 
Holt, Edwin B., 600, 619, 677 



Index 



l(U5 



Homer, 548 

Homosexuality. ^)5 

Hopi. 106, 114, 139. 1S7. 247 

Hopkins, Gerard Man ley, ^)5() 54 

Horace, 422, 428 

Horn hostel, Erich M. von. 869, 1027 -2K 

Hottentots. 429, 467. 626, 665 

Houseman. AllVed I-dward. 9S7 90 

Hugo, N'ictor, 430 

Human nature, 483. 4S4. 614. 621. (03 

Humanistic lraditii>n. 44 45 

Humor, 511, 587, 602, 607-08 

Hunch, 86. 91. 96. 151 

Hungar\. 410 

Hunter, W. S., 332 

Huntington, Charles ClilTord, 487 

Huntington, Ellsworth. 477, 487 

Hupa. 141. 524 

Hysteria, 178-179 

Ibsen, Henrik. 576, 582 

Iconoclasm, 62 

Illusion. 77. 161.212, 725 

Imaginary [cultural] groups, 338 

Immigrants. 611-13 

Impact of culture on personality. 21. 200. 

203, 206, 248, 255 
Impersonal, 279, 282 
India. 402. 403. 431-32. 488. 506. .^96 (see 

Hindu culture) 

tribes of -, 107 
Indigenous language labels, 22 
Individual. 394, 621, 655 

- adjustment, 394, 399-400, 431, 434. 
445, 452, 472, 483, 496, 533, 535. 545- 
46, 553-55, 559, 561 -63, 566-71, 573, 
578, 586, 592-94. 603-20. 623, 658 

- and relationships with i>thcr individ- 
uals, 391, 400, 434, 444. 446. 461 62. 
493, 535, 546-47, 588, 590-91, 593, 
604-05, 615-17, 628, 642-43, 647. 
657, 660 

- and society, 397, 400, 433 34, 445. 
469, 472. 493, 535, 545, 547, 550-51. 



553-55. 557. 580. 585. 601. 603-20. 
636. 642-43. 645. 647. 652. 659. 662 

- and symb<ilism. 4(M), 471. 636. 642 
43 (sec .Symlxilism, personal) 

- as bearer of culture. 444, 475, 487, 
545. 547. 551. 594.616. 657 

- as starting pomi lor culuir.il an.iK- 
sis, sec MclhiKlology 

- as world o\ thought. 547. (>16. h\o 

- crcativitiy. ^"" -i"i J^^ J""^ -i"^ 
588. 658 

Cultural basis ol individual s expcncnoc. 
586-89. 636 

- development. 493. 532 («ice Fduca- 
tion; Socialization) 

Inlluence on culture. 4(i|. 4,^.*. 4^J, 4iO, 

487. 593. WKv 08. 611. 628 

Psychology of -. 3%. 398. 445. 447, 

525. 531, .^92. 593. «)3-20. 628. 655 

(see Personality; Psychology) 
Individualism 

Cultural -.467,476.480. 54« 

Methodological -. 410. 660. 662 (sec 

Psychology as 'cause' of culture) 
Individuality. 228 
liido-Euro|x*an. 501. 517 
Industrialism. 4^. ^55. 270 
Inertia. 57, 82 
Informants. 392. 458. 545 
Innosation. 267 
Instinct. 704-07 

Institute of Ju\enile Research. 1 7^ 
Intelligence. 4^1 ^' ^'^ 4^»v <, ■ 

h07 
Intensification. 58 
Interaction, (see Sixial interaciuMii 
Interaction.il psychoh^cv. 2"''' 
Inter-corrclation. 24"^ 
Interdisciplinary. 14". INi. l"^^ v.. i v 

200, 255. 278. }(>! 
Interest. 2^>4. 298. 304-06. 324 
Internationalism. 68 69. 113. 241. 243 
Interpersonal relations. 33. 41. 343-44. 

351. 400. 591. 616-17. 660 (sec Soaal 



1046 



Index 



interaction; Individual and relations 

with other individuals) 
Interpretation, multiple, 296. 309, 343, 346 
Interpretive anthropology, 108 
Intimacy, 181-182, 188-189 
lntrospecti\e/introspection, 711 — 12, 720 
Introvert. Introversion. 85-91, 399, 432, 

438, 559-67, 578-80, 582, 594-96, 

649 (see Extravert; Personality), 714— 

18 
Intuition, 161, 164, 191, 216, 274, 511, 513, 

573-77, 579, 597, 695 
Iowa farmers, 512 
Irish, 500, 508 
Irony, 48, 376-77 
Iroquoian society and culture, 104, 111, 

114, 508 
Ishikawa, Michiji, 410 
Islam (see Religion) 
Italy. 210, 403, 505, 538, 588, 636, 664 

Jacob, Gary F., 920-21 

JafTe, Abram, 601 

James, Henry, 577 

James, William, 577 

Japan. 410, 483, 503, 506, 588, 594, 598 

Javanese, 664 

JefTers, Robinson, 377, 430 

Jensen, Johannes V., 767-68 

Jerusalem Center for Anthropological 

Studies, 403 
Jesperson, Otto, 197 
Jews, society and culture (see Religion - 

Judaism) 
Johnson, Alvin, 255 
Johnson, J. Rosamond, 1029 
Johnson, James Weldon, 1026-29 
Johnson, Samuel, 569 
Jones, Rufus M., 134 
Joyce, James, 550 
Judaism, American, 753-55, 804, 808- 

09, 810-15 (see Religion) 
Judd. Charles H., 202 



Judgment, 123-24, 210, 222, 355, 374 

Jung, Carl Gustav, 74, 152, 160, 313, 316- 
17, 398-99, 409, 417, 420, 555, 559- 
84, 594, 597, 598, 600, 601, 603-04, 
622, 677, 691, 692. 699-700. 714-18 

Jutes, 471 

Kantor. Jacob Robert. 677 

Kardiner, Abrahm, 25 

Keats, John, 575, 577-78 

Kemal, Ali, 403, 408, 618 

Keesing, Felix, 247 

Kelley, Truman L., 92, 95, 174-175, 191 

Kempf, Edward J., 148 

Keppell, Frederick R, 201-02 

Key terms, 327 

Kilmer, Joyce, 950 

Kilpatrick, William, 99 

Kinship (see Family) 
— terminology, 424 

Kipling, Rudyard, 564, 578 

Klamath, 503, 508 

Kline, George M., 148, 175 

Klineberg, Otto, 252-53 

Kluckhohn, Clyde, 40 

Knight, Frank H., 148-49 

Koerner, Konrad, 411 

Koffka, Kurt, 155, 398, 527, 677, 693 

Koran, 508 

Korea, 506 

Kreisler, Fritz, 467 

Kretschmer, Ernst, 473-74, 487, 677, 816 

Kretschmer, Otto, 315 

Kroeber, Alfred, 26-41, 45, 195, 255, 265, 
303, 327, 329, 397, 399, 410, 467, 660, 
662, 677, 689 

Krzyzanowski, Jan, 410, 651 

Kultur, 43 

Kulturkreis school, 527 

Kwakiutl, 110. 114, 593,625 

LaBarre, Weston, 402, 404, 406, 408, 411, 

662, 672 
Labels, value attached of, 47 



InJi'X 



1047 



Lagerlof. Sclma, 'm 

Lamh. Cliarlcs. 799 

Lang. Andrew. SOT 

Language, as exemplar. 2()S 

Language, origin oW }2\ 

Language. 441. 450. 468. 476. 4S7, 493. 

498, 5L^-19, 524-26. 528, 53 L 540- 

4L 563. 578, 626-27, 638-41 

Accent in -, 441, 612. 645 

Acquisition of -. 476, 640 

- and emotion. 454-55, 569, 626, 
644-45 

- and nationalism. 750-51 

- as example of culture, 396. 448. 
454-56. 491. 498. 503. 512 19, 546. 
660 

- as symbolic system, 398, 456, 479, 
487, 491, 513, 518-19, 580, 626, 633, 
639-41, 632-45 

- as verbalization of thought, 562, 569, 
576, 596 

Configuration/pattern in -, 454-56, 
513-19, 526. 528, 596, 626-27, 645 
Continuity and change in -.441. 463. 
476, 487, 498, 500, 503. 515-16. 543. 
615.617, 627-28. 640 
Conversation, 396, 400, 434, 511, 617. 
620, 637 (see Social interaction) 
Function of -, 626-27 

Grammar, 396, 456, 469, 476, 513-19. 

524-25, 528, 540. 615, 526-27 

Lexicon, 396. 421. 434, 443-44, 450, 

454, 465, 490-92, 499, 500, 504, 511, 

513-14, 519-20, 526-29, 562, 580, 

637, 639-40 

No correlation with race, 468 

Othography, 477, 511, 596, 602. M3 

45. 652 (see Alphabet) 

"Psyche' of -,476 

Simplification in -, 476 

Social evaluation of usage, 446, 636 

Sound system in -, 434, 356, 458. 5L3, 

516-18. 528. 580. 596. 614-15. 636 

37,640-41,643-45 



Speech errors. 615 

Siandardi/iition of - . 429. 626 

Style m . 580 

Translation. 491. 5 LI 

Uniqueness of . 162. 689 

Variation in .487. 503. 580, 637. 641. 

652 

(see Linguistics; Literature, Meaning; 

Symbolism) 
Language psychologN. llv 
Lasswell. Harold I).. 24. 173-75. 177-79. 

185. 188. 353. 36" 
Latin language. 428. m4. ^>i. Mu. >>/. 

569 
1 aiklci. Harry. 228 
1 aufer. Ikrlht>ld. 6M. 672 
Law. sociological. 39 40 
Lawrence. David Herbert. 950 
Le Bon. Guslave. 28 
Levy, David. 175. 186. 192 
Levy-Bruhl. Lucien. 196. 400-OL 417. 

420. 624-26. 628-30 
Lewis. Wyndham. 826. 848 
Lewisohn. Ludwig, 810 15 
Liberia (Ciweabo). 208. 219-20 
1 ihrary of Congress. 403 
Life history. 32. 273-74. IS*;, 190 
Linguistic behaviour. 128 
Linguistic Institute (Ann .-Vrbor). 389 
[linguistic relati\it>. 208 
Linguistic usage, 258 
Linguistics. 396. 403. 455. 460. 512. 580- 

81, 614-15, 626-27. 860-61 (sec Lan- 
guage) 
Linton. Ralph. 202, 246 
1 ipperl. Julius. 499. 50S 
l.is/t. I ran/. 900 
Lileralncss, 696 
Literary suggestiveness. M9 
Literature, 422 25. 427. 441. 4H4. 540- 

41, 5M, 568. 577-78. 598. 630 

Chinese .423 

r.nglish and other huropcan '^•'^ 

548.563 64.575-78 



1048 



Index 



Nootka -, 503 

Persian -, 568. 573 

Tibetan -.541 

Tradition of -.541 

Written vs. unwritten -, 427 

(see Poetry) 
Lloyd, George David, 577 
Loealism. 68 

London School of Economics, 402 
Longshoremen, language of, 209 
Lowell, Amy, 930, 932, 959 
Lowes, John L., 578 
Lowie, Robert H., 26, 30, 45, 99, 196, 255, 

677 
Lowrey, Lawson G.. 175, 181 
Luria, 205 
Luther, Martin. 564 
Lynd. Robert, 202, 242, 251 

MacDowell, Edward Alexander, 869, 900 

Machen, Arthur, 583 

Madagascar, 665 

Maeterlinck, Count Maurice, 876, 877 

Magic, 624 

Maki. Niilo, 410, 636, 641 

Maladjustment, 57, 191, 204 

Malinowski, Bronislaw, 196, 328, 400-01, 

420, 439. 492, 555-56, 619, 626-27, 

629-30, 846 
Mana, 141 
Mandelbaum, David, 21, 23, 27, 278, 344, 

390, 402, 404, 406-08, 410, 411, 420, 

630, 662, 672, 675, 678 
Mann, Albert R.. 202 
Marjolin, Robert, 403, 408, 635-36, 649- 

51,661 
Marlowe, Christopher, 539 
Mars, observer from, 168 
Masefield, John, 922-25, 967-69, 970 
Mask, 211 

Mason, William A.. 955-57 
Master ideas, 280 
Masters, Edgar Lee, 876, 899, 959, 971- 

73, 974 



Mastery, 59, 66-67 

Mathematics, 114 

Matthew, gospel of, 90 

Matthews, Shailer, 92 

Maupassant, Guy de, 892, 918-19, 945- 

59 
May, Mark, 148. 150, 175, 201, 206, 327- 

328, 330, 601 
Mayo, Elton, 92, 94, 148. 601 
McClenaghan, Jean Victoria, 689 
McConnell, Francsi J., 133 
McDougall, William, 677 
McGovern. William M. 133 
Mead, George Herbert, 343 
Mead, Margaret, 25, 27, 73, 343, 363-64, 

399. 403, 420, 439, 507, 527-28, 591, 

600, 601, 603-04, 620, 691, 846 
Meaning, 397-98, 423, 434-36, 450, 452, 

456, 462, 485, 489, 494. 502, 505, 509- 

21, 525-26, 528, 532, 541, 547, 561, 

585-86, 592, 609, 628, 657 

- as anthropologist's problem, 450, 
485, 502, 615, 656 

- as subjective orientation, 547, 565 
Emotion -, 546, 551, 657 

- for groups of specific individuals, 
462, 615 

- in language, 396, 456, 513-19, 526, 
528, 580, 630, 643-46, 652 

- of symbols, 398, 642, 509, 526, 547, 
631-54,660 

Personal/private -, 462, 538, 561, 568, 

608, 610-11, 615, 636,638 

Social/cultural -, 423, 434-37, 452, 

485, 489, 494, 608, 610-11, 615, 636, 

638, 657 
Measures (quantitative), 431-32, 517 (see 

Statistics) 
Mecklin, John Moffatt, 485, 488 
Medical Society (Yale), 404, 408, 543, 662 
Medicine bundle, 142 
Mediterranean, 435, 473, 563 
Mekeel, Scudder, 247, 253 



Imlc V 



1049 



Melancsiii, 141 

Memory. 426, 43S, 45^). 466. 472. 54S. 553. 
617 

Mencken. llenr\ Lewis, 860 

Mendel, Gregor. 29 

Menioniini. 247 

Menial lunetioning. 114 

Menial tieallli. 367 

Mental life. 711 

Meiriani. Charles, 73, 237 

Mesopotamia. 480, 500 

Metaphor. 40. 55. 61. 80. S4. 160. 309. 319. 
344 

Methodology, 74-75. 391. 394, 397, 400. 
441-46, 449-51, 491-93, 526-27, 
545, 564, 593-95, 604, 647, 656 
Abstraction, 397, 443-46, 451, 454 55. 
457-58, 467, 475, 485, 490, 545, 550. 
561, 576. 610. 617. 656 
Case studies of child development. 610 
Comparison. 458. 467-70. 484. 491. 

493, 499. 517. 538. 541. 566. 595 
Classifications. 458. 491-93, 504. 507. 
510, 516, 559-60, 565-67, 586 
Confusing individual with group, 591- 
93, 602, 622 

Description. 493. 509. 590-91. 604 
Discovering pattern. 443-44. 450. 451. 
454-55, 491, 511, 519. 524-25, 529 
Importance o\' context. 444. 509-12, 
514, 517, 520, 526-27, 589-91. 600. 
638 (see Symbolism - placement oO 
Indexes o[' traits and patterns. 395. 
489-91. 493. 509 (see Culture traits) 
Influence of observer's preconceptions/ 
personality. 449, 451-52. 459. 467, 482, 

494. 499. 512, 525, 601, 611, 656-59 
Interpreting individuals' behavior. 588. 
593 (see lndi\idiial; Personality) 
Methodological individualism. 367. 410, 
660. 662 (see Psychology as cause' o\ 
culture) 

Psychological tests, 471. 565 



Relation with informanljk. 458, 545 
Situational analysis. 399-400. 455. 456. 

462. 564 ^^^ ^M. 616 17. 621. 638. 

647. 652 

Starting from specific inJividuab. 399- 

4(K). 461. 493. 545-48. 604. 610. 615. 

639. 656. 657 

Tcx'hnical fallacy. 656 

Using native tcrm.s. 396. 450. 455. 491 - 

92.499. 503. 519 

(sec Statistics) 
Meyer. Adolph. 200. 202. 207. 230-34. 

243. 327 
Milton. John. 598 
Minnesota, accent. 441 
Minnesota. University oU 402 
Missourans. 671 
Mixed type. 38 
Modern life. 144 
Modernism. 62 
Mohave, S8. 595 
Mold, culture as, 51 
Money, role oi. 2 1 6 
Monotheism. 804 09 
Montague. W illiam P, 99 
Mores. 257 
Morgan. \V., 253 
Moullon. Harold G.. 92. 95 
Mo/ari, Wolfgang Amadcus. 903. 904 
Muhammad. 606. 619 
Murphy, Gardiner. 201. :'"^ ^"^ 
Murra>, Gilbert. 766. 97 ^ 
Muria\. II. A., 327 
Museums. 65. 504. 643 
.Music, musicians. 438. 447. 467-68, 486. 

493. 495. 498. 528, 537-38, 553. 568. 

576, 589. 607. 628. 645. 663. 666-71 

Chinese . 538 

I-uropcan -. 430. 438, 537-38. 576 

Jazz. 503, 537-38 

Na\aio chants. 426-27 

Nootka songs. 516. 519-22 

- . representative, 902-08 



1050 



Index 



Mussolini. Benito, 483, 607 
Mythology, 425, 502-04, 508, 521, 596- 
97, 601 

Nagas of Assam, 108 

Napoleon, 35, 550, 605 

Nass River Indians, 529 

Nation, nationality, 119, 470, 505, 564, 

569, 632, 644 
National character, 73 
National Museum (Washington), 403 
National Research Council, 303, 327, 618 
Nationality, 109 

Nationalism, 50-51, 68-69, 241, 432 
Natural man, 55 
Natural selection, 28 
Natural sciences, 443, 449, 457-58, 462, 

485, 531, 534, 541, 576, 596, 610, 625, 

646 
Navajo, 189, 204, 245, 247, 250, 253 

- language, 515-16 

- society and culture, 402, 426-27, 
469, 471, 508, 593, 597 

Nazis, rise of, 355 

Neanderthal Man, 480, 532 

Neapolitan culture, 435 

Needs, emotional and aesthetic, 44 

Negroes, 474, 503, 628 

Neurosis, 451, 588, 606, 607, 613, 621-30, 

644 
New countries, 61 
New Haven, 502, 575, 597 
New Zealand, 402 
Newman, Stanley, 132, 403, 406-07, 410, 

527, 543, 583, 640 
Needs, economic, 170 
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 64, 563 
Nile Valley, 480 
Nootka, 112, 114, 141 

- language, 515-16 

- society and culture, 409, 416, 419, 
499, 503, 516, 519-25, 527, 529 

Nordic peoples, 486, 501 



Normal curve (statistics), 472 

Normality, 210, 284-85, 365, 372 

Normans, 471, 500 

Norms for behavior, 399, 421, 456, 487, 
591-93, 602 

North America, 503, 505 

Indians of -, 401, 413, 444, 474, 487, 
503, 505, 508, 535, 587 
Languages of -, 403, 409, 515, 528 

Northwest Coast Indians, society and cul- 
ture, 243, 408, 425, 426, 438, 481, 504- 
505, 524, 529, 539, 606 (see KwakiutI; 
Nootka; etc.) 

Norway, 403 

Nuclear family, 1 05 

Nuclear personality, 223 

Objective validity, 46 
Objective world, fixity of, 35 
Objectivity, 185, 203, 266, 306-07, 309, 

330, 337, 355 
Observation, 160 
Oedipus complex, 555 — 56, 622 
Ogbum, William Fielding, 32, 45, 99, 255, 

601, 677 
Ogden, Charles Kay, 409, 629, 630, 859 
Ogham, 501 
O'Higgins, 991-97 
Ojibwa, 135, 142 
Oklahoma Indians, 472 
Oldham, Joseph Houldsworth, 802-03 
Omaha, 103-04, 110, 114 
Organic, culture as, 64 
Organization, complexity of, 157 
Orientation, psychological, 63, 73-97 
Ottawa, Sapir Centenary Conference, 

410-11 
Outhwaite, Leonard, 92, 95, 148, 153 
Oxford accent, 441 

Pacifism, 45 
Palestine, 403 



Index 



I05I 



Palestrina. Giovanni Picrliiiiii da. 537 

F^irk. Robert. 147 4M 

Park, Willard. 40.^. 410. 664-65, 672 

Participation (-observation), 238. 305 

Partridge, G. E.. 14S 

Palon, Stewart, 761 63 

Patterns and configurations oi culture. 
83-84, 394, 396-98, 401, 427, 431-33. 
442-45, 447, 449-57, 465, 475-76. 
478-79, 489-97, 500, 503. 506, 509- 
30, 538-39, 542, 551, 558. 574, 585, 
590, 593-95, 597, 600. 610. 624-25, 
627-28, 631. 642-43. 645. 656-57, 
660 
Accomodation as -, 612 

- are like grammar, 524-25 (see Lan- 
guage - configuration in) 

- as psychological problem. 475-76, 
509, 551, 608,660 

Classifications of -, 490-93 
Definition of -, 454-, 496, 512, 520, 
524, 585 

Discovering -, 396. 442-45, 454. 491 - 
92, 518-19, 524-25, 529, 545 

- influence personality, 560, 573. 588- 
92, 605-20, 628 

- must be felt, 545-46 

Native terms and -, 396, 450. 454-55. 

491-92, 503, 511, 519 

Pattern of feeling, 112 

Psychological roots of -. 606 

Rebellion as -. 588 

Systematized by individual. 610 

(see Topati ) 
Perry, William James, 488 
Persia, 568, 573, 582, 664 
Persona. 151, 212, 215 
Personality, 123, 149-53, 173-74, 194. 

208-27, 291-92, 313-17, 364, 433. 

528. 545-58. 585-86, 602, 658-62. 

712 

- and symbolism. 588, 600. 615 16. 
631. 639. 649, 657 



'As-if personality' as numiatuc stan- 
dard. 399. 591-603. 605 (sec A$-if 

psychology) 

- as model or metaphor for culture. 
398-99 

- as organi/iiiion. 399. 550-51. 555, 
558-59. 561. 570. 600. 609. 615 
Concept of -. 3%. 398-99. 433. 548- 
54. 585. 600. 620. 655 
ConserNalism in. 585 ^f>. mm 

( ultural analysis lakes precedence 
over . 589. 593. 602. 604. 659 
Cultural eircct on -. 475. 483. 495-96. 
586. 592. 603-20. 655-62 

- difTercnces (within group), 474. 560, 
561. 587. 603-05. 613. 627. 649 
Genesis/formation of -. 550. 552-56. 
559-61. 579. 5S6. 600. 604. 609-10. 
656-58.661 

- inlluenccs culture. 400. 476. 498. 611. 
628 

- needs cultural definilion. 475 
Patterns/configurations in . 550-54, 
556. 561. 585. 594 

Typology of -. 64. 399. 485. 554-55. 

559-84, 5^4. 603 (M. 6h). 657-58, 

71S 
Peyote cull. 4()2. 606 
Pfister. Oskar. 401. 409. 629. 699-703 
Phoenicians, 500-01 
Physical tyjx-s. 473-74 
Physiology, 434-36. 442. 445. 449. 452. 

479. 491. 495. 548. 549. 622. 628. 655 

Physiology of mmd. 701 
Piagct, Jean. 692. 722 24 
Pierce. I redcnck. 708-10 
Plains Indians. 103. 107. III. 137-39. 179. 

IS1-K3. 205. 245. 247. .328. 481. 499. 

503 05. 525. 597.606.619 
Plant. James S.. 175. ISS 
Plasticity. 104. IKS 
Plateau culture area. 488 
I'oe. l.dgar Allen. 951 



1052 



Index 



Poetry, 528, 538-39, 541, 563, 573, 575, 
636, 639, 643, 646 (see Literature) 
-, American, 958-61, 999, 1001-06, 
1007-08, 1019 

Poland. 410 

Political Science, 460, 505 

Politics, 422-23, 441-42, 447, 483, 511, 
564, 624, 642, 646, 657 

Polynesia, 250, 252, 488, 648 

Polysynthesis, 164 

Population, 469 

Portugal. 664. 665 

Potlatch, 438, 499, 520-22, 525, 529 

Pragmatism, 111 

Pre-cultural child, 195, 315 

Preston. Richard. 402, 410 

Preuss, Konrad Theodore, 806 

Primitive, 58-59, 92 

Primitive folklore, 690 

•Primitive mentality', 400, 621-30 

Primitive sociology, 100-03 

Private symbolism, 223-24, 290-92, 324 

Progress, 56, 468, 531-39, 541-42 

Projection, 100, 113 

Proust, Marcel, 554 

Psychiatry, 398-400, 404, 455, 459, 582, 
592-93, 601, 615, 621-22, 629, 631 

- as approach to personality, 551-54, 
585, 621 

- as source of theories in anthropol- 
ogy, 554-58, 593 

- ignores social/cultural factors, 588, 
622-23 

Psychoanalysis, 462, 551-52, 554-55, 
559, 561, 579, 621-24, 626, 633, 642- 
44, 657-58 

Psychoanalysts as pathologists, 621-22 

Psychological 

- 'authority', 566, 573 

- needs, 476-77, 479, 614 
Reality, 119 

- significance (see Meaning) 

- tests, 565 



Psychology, 38 

- as 'cause' of culture, 394, 461, 471- 
72, 475-77, 484, 498, 660, 662 

- as perspective on culture, 501, 505, 
510, 516, 585-602, 652, 655, 660 
Behaviorist -, 449, 464-65, 556 
Conception of -, 396, 398, 401, 582, 
594 

'Cultural psychology', 592 

Developmental -, 435, 609-10 (see 

Children; Socialization) 

Discipline of -, 389, 391, 398, 400-01, 

445-46, 448-49, 457, 460-62, 475, 

477, 546, 565, 578, 581, 585, 622, 647, 

655-56, 659, 660 

Freudian, 945-49, 953 

Generalizations about -, 422, 497, 593 

Gestalt -, 398, 510-11, 527-28, 552, 

556, 600 

Individual vs. group -, 472, 591-98, 

605, 655 

Quasi-psychology, 461, 462 

Social -, 461-62, 475, 556, 591, 608, 

622, 641-43,655-56 

(see Personality; Temperament) 
Psychology of culture, 25, 33, 363 
Psychology and psychiatry, 23, 689 
Psychosis, 471, 474, 562, 623, 629, 636 
Public intellectual, 15, 335 
Pueblo Indians, society and culture, 104, 

110, 114, 139, 179, 205, 284, 438, 472, 

505, 597, 606 
Pukapuka, 402 
Puritans, 495, 507, 619 

Qualitative, 173 

Race, 335-37, 394-95, 435, 468-75, 484, 
487, 536, 559-60, 587, 618, 623, 628, 
774-83, 784-86, 787-92, 794-97 
White -,473-74 

Racial difference, 97 

Racial inheritance, 283 



Index 



1053 



Racial unconscious, 284 

Racism, scientific, 787-92. 799-800 

RadclilTc-Brown. Alfred Reginald. 4^>. 

461 62. 466. 491. 507. 582 
Radical uiiil: of .iiithr^^pology. 363 
Radin, Paul, 27, 32, 196, 804-09 
Randomness, 75. 87 
Rank. Olto. 555 
Ray. Verne, 27, 403. 629 
React i\o s\stem, 314 
Realism, literary. 876-79, 880-85 
Realistic ps\cliologist. 227 
Reconciliation. 66 

Relativity, cultural. 452. 482. 525. 537. 657 
Religion, 133- 145. 402. 441. 444. 448-50, 

455, 458, 461, 489, 491, 493, 495-96, 

539. 602. 606. 610. 624. 629. 642. 646 

Amerind -. 595 

- and cultural comparison. 491 

- and function. 475, 495-96 

- as explanation. 470 
Christianity. 449. 464. 482. 498, 500, 
502. 503. 531. 536. 563. 564 
Christian Science. 562. 606. 619 
Church and religious institutions. 422 
23. 444. 448. 482 

- compared with magic and science. 
625-26, 630 

Ghost Dance. 606 

Islam. 506. 541. 606 

Judaism. 413. 424-25. 427. 4S3. 5()S 

Mystics. 572 

Navajo -.426-27.469. 593 

Peyote cult, 402, 606 

Puritan -, 495 

.Scriptures, 424, 508, 564 

Spirituality. 430. 432. 531. 534-37 

Totemism. 519. 629-30. 632 

(see Hindu culture; Ritual) 
Renaissance. 65. 270 
Redlleld. Robert. 200-201. 204, 248 
Referential symbolism. 319. 321 -322 
Relativilv. 216. .347 



Religion. 725 

Khcims. 535 

Rhsme. piKlic, ^fso *'<•. vju Ji.yi^ ^. 

930 44 
Rhythm. 127. 158 
Rh>lhmic conrigur.ilu»n. IH 
Rice. Stuart A.. 2>i2. 67h 
Richards. Ivor Armstrong. 409. 629. 630. 

859 
Rickert. Hemrich. 2.39. 429. 4 '.>■'' 

Ritual. 58. 1.39. 143. 311 

- and ceremonialism. 426. 471. 303. 
516, 519-20. 521-24. 5V'' '■'' "" 
609, 629 -.30. 635. 645 

-. neurotic, 588. 644 
Rivers. W. H. R.. 678. 6^>l. ^(M o" 
Robespierre. Maximilien I ranci»is M I 

de. 5M 
RiUiinson. Ldum .•\rlingti>n. 923-25, 

958-61. 9W. 978. 1007 08 
Rockefeller loundaiion. 24-25. 200. 207 

- Institute. 392 

- Seminar. .392 93. 405. 408. 410. 543. 
581. 599. 601. 618. 649. 650. 652. 659. 
661 

Roheim. Ge/a. 491. 507 

Rolland. Romain, 876. 882. 891 -97. 899 

Roman Catholic church. II. 138 

- culture. 620 

Roosevelt. F'ranklin IXMano. 483 
Rouse. IrMU. 402.406. 408 
Rouse. Mary Mikami. 402. 406. 408 
Rousseau. Jean-Jacques. 212. 548. 588 
Ruggles. Arthur. 148-149. 175 
Ruml. Beardsley. 201-202. 235. 2.^8-241 
Russell. Bertrand. 133. 847-49. 850-52 
Russia. societN and culture. 41.3. 430. 4.38. 
6M 

.Saintsbur\. Cieorge. 982 
Salmon-spearing. 55 
Samoa. 603. 822. 846 
Sandburg. Carl. 936 37. 952 
.Sanskrit. 540. 596 



1054 



Index 



Sapir, Jean McClenaghan, 22, 390. 410 

Sapir. Philip, 410 

Saskatchewan, 477 

Saxons. 471 

Scale (of treatment). 288 

Scandinavia. 245 

Schlesinger, Arthur M., 202, 241. 243 

Schilder. Paul. 601 

Schiller. Ferdinand Canning Scott, 850- 
51 

Schmidt, Father Wilhelm, 489, 510, 527, 
807 

Schizophrenia, 173, 182, 189 

Schubert, Franz Peter, 899 

Schumann, Robert, 901 

Science (see Natural science; Social sci- 
ence) 

Schnitzler, Arthur, 878 

Scriabine, Alexander, 939 

Secret societies, 110 

Selection, principles of, 36—37 

Self-consciousness, 31, 36-37, 95 

Seligman. R. A., 255 

Selznick, Philip S., 363-65, 409-10, 599, 
601 

Semitic, 501 

Sentiment, 133 

Setzler, Frank M., 403, 406-07, 527, 543 

Shakespeare, William, 212-13, 430, 538- 
39, 548, 878, 961, 973 

Shaw, Clifford, 148-50, 181 

Shaw, George Bernard, 577, 877, 906-10 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 575 

Siemens, Hermann, 800-02 

Sierra Leone, 665 

Simpson, Mabel, 1020-22 

Sinaitic, 501 

Sioux, 141, 143, 253, 505, 515 

Siskin, Edgar, 403, 404, 406, 408, 409, 465 

Skepticism, 75 

Skinner, B. F., 465 

Slawson, John S., 175, 184 

Slight, David, 601 



Smith, Allan H., 410 

Smith. Anne M., see Cooke Smith 

Smith, Grafton ElHot, 480, 488 

Social 

- class (see Class) 

- construction, 485 

Definitions of -, 393, 433-34, 442, 
445-49, 464, 620 

- determinism, 35 

- differentiation, 397, 469, 472, 560 
(see Class; Topati ) 

- infection, 356 

- inheritance and tradition, 48, 433, 
441, 452, 453, 468, 487, 553, 562, 568 

- institutions, 525, 562, 612, 623, 637, 
642 

- interaction, 398-400, 434, 461, 462, 
553, 556, 615-17, 620, 628, 642-43 

- organization, 441-42, 447-48, 455, 
458, 553, 572, 614,615 

- psychology, 74, 462, 475, 556, 591, 
608, 622, 641-43,655-56 

- relationships, 400, 453, 535, 554, 
615-17, 623, 628, 641-43, 647, 657 

- roles, 461, 548-50, 553, 587, 620 

- sanctions, 397, 434, 464, 498, 560, 
568, 573, 576, 604, 607, 612, 614, 628, 
647 

- science, 391-92, 394, 448-51, 453, 
457-62, 485, 581, 582, 585, 592, 601, 
610, 613-20, 656, 660, 662 

- status, 495, 503, 508, 519, 520, 548- 
51, 558, 644, 647-48, 659 

Social Science Research Council, 24, 73, 

199, 328,404,409-10, 618, 662 
Socialization, 398, 403, 429, 434, 436, 

442-45, 462, 554, 573, 594, 609-10, 

624, 635-38, 651 
Social sciences, 27, 35, 40, 74-75, 99, 193, 

239, 243, 248, 317, 345 
Social vs. individual behaviour, 156-159 
Society, 25-26, 29 

- as cultural construct, 397, 454, 616, 
636, 652 



liiiUx 



1055 



Concept o\' -. yn. 43.^ U. 442. 445- 
48, 449, 451, 454, 464, 550. 573. 594. 
602. 616. 620. 636, 643. 652 

- in relation to culture. 393. 433 - 34. 
442. 446.448,453-54. 557 

Sociology. 389. 400. 446. 447 -4JS. 4M. 
507. 519. 550-51. 558. 561. 593. 601. 
615. 656. 659. 660 

Solidarity, 74 

Solution, cultural, 55 

Sophistication, 56, 58, 62, 65-66, 112. 
268. 364 

Sound pattern, 166-168 

Sound symbolism, 176 

South America, 503, 664 

Southern Illinois, University of (Carbon- 
dale), 402 

Southwest Indians. 505 

Spain. 664 

Spencer. Herbert, 28, 338 

Spengler, Oswald, 340, 429, 583 

Spier, Leslie, 23, 390, 409-10 

Spirit (of a culture), 83 

Spiritual maladjustments. 44 

Spiritual serenity. 135 

Stages, evolutionary, 48 

Stalin, Josef, 483, 558 

Standpoint, 48, 51, 62, 76, 81-83, 120, 
137, 152, 167, 176. 190. 197, 220, 223, 
240, 257. 289. 297. 323. 328. 360. 711 - 
12 

State, 69-70, 109. 113, 505. 632 

Statistics. 100, 192, 372, 460, 462. 483 
Normal curve in -, 472 

Stevenson. Robert Louis, 578 

Strauss, Richard W., 335, 898-901, 906 

Style. 270 

Subcultures. 472 

- as specialization, 477 
Submerged configuralit>n. 167 
Sullivan. Harry Slack, 24, 41, 73, 132. 

147-48. 150. 173-74. 180-83. 194. 
200, 203, 206-08, 228-30, 252-53. 



277. 293. 327. 331-32. 343. 353. 367. 
398. 400. 592. 60L 610. 616. 690. 693 
Sun Dance. 444. 619. 823 24 

Suix-rnund. 74 

Supororganic. 22. 27-41. 278. 282, 293. 

303. 327. 329. 368. 397. 445, 467. 660. 

662. 690 
Sur\i\als. 260. 379 
Sutherland. Ldwin H.. 201 03. 207 
Swadesh. Morns. 409. 528 
SvMnburne. Algernon Charles. 951 
Symbol/symbolism. 84. 88. 100-01. 114. 

124. 129. 133. 143. 189. 267. 319-24. 

395. 465. 491. 526. 547. 574, 588. 600- 

01. 610. 615-16. 631-54. 656. 692 

- and social psychology. 641-43 

- as basis of economic need. 481-83 
Cultural -.423. 588. 591.600.612.646. 
690. 691 

Culture as symbolic field. 496. 600. 646 
Food -.479.635 

- fills gaps in knowledge. 624-25 
Medium o'l interaction. 397-98. 400. 
462. 469. 496. 590 91. 615-17, 638, 
642. 660 

Objects as -, 489. 490. 522. 634. 637- 
38. 643 (see Technology and malenal 
culture) 

- of dilTcrences between peoples. 470. 
486 

- of feelings. 5"0 

- oi participatuMi. 471. 549. 550. 605. 

- of prestige. 498. 503. 519. 647 

- of progress. 542 

- of psychological prixrcsscs, 594, 602 

- of silualion. 565 

Organization. iniegrainMi. .nui miik\uh. 
,5f _ 39^ 515. 541, ^S^) 01. MO. MV 
633-34.645-46 

Persona I -.551.555 56. 58S. 59 1 . 60 7. 
615 16. 6.M. 636. 642. 651 
Phonetic -.583.639-40 



1056 



Index 



Placement (contexts) of -, 455. 509. 
511, 520, 589-91, 600, 612. 635, 638. 
642, 646, 649, 652 

Psychoanalytic -, 623, 630, 632, 642, 
644 

Signs and -, 634-35. 637-39, 651 
Social -, 400, 435, 436, 464, 553, 605, 
615-16, 632, 634, 636, 638, 642-43, 
649 

Symbolic equivalences, 452, 496, 509, 
513. 518 

Typology of -. 634-46. 700 
Words and speech as -, 443, 454, 562- 
63. 620, 634. 637, 639-41. 643-45. 651, 
652 

(see Language) 
Systems of ideas, 151 

Tagore. Rabindranath. 915—19 

Taste, 265 

Taylor, Lyda Averill 402, 406, 408, 411, 

557, 581, 599,618,619,629 
Taylor, Walter W., 402, 404, 406, 408, 557, 

581, 599, 618, 619, 629, 678 
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich, 430 
Technology and material culture, 397, 

450-51, 458, 465, 469, 472, 478, 480, 

483, 489, 493, 532-34, 537-38, 596, 

624-25 
Teggart, Frederick John, 678 
Telephone girl, 55 
Temperament, 398, 473-75, 486, 602, 603, 

627 
Teutonic tribes, 102 
Theory (by natives), 90 
Thomas, Dorothy S., 175 
Thomas, Edward, 980 
Thomas, William Isaac, 148, 155. 174-75. 

179-180, 183-184, 192, 194, 200, 202, 

204, 244, 248, 255 
Thorndike, L., 327 
Thumwald, Richard, 533, 543 
Thurstone, Louis, 148, 150, 526, 530 



Tibetan, 541, 543 

Time perspective, 22 

Tipi, 481 

Tittle, Ernest P., 134 

Tlingit, 103, 112, 187 

Todas, 101, 284 

Tolstoy, Count Lev Nickolaevich, 52, 64, 

430, 891-92 
Topati ('privilege'), Nootka concept, 419, 

519-25, 527, 529-30 
Totemism, 102, 115, 142 
Tozzer, Alfred M., 201 
Trade, 480, 511 
Tradition, 48, 257 
Training fellowships, 327 
Transfer, 112-113,226 
Transference and transfer of attitudes, 

427, 495-96, 552, 556 
Trobriand Islands. 555, 822, 846 
Trotter, Wilfred, 678 
Tsimshian, 103, 110, 539 
Turgenev, Ivan, 430 
Turkey, 403, 664 
Turkish-Altaic, 506 
Twain, Mark, 985 
Two Crows, 353-59, 487 
Two Guns, Alice. 499, 508 
Tylor, Edward Burnett, 140-41, 196, 354, 

433, 436-38, 441, 445, 464, 678 
Tylor, John M., 760, 762, 764 

Ugro-Finnic, 501 

Unconscious, 101, 115, 119, 129. 145, 216, 
270, 322, 368, 519, 561, 574, 580, 587, 
610, 623, 627, 634, 636, 639-40, 643, 
644, 646, 653, 691, 699, 702. 704-07, 
708 

— as unawareness of pattern, 443, 503, 
519. 528, 546 

(see Conscious) 

— patterning, 155-72 

— symbolism, 125, 269 

— value, 281 



InJi'.x 



1057 



I nilincar csolulion, KM 
Unit of analysis, 329 
United States. 469. 535, 575 
Universes ol' discourse, 373-74 
Untcrmeyer, lewis. 978 
Ute. 402 

Validation. 82. 137-38 

Validity, 207 

N'ahie. 47-48. 58, 83 

\aiiie-behaviour, 206 

\alucs. 34, 37, 57. 63, 89, 1 14. 259 

\eblen. Thorstein. 678 

Vedic poetr\, 508 

Vendryes, J., 197 

Verbalism. 96 

N'ienna. 663 

\inal, Harold, 1018-19 

Visions, 178-79 

Voegelin, Erminie. 402. 408 

Voltaire. Francois M. A., 430, 438 

Vygotsky, 205 

Wagner. Richard, 537-38 

Wallace, Alfred Russell, 29 

Wallis. Wilson. 27. 99 

Warfare. 81-82. 168, 480. 490, 493, 503. 

521. 524, 535-36. 564. 590. 635. 636 
Ward. Lester. 28 
Warner. W. Lloyd. 327. 329-32 
Watson. .lohn M. 150. 465. 475. 715. 719. 

720 
Wealth, manipulation o\\ 170 72 
Webster. Hcnr\ Kilchell. 991 97 
Weinreich. Max. 410 
Wells. Frederick Lyman. 92, 94. 96. 14N 

50. 153. 690 
Wells. H. G.. 764. 978 
West Coast Indians. 170-72. 331. 409. 

425, 438, 529 



Western stKicly. 427, 49 - 
White race. 47.1-74 (sec Rat 
While. William Alanum. !•; 

175.991-97 
Whiting. Beatrice BIylh. 40.1. 406. 40« 
Whitman. Walt. 541. 563. 899. 1002 
Wilde. Oscar. 946 
Wilson. Wotxlrow. 564. 886 
Wirth. Louis, 401.410 
Wissler, Clark. 133. 196. 247. 251. 253. 

255. 327. 491. 502. 507. 525. 678 
Woodlands Indians. 481 
Woodworth. Robert S.. 92. 95-97. 327. 

332.691. 711-13 
Word investigation. 176 
Word inNcntUMi. 218 
Wordswi>rth. William, 563 
World of meanings. 278 
World War L 69-70 
Wright. 228-29 
Wundt. Wilhelm. 477 
Wyatt. I dilh I ranklin. 991-97 

^ale University. 389. .192. 394. 402-08. 

410.437,630.671 
^ana. 164-66. 515. 517-18. 528-29. 

641. 65L 52 
Yiddish language and culture. 753-55 
Yoakum. Charles S.. 92-93 
^okuts. 403 
Young. Kimball. 148-49. 201-03. 205. 

207 
^■uchl. 111 
Nunian. 595 
^urok. 524 

/ii>nism. SI2 15 
/ola. Lmilc. 876 
/uni siK-iety and culture. 139. 465. 471. 

W)l 
/uni-Hopi. 106 



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