The Great Unifier in Anthropology

Anthropology, especially American, has been in intellectual crisis for more than a half century. Like the Cold War was during the latter half of the 20th Century, it is the "new" normal. Intellectual crisis is not necessarily bad, it can be healthy to challenge old ideas and stimulating new ones. It becomes "bad", however, when the pursuit of one's ego gratification over takes one's pursuit of "truth." And, over the past half century we have had our share of egoists and gurus.

We have seen a wave upon wave of fads and fashions sweep over the discipline as we have unconsciously attempted to adjust and adapt to the changes that have been taking place all around us. The demographic curve, the decolonizing and nation building of the third world, the cold war and its sudden end, the raise of global capitalism, the campaign for human rights, crime and terrorism on a global scale, environmental concerns including global warming, among others have set in motion forces that have threatened and challenge anthropology, its institutions and practitioners.

We have seen much soul searching and navel picking within the discipline and its many traditional and emerging specialties. This is especially true as new constituencies have emerged and the Other has become one of US. Anthropology today is not the white, male, Anglo-American or Eurocentric discipline that emerged in the 19th century to study the "illiterate" natives found in the imperial colonies. It is no longer the testing ground for the western idea of progress. It can no longer be justified on the basis of Judeo-Christian theological principles of creation and western superiority.

Anthropology is the apex of humanity’s study and understanding of what it means to  be human and what this tells us of our destiny. It is the study of the Good, Bad and Ugly of the human animal and our institutions.

If there is any overarching principle that anthropology offers humanity, it is the discovery that we are BOTH the observers and the participants of “our” actions. We are both the agents of socio-cultural change and as well as the victims of that change. For the Human animal, “Progress” is an illusion. It is a drug that confounds our cultural beliefs and values by confounding our social institutions. Culture worships the benefits of Progress and ignores the costs of our addiction to the Individual and Society. Society is the human organization which seeks to insure the survival and replication (continuity) of our species and our planet.

Nature has found a way to progress in face of the reality of change. It does so by the evolutionary principle of adaptation on the social level. It has done so for ions through the simple principles of mathematics – that is probability. An organizational model, a form of live, emerges and is subjected to the reality of environment from which it emerged. It survives or fails that’s it. That is the test. It is neither Good or Bad, it just "IS".
 

What is this “IS”? “IS” is survival. Survival is a life long enough to replicate fast enough, and in a quantity large enough, to insure the survival of the original model. Life survives by establishing a connection with its environment, taking from the environment what it needs and returning to it what others need. The values of life are determined by ecological balance that a species and a community develop and are capable of maintaining the balance. The belief in Progress arises when the observer assumes that they are not a “participant” in the process but its beneficiary. Not only is the observer the beneficiary, but also has the exclusive “right” to benefit from the “progress” that accrues to her/his own professional advancement.

For too long, anthropology and anthropologists have accepted this perspective. I remember as an undergraduate in the 1960’s asking the questions – “Do you have to pay your informants when you are interviewing them?” It was a simple, practical question. Would I need to budget funding to pay informants for the information I would be collecting to do my dissertation?

The answers I received surprised me. As I reflect on it, the answers seem to have been generational. They ranged from “Of course not, you observe and collect data based on your observations.” “ You pay for your food and lodging but you don’t want to “influence” the informant’s answers by paying them for the answers.(this might bias their answers).” “You don’t pay the informant, but you “pay” the community by providing a service such a medical assistance, or help out in some way that community benefits, such as “cross-cultural” interpreter.” Or, even “Of course you pay them for their time and expertise by working out a “fair” hourly rate.”

 I was left feeling very confused. The moral seemed to be that I was entitled to the information. This was “rapport.” Become a “friend” and collect the secrets and share them with your own community when you get home. Or, become an employer and buy the rights to your observations and informant’s information that you could then sell when you get home.

It has only been in recent years that the idea of an auto-ethnography has entered the professional vocabulary. The auto-ethnography is an attempt to adapt to the fact that the field researcher is, as Boas so insight-fully noted, both observer and participant in the field situation. It is in the participant role that the field anthropologist introduces an automatic and random disruption in the “subject’s” environment. This is where the “science” of anthropology becomes the “humanity” of anthropology.

As I progressed in my chosen discipline, anthropology, I have pondered this question. My personal answer is to pursue a career as an applied anthropologist. This does not negate the importance of a science of anthropology, whether it be as an archaeologist, a linguist, a physical or biological anthropologist, or in my case as socio-cultural anthropologist. What it means is that there is no pure form of anthropology. The collection of data is not an end in itself. This is not natural. It is not evolutionary. Humans are not gods and that humanity is not GOD. We are part of a complex system. We are an experiment just like every other species is and has been.

Our knowledge, as anthropologist, is worthless to the species and the planet if it is not used to manage the planet and insure its survival. Our science enables our observation, but it is our humanity is measured by our participation. I have been studying the live and career of my mentor and teacher, Edward H. Spicer over the past decade. I found that in a quiet way he found a way to be both the participant and observer of our discipline. Even more important he was successful in replicating that role by training a number of us to be practitioners and/or to train students to take up careers outside of academic department. Replication is the other side of survival. Replication does not mean the mechanical cookie cutter copying. Life does not thrive on cookies; it survives and flourishes within a framework that offers both a basic structure and the variety that functions necessitates.

 

Rather than fighting over personalities and parochial theoretical purities, anthropologist and anthropology should, in my opinion, be serving the challenge posed by our position within the ecological system that we have inherited from Nature’s experiment. We should focus our individual and collective efforts on the salvage of the planet. For the vast majority of us and those species we have assumed responsibility for, this is the only place WE have evolved to survive in. It will be a sad day when the only record of life on this planet will be the evidence that some future extraterrestrial archaeologist discovers. Our discipline is or could be the Great Unifier of humanity and the planet. Ours is the only discipline that bridges the reality (or science) of human relations with the values of humanism.