THE GOAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY AS A SCIENCE AND DISCIPLINE

Duality is the nature of the universe: Good and Bad, Life and Death, the Known and the Unknown.

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang ("dark—bright") describes how opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

In the Jewish and Christian Bibles, creation came about in two stories. One, deals with the origin of the universe and the Other the origin of humankind. In both we find the emergence of duality. “In the beginning God created heaven and Earth.” God separates from his creation, e.g. “The Earth was without form or void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters (Genesis 1:1-2) Then God separates the elements of his creation, e.g. “And God said , Let there be light and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness (Genesis 1.3-4)

In the Second creation story revolves around the story of Adam and Eve and the creation of humanity. Here GOD creates Adam, the human, in his own image and breathed in the breath of life. God created Adam was to be GOD’s companion. And again he separates himself from his creation, e.g. HE gave Adam dominion over all HIS Earthly creation. Later, GOD discovers that Adam is lonely so He decides to create a human companion for Adam. Again, God separates the elements of his creation, e.g.  He creates Eve. Made from Adam’s rib, HE creates Woman and thus humanity began on its road of duality.

               How has the human organism evolved to become the true master of its dominion? The above examples are part of the universal theme of humanity’s question – “Where did we come from and where are we going?” These are the universal questions and our answers, based on fact and myth, that tell our stories of our evolutionary journey. The goal of Anthropology as a science and discipline is to discover and understand how humanity has adapted to this duality.

The essence of human experience is the discovery and the management of the existential world of light and ideational world of darkness. The existential world is the physical environment in which humankind finds itself. The existential world depends upon one’s own existence as Subject and one’s awareness of humanity’s existence as the Other. The Existential is the constant of a shared life.

The ideational world depends upon of our individual and collective experiences and interpretation of the unknown and unpredictable in our lives shared with others. The ideational world gives structure to what has no known structure. The ideational is based on shared axioms, or assumptions, about the structure, and it provides meaning where there is no “real” understanding.

Humanity has progressed by experiencing the light of existence and challenging the darkness of the unknown waters. The light is life. The darkness is the cause and meaning of our own origin and destination. The existential is to be discovered in what we know through experience. The ideational is to be found in what we believe. It is our attempt to understand and explain the nature of life, birth and death.

The focus of the anthropological perspective is to discover the unity that lies below the duality. And, to understand the basic axioms in which the human universe exists.

Race vs. Racism Anthropological Perspective

 Here early in the 21st Century with all of its rapid technological advances and scientific discoveries, we are encountering the primitive responses of  bigotry, racism, miscegenation, nationalism, and ethnocentrism based on scientifically discredited biological assumption and justification. 

When Charles Darwin published his ORIGIN OF SPECIES in 1859, he upset the prevailing Western European world view about the Biblical creation and mankind's role in it. The first three chapters of the Old Testament's Book of Genesis was, and is, for many even today, the complete answer to who we are and how the world works. Central to the Genesis story is the special place Adam and Eve play in the history of humankind. It relates back to the idea that only the descendents of this couple are God's creation of humanity. And this raises the question of who are those other people, or are they people?  

Anthropology, or proto-anthropology, arose and has struggled with this conflict between the Biblical creation and the scientific discoveries and theories that the Darwinian revolution has caused. Today we can point to hard physical evidence of the role chromosomes and gene sequences in DNA play in the phenotypes of individuals -- human and otherwise. Go on TV and you can find ads for having your DNA analyzed and a profile of your ethnic/genetic heritage drawn for you.

Despite this, or maybe because of it, may people feel threatened by the idea that humankind are all related, all part of the same species. From the most sophisticated intellectual to the most primitive of persons in the Amazon forest or New Guinea highlands, we are all part of the same family of God created, or better, emergent creatures. Anthropologist in the 19th Century struggled with the question and split along a number of lines. There were those who favored a more biblical interpretation of human origins, others who accepted a Darwinian explanation for a biological evolution  but restricted in timing and to particular, especially Northern European, "races." Still others sought differences in a different place -- in the evolution of Culture.

Social Darwinism sought to explain the differences between peoples and populations based on the differential evolution of culture by different 'race' groups. For Anthropology, this division was most prominent in the formation of the American Anthropological Association where physical anthropology and cultural anthropology competed intellectually over the basic question of "nature" vs "nurture". 

Based on the statistical studies of Francis Galton in 1883. Galton, ironically was a cousin of Charles Darwin. The gross physical differences (phenotypes) that could be observed in different populations were assumed to represented  different levels of intellectual evolution. Therefore,one could postulate that differences in cultural development as evidence for their evolutionary and biological position in the human species. Some physical anthropology argued that humans, as animals, evolved in a similar way to all species and could be bred in the same way other domesticated animals are bred. Arising out this was a theory of eugenics. 

On the other hand, cultural anthropologists would argue that cultural differences arose from different historical and environmental challenges that different human populations faced and adapted to overtime. History, expressed as cultural differences, was more important in explaining human variation than the inheritance of biological differences This culturally relative position was argued by Franz Boas and his students.

The eugenics movement led to the formation of the Galton Society. The role of Madison Grant in promoting a racial based philosophy is found in his writings such as The Passing of the Great Race  which Hitler called his Bible.  A number of physical anthropologist joined this group in the early days of the 20th Century. The movement appeared to have died within anthropology in the 1930's and a viable  scientific idea by the end of WWII.  In many respects, it was and has become one of anthropology's great mistakes. 

Today, with modern medicine, genetic engineering, boutique babies, commercial DNA services, the alienation and tribalism in our politics here in the US and around the world, some are suggesting that by seizing political power is the way toward "racial" purity. These groups if they achieve their political goals, can and will use those technologies to achieve their eugenic objectives. Modern science is giving extremists the false hope that by simply seizing political apparatus they may further their eugenic goals  with the new technologies. 

Will anthropologists stand up against such an ideology? Can a strong valid anthropological argument be made that separates the difference between "race" as a  dangerous cultural belief system and "race" as a false biological concept?

Does Robert Lowie's observation hold when the biological constant becomes a cultural variable?

 Since biological change occurs slowly and cultural changes occur in every generation, it is futile to try to explain the fleeting phenomena of culture by a racial constant. We can often explain them—in terms of contact with other peoples, of individual genius, of geography—but not by racial differences.  

           Robert H. Lowie  Austrian-American anthropologist (12 Jun 1883 - 21 Sep 1957)

Professional Ethics equals Professional Responsibility

Any reader/follower of this Blog knows, I have two major concerns -- Ethics and the Profession, and the application of anthropology.


My Awakening
These concerns have a long history which began with a very simple question that came up when, as an undergraduate in the early 1960s, I read "Nomads of the Long Bow", Allen Holmberg's dissertation about his research among a very "primitive" band living in the Amazon region of Bolivia. At one point he tells of an experiment he conducted.

One case deserves special mention. Enia (Knee)

was the brother-in-law of Chief Eantandu. He 

had had some contact with the outside, but 

because of maltreatment had run away from his 

patron and returned to native life. He was an 

intelligent man with an unusual ability (for a 

Siriono) to adjust to white civilization. He was 

a hard worker and reliable, and he knew consider- 

able Spanish. His one weakness was that he 

could not hunt as well as his countrymen. Time 

after time I saw him leave with his bow and 

arrows, and time after time I watched him return 

empty-handed, while his fellow tribesmen left 

after him on the same trail and returned with 

game. He was generally referred to as "not 

knowing how to hunt." He was openly insulted 

at drinking feasts for his inability to hunt. He 

had lost at least one wife to better men. His 

status was low; his anxiety about hunting, high. 

He had, however, made some kind of readjustment 

to native life by planting more crops and collecting 

more forest products than the others and trading 

some of his vegetable products for meat. But 

still he was not satisfied. Noting this condition, I 

set out to raise his status. First he accompanied 

me with his bow and arrows on hunting trips. He 

carried in game which I shot, part of which was 

given to him and which we told others was shot 

by him. His status began to improve. Shortly 

thereafter I taught him to use a shotgun, and he 

brought in game of his own. Needless to say, when 

I left Tibaera he was enjoying the highest status, 

had acquired several new sex partners, and was 

insulting others, instead of being insulted by them.

 (Italics added p. 58 )

Maybe a dumb question at the time, "human subjects" was not a real issue in research ethics at the time. But I find myself always returning to it when I consider, "What is our professional responsibility?"

Academic vs Applied Biases
My position has always been as a representative of the applied point of view. As a result of these concerns I actively participated in the discussions of professional ethics and profession as represented by the AAA, SfAA, and NAPA throughout the 1970s and 1980s. This included service on committees and task forces set up by the AAA Ethics Committee to explore and revise the Standards of Professional Responsibility.
As part of my dissertation on the professionalization of anthropology, the history of the ethical movement within the profession became a major issue. One of the discoveries in my research was  what the ethical concerns were emotional and there existed a profound ignorance of the implications of such concerns had for the anthropologists and their organizational institutions. Specifically, it centered around the question of "responsibility" vs "taking responsibility." The difference is critical and one we have yet to accept. The former is ideational and based on moral beliefs and biases. "What should you do?" The latter is behavioral and based on social norms of expected and accepted role performance based on social status. "What can you do?"
 Since writing my dissertation I have found that the decade of the 1970s was a watershed in the discussion of ethics in anthropology. We still struggle with the issue. y_and_Business
Ethics as Action, not Belief:
Professional ethics implies taking on responsibilities for what one professes to be based on the principle beliefs and standards espoused by the institution they represent. It means accepting that you can be and will be held personally accountable for your actions in the role as a "professional" and agent of the institution you represent.
To be professional requires that there is a clear understanding of "who is a professional." The public expects that the "professional institutions" that claim to represent their members will develop a code of conduct (behavior) and enforce such a code. To develop a code of conduct (behavior) in the vacuum of the clear definition of professional status is an exercise in futility. Without the institution taking responsibility for certifying who is and who is not a professional is also futile. Unfortunately this has been the history of the ethical discussion within anthropology throughout the post 1970 period.

My question, at the time, was "What happened to the shotgun when Holmberg left, or when Tibaera ran out of shotgun shells?  

I have addressed this issue since then as it relates to applied anthropology and business.

Ethics as Action, not Belief:

Ethics, as opposed to mortality, is a question of behavior, not principle. How should one behave in a given context? Unlike etiquette, which asks how should one act properly in a given situation, ethics is a question of proper role behavior associated with a socially defined status in a social network/structure. Ethics is based on the reciprocal relationships between statuses within the social matrix that the individual operates. It is a compromise between one's "personal" moral code and the expectations that others have for someone's performance. Ethics are socially defined and sanctioned status. That is, "ethics" implies responsibility for one's action as a social agent.



Academic Mentality vs Social Reality toward Research

In 1979, and recently revised and published, I attempted to point out the connection between ethics and the law and their implications for the "profession", especially as it refines itself as a research discipline. I did this with a discussion based on US Government's requirements and regulations covering federal support of Human Subjects research at the Workshop on Regulation of Applied Social Research: Legal and Ethical Issues, at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA. (see SfAA reference above).

The Law, in the form of regulations, took the responsibility away from the individual researcher, especially the academic researcher, for determining what was ethical or not in their research. And the government placed it in the hands of Institution for whom the researcher works or is employed. It established the requirement for Informed Consent by the subjects of such research, and it required the establishment of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to over see the evaluation and monitoring of proposals issued by the Institution. 

Law represents the social expression of society's morality on the one hand when to defines principles of justice, and ethics when it proscribes the ritual or procedures that are required and expected in achieving justice. Under the regulations described above and under the Law itself, there is considerable individual latitude granted to the institutions and to professions to proscribe policies that define and restrict behavior in specific roles that form the basis of the status of the professional. Where these standards exceed the reasonable authority of the institution, the more general laws of society apply.

What does this have to do with anthropological ethics?  A quick look at the "ethics" codes of the SfAA. the AAA, and NAPA point to the aversion these institutions have toward accepting responsibility for their members' actions as professionals. These codes are advisory only. They apply only to dues paying members who achieved their status by paying their annual dues. This allows the dues paying member to publicly present him/herself as an "anthropologist."

Meanwhile the codes address multiple issues associated with the individual's anthropologist's role not necessarily under the control of the academic institution and which may be covered, more effectively, by the regulations and ethics associated with the individual's other roles associated with their other social statuses. For example, the treatment of  students is an issue that arises not from being an anthropologist but from being teacher/faculty member and covered by the policies and procedures of the institution and laws under which they are permitted to operate. On human subject  research, the role of researcher is defined by the IRB, the federal regulation, and the moral authority that these impose on human subjects research in general. In an applied setting, well, there are no rules except the general and specific criminal and torts law apply to the situation and behavior.

The point here is that if we are to be truly recognized as a profession and discipline, worthy of public recognition and respect, we need to accept the responsibility that come with it. We need to develop a professional ethical structure which focuses on the role we claim to play in society.  That role must be tied to the statuses we claim as our specialty within the social matrix in which we operate. We must claim the right and ownership of that specialty and, institutionally, accept the responsibilities that such a claim imposes upon us collectively and individually. Our code must be explicit, required, and enforceable.

How else can we answer the question that I still find myself asking of Holmberg's ghost,  for future generations?