THE SCIENCES and HUMANITIES = ANTHROPOLOGY

There is an often-quoted description of anthropology, credited to Eric Wolf:  “Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities."

This is a true definition for our discipline. It describes the basic methodological concepts that Franz Boas prescribed for the training and practice of anthropology. Anthropologist should be trained in the role of participant - observer. This is a role that requires the anthropologist to serve as a cross-cultural interpreter. 

The field anthropologist is both the observer of the peoples who are his/her subjects and is also the advocate or witness for them in her/his own native culture. For the ethnographer, and anthropology in general, this is a role not unlike that of the lawyer representing a client in civil society. Our client is "our people".

The role has been the source of the tensions we observe throughout the history and evolution of American anthropology. The tension arises from the conflict between the political and social values of the dominant social system that governs our personal world and our "professional worlds" as anthropologists. The tension leads to questions that many of us have had to answer for ourselves, but that we often chose to ignore or avoid in our professional and personal lives.

As scientists, we can ask: “Where does Culture appear in our paradigm?”” Where does Humanity appear?”” Where are the differences?”” How are these two elements related?”” How do they add to our understanding of our and other’s everyday lives?” As scientists, we seek to observe the existential reality of human evolution and existence.

As humanists, we must ask: “What are human beliefs and values?” “How are they applied to real life situations?” “How does the individual apply these to their particular situation?” “How does society interpret the individual’s behavior?” As humanists, we seek to understand the meanings of the actions we, as participant, experience in based on the meanings of those we are observing.

As "observers", these are academic questions. They are questions that professionals can discuss within the traditional academic and professional association venues. They are the subject of “professionals” debate based on their academic, scientific, and scholarly research. Their interpretations influence and are influenced by their underlying culture, their unique personal and professional experiences, and their own personal motivations. They are participants in their own cultural universe. That is, like all human activity – they behave like human beings.

As “participants”,  this role is more perplexing. “How do we distinguish between the existential experience of the trained observer and the “native” participant?” Just because we share an experience, does this mean we understand it in the same way?

“Ethnocentrism” is the term we use to describe value judgments that individuals apply to situations that they either experience or observe. That is, they base their judgments of the situation on the meaning they were taught and not necessarily about the existential or factual nature of the situation. Boas recognized this tendency and argued that the professional anthropologist should adopt a “value free” perspective.

A “value free perspective” is based on the concept of “cultural relativity”.  Like the “Theory of relativity” in physics, the human observer’s perspective of the event determines its meaning. In order to understand a people’s experience, one should examine the context of the “values and beliefs” through which they experience the situational event. 

 The challenge of ethnocentrism is unique to the understanding and study of humanity. It is at the very heart of what anthropology is about as both a science and as an humanity. It is the moral and ethical question we face personally and professionally -- one that has not yet been realistically addressed by the profession, either existentially or ideationally.

WE ARE ONE SPECIES -- The Most Scientific of the Humanities

THE MOST SCIENTIFIC OF THE HUMANITIES – We are one Species

Anthropology, the study of Anthrop or Man, is a subject that has dominated human thought for millennia. Prior to the scientific revolution, the study of man, as an intellectual discipline, has been the province of philosophy and religion.  As a practical discipline, anthropology was found in the study of history and governance that have focused on what we might call, “proto-anthropology”

Proto-anthropology is based upon human observations and practical experience as these related to the daily life and survival of human groups, aka social units. Early humankind was aware that, individually and collectively, humans are both similar to and different from one another. The more intense the individual and collective experience, the greater these similarities and difference were experienced as the existential reality. The less intense and/or less frequent the experience, they were more likely conceived ideationally and envisioned in local myths and belief systems.

Joseph Campbell, in the Hero of a Thousand Faces, is, probably, the most well known of anthropologist/folklorist. With the help of Bill Moyers,  Campbell’s observations and analysis were popularized on PBS TV series in the 1980s "The Power of Myth." Campbell documented the universality of the human themes that he found in his study of myth and folklore. Using the comparative method, he found that these folktales and stories reflect humanity’s ideals for life and their fears about the uncertainties of the universe. Over time, these themes appear to morph into new forms as a society’s socio-economic structure developed increasing complexity over time. These ideational structures also varied with humankind’s relationship to its ecological universe. One may conclude that the ideational domain of culture developed and evolved along with the organic development of humankind’s existential experience.

These myths and folklore are “ideational” representations of a world that is a mystery to the people, who hold these views. They express a statement of the unknown framed in terms of the known. They combine elements of personal experience with elements of the collective speculative. They gain their meanings from how they help to explain the unknown and uncertain. Archaeologically,  we can imagine that the famous cave paintings of  Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave  and  Lascaux, and the early carvings of the Earth Mother figurine are artifacts of storytelling. They demonstrate through the ideational representations on the walls and crafted figurines the unrecorded words of the story teller/teacher/priest. These artifacts maybe our first existential evidence of the ideational domain of Human culture in the form of religion. Today, we can speculate about their meanings, an ideational act in itself. Metaphorically, they are the tree that falls in the forest that we do hear.

The term “humanities” stands for a classification for a wide range of scholarly disciplines that include history, art, crafts, and religion. It represents a form of scholarship that emerged in Western Europe  The common feature of these disciplines is their focus and speculation about the human condition and social experience. They evolved from the human existential experience filtered through the individual’s mind and emotions. They are expressed through some manner of physical behavior a resulting physical act or structure. The important feature of the humanities is that they are a shared experience. The sharing may be a temporary fad or become a foundational belief or ritual practice incorporated into the culture.

The important part of a “humanity” discipline is the relationship that it attempts to express between the individual and the individual’s universe. It represents a structure into which the creator of the experience can express his/her feelings. These individual “feelings and insights” are converted by the individual into an ideational representation. The creator, using his or her individual skills, attempts to communicate their vision to others through his/her creation. The act of expression comes from within, as an act of self-reflection.

Self- reflection involves a conversation with one’s self. “What is this feeling that I have about this experience?” “How can I express it?”  The importance of the ideational expression is in the creative process and not the existential reality. It calls for playing with the available structural elements to create a more interesting structure. That structure becomes an analogy of the experience. The creation is the analogy that is shared with others. The individual's “purpose” is to find “meaning” in the experience. “Meaning” is the function that humanistic structures create – “personal meanings”, and “collective meanings”. Or, what we call, the “superorganic” or “culture”.

Anthropology is the Humanity that approaches its subject scientifically through the process of comparative analysis of the observations of and participation in human activity and experiencing its physical products. In this regard, the anthropologist acknowledges the uncertainty of life. They also seek to understand life by demonstrating how humans have and do attempt to take control of their individual and collective lives.  Humanists and Anthropologist seek out the ways humans give “meaning” to the unknown and their uncertainty about it.

As anthropology became more scientific in its methods and theories there has arisen a counter-movement, "humanistic anthropology" One element of this movement is something called "autoethnography" We will be discussing this method and approach in future articles here in the Superorganic Blogg.