ANTHROPOLOGY: What is it?

A long, long time ago I was a reader for Sir James George Frazer of The Golden Bough, when he was old and crabby. As the title of his masterpiece implies, he was a classical scholar; I doubt if many modern anthropologists now know Latin and Greek. Since then anthropology has undergone a series of changes. It prospered thanks to men like Alfred Kroeber, who was at Berkeley when I was there. The word "culture" was changing meaning in a confused way, as was evident from his Culture; A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (1952). The argument became increasingly bitter. At Stanford University, which abolished its geography department and promoted anthropology, the situation became so unpleasant that the department was split in two. Now Stanford has two anthropology departments and no geography department.

One problem has been that some anthropologists strove so desperately to be scientists that they abolished the "unscientific" concept of values. The target of my displeasure were the Jewish anthropologists who were properly vocal in their condemnation of Hitler's killings, but, when discussing the sacrifice of large numbers of humans by the Aztecs, sniffed that we most not be judgmental.

Fortunately, reasonable voices are heard. Richard Shweder of the University of Chicago has spoken up in The American Anthropologist saying that "The idea of 'culture' does not imply that whatever is, is O.K." The very word anthropology implies that it is one of the humanities, which are concerned with values..

Ronald Hilton - 8/28/00