In 1928 Margaret Mead published her work, “Coming of age in Samoa” which was an analysis of Samoan culture in order to answer the question of whether the behaviors of teenagers in the United States (rebellion, sexual anxiety) was something natural to them or if it was an effect of culture. In essence it attempted to solve one aspect of the “nature vs. nurture” question. Mead’s book concluded that it was indeed cultural, that sexual attitudes in the Western world were not a product of simply being born but rather something taught. The free attitude of Samoan culture toward sex resulted in less anxiety than their American/Western counterparts.
Of course our intrepid author Benjamin Wiker is going to have a problem with this. While I have knowledge of Mead’s work I have not read the book itself but am familiar with her conclusions as well as some of the evidence that brought her there. My criticism of Wiker’s entry is going to concentrate on the philosophical errors he commits as per my education. I cannot go into the intricacies of the problem with Mead’s book but I will, in an effort to be truthful talk about some of them.
Building an argument is like building a house, you can’t expect it to hold up if you have a faulty foundation (or you can substitute another tired simile) and Wiker throughout this book is resting his chapters on the faulty ones that he discussed earlier on. The previous chapters concentrated on Machiavelli while this chapter instead focuses on Thomas Hobbes. I have previously described Wiker’s incomprehenisbly inaccurate telling of Hobbes’s state of nature and here Wiker rephrases it in a much simpler and easier to refute manner: “the natural=the primitive=the good.”
Whenever someone uses the symbol “=” logically you can substitute one side for the other. What Wiker is saying is that Hobbes believed “natural” was the same as “good” giving the implication that the primitive or natural was to be strived for. This goes against every recommendation in Leviathan’s political aspects. Hobbes, to repeat, was not advocating a return to the state of nature. He was merely describing what he thought would happen when law, government, and society were overthrown. Furthermore it was not that everyone would become thieving murderers but that some of us would, to think otherwise would be not only foolish but dangerous as well.
So the primitive society that Mead studied in Samoa would not be advocated by Hobbes, who was seen by a good deal of his contemporaries as being a monarchist second and an Englishman first. The sort of savagery that could be seen in during the English revolution prompted Hobbes into exile in France, which I doubt he really desired to do.
Returning to Mead, her conclusion is to recommend a sexual freedom that was not seen in the 20th Century America, in this Wiker’s explanation is correct. She did recommend it as being more liberating and less likely to lead to some sort of repression or intolerance towards others with a different sexual outlook. I understand Wiker’s objection to this as being largely centered in his religion, while I disagree with him I am not going to take an issue with it. He correctly states Mead’s recommendation and then disagrees. The odd thing is that he doesn’t explain why the Samoan’s culture is flawed. There is the derisive attitude about how Mead describes them as promiscuous but then moves past it as if that is supposed to stand on its own.
I guess for his intended audience it does, but for the rest of us not subscribing to his ideology it needs a bit more explanation. An explanation that would have to go beyond the mere accusation of adultery since the Samoans, as Mead describes them, don’t really adhere to a doctrine of life long marriage. Without that, every sexual relationship is either within a concept of group marriage or all adulterous so it’s either perfect or it’s perfectly immoral. I have to reassert my assumption that he must feel any reader having gotten to this point in this book would have to already agree with his morals.
Then there are some mischaracterizations and inaccuracies. Wiker claims that this book was widely accepted in it’s time, while it was widely popular there was a large uproar that the book caused. The people of the early 20th century didn’t eat it up so much. Which I am not sure if this is a fault of his, there were aspects that accepted it and depending on his level of abhorence of the book could mean that anyone accepting it is too much agreement. However he does remark that the book is still taught, and still required reading (I’m assuming at the college level) which means that some people do agree with it. Well that isn’t necessarily the case. Going back to the previous two chapters we have two authors, Freud and Hitler, that are taught purely for historical reasons. I have taught Freud’s absurd advocacy of atheism but do not agree with it, and my history teacher in highschool assigned us Mein Kampf for the historical importance of the book. I regularly taught Descartes and completely disagree with him as well. Teaching something doesn’t mean you agree with it, I would love to see Wiker’s syllabi since he only teaches works he agrees with (grading must be really easy for him).
Wiker closes by accusing Mead of having an ideology and then looking for a evidence to support that then he spends a page or two preaching against ideology as being the possible root of all evil. It’s ironic that he does this since this book is one giant appeal to his ideology that any work which doesn’t subscribe to several ideas (1. a support of one specific theism 2. a belief that ethics are universal and 3. works by atheists are wrong) are intrinsically dangerous. This irony is so thick that I doubt even his followers could miss it.
In an effort to stay true to my skepticism I must say that Mead’s work is not without its own controversy, and Wiker mentions this several times in his chapter which confused me because this is a good reason that Mead’s work can be considerred to have screwed up the world. Mead’s methodology has come under fire numerous times. Accusations that she was pushing a preconceived conclusion on to her study. There have been calls regarding a possible loose application of the scientific method, most notably from a New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman. If Freeman is correct regarding his criticisms of Mead then yes, she does belong on a list of corrupters because she is illustrating that you don’t have to be scientifically accurate in order to be important in your field. Although history does bear this out in both the New York Times and any study lauding the efficacy of homeopathic medicine it doesn’t make it right.
Without a degree in anthropology I can’t really comment further, only that Wiker has again concentrated on the wrong aspect of a work.
No comments:
Post a Comment