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Patterns of Culture
Notável introdução aos estudos culturais, Padrões de cultura é uma eloquente afirmação do papel da cultura na formação da vida humana. Nesta obra fascinante, a renomada antropóloga Ruth Benedict compara três sociedades - Os zunhis do sudoeste dos Estados Unidos, os kwakiutl do oeste do Canadá e os dobuanos da Melanésia - e demonstra a diversidade de comportamentos existentes nelas. O revolucionário estudo de Benedict mostra que cada cultura humana é definida por uma configuração peculiar de trações, e analisa a relação entre cultura e indivíduo. Com comentários preliminares de Franz Boas, este trabalho instigante explora em última análise o que significa ser humano.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1934
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5288 people want to read
About the author
Ruth Benedict
81 books134 followersRuth Fulton Benedict, noted anthropologist, studied Native American and Japanese cultures.
Ruth Fulton Benedict, a folklorist, attended Vassar College, and graduated in 1909.
She entered graduate school at Columbia University in 1919 under Franz Boas. She received her Philosophiae Doctor and joined the faculty in 1923. She perhaps shared a romantic relationship with Margaret Mead, and Marvin Opler ranked among her colleagues.
Work of Ruth Fulton Benedict clearly evidences point of view of Franz Boas, her teacher, mentor, and the father. The passionate humanism of Boas, her mentor, affected affected Ruth Benedict, who continued it in her research and writing.
Ruth Fulton Benedict held the post of president of the association and also a prominent member of the folklore society. People recognized this first such woman as a prominent leader of a learned profession. From the limited confines of culture-trait diffusion, this transitional figure redirected folklore, her field, away towards theories of integral performance to the interpretation of culture, as people can view. The relationships among personality, art, language, and culture insist that no trait existed in isolation or self-sufficiency; she champions this theory in her Patterns of Culture in 1934.
Ruth Fulton Benedict, a folklorist, attended Vassar College, and graduated in 1909.
She entered graduate school at Columbia University in 1919 under Franz Boas. She received her Philosophiae Doctor and joined the faculty in 1923. She perhaps shared a romantic relationship with Margaret Mead, and Marvin Opler ranked among her colleagues.
Work of Ruth Fulton Benedict clearly evidences point of view of Franz Boas, her teacher, mentor, and the father. The passionate humanism of Boas, her mentor, affected affected Ruth Benedict, who continued it in her research and writing.
Ruth Fulton Benedict held the post of president of the association and also a prominent member of the folklore society. People recognized this first such woman as a prominent leader of a learned profession. From the limited confines of culture-trait diffusion, this transitional figure redirected folklore, her field, away towards theories of integral performance to the interpretation of culture, as people can view. The relationships among personality, art, language, and culture insist that no trait existed in isolation or self-sufficiency; she champions this theory in her Patterns of Culture in 1934.
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September 6, 2012
Culture and Personality Paradigm:
Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture
In her book Patterns of Culture Ruth Benedict presents ethnographic accounts of three unique cultures, the Pueblo (Zuni) Indians of the Southwest, the Dobu of eastern New Guinea and the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest coast between Washington and British Columbia. Benedict employs use of these cultures to demonstrate her theory of culture as “personality-writ-large.” The book starts out with two sections, largely theoretical; Benedict then presents her idea of cultural configurations (patterns) before moving on to compare the Apollonian Zuni and Dionysian Plains Indians, the paranoid Dobu, and the megalomaniacal Kwakiutls’ perspectives on marriage, family, resources, animism, and warfare/violence. The final chapters discuss cultural relativism and also provide an analysis of the relative nature in which abnormal individuals and their actions can be viewed and the constructed nature of deviance through the imposing of strict standards as it relates to conformity.
The purpose of this summary is to review the main themes of the text and to understand this work in the context to the configurationalist approach, which is an extension of the culture and personality school within the field of American anthropology that Benedict developed and made use of in this work. Patterns of Culture contains three central themes: 1) human culture can be viewed as “personality-writ-large,” 2) comparative studies of different cultures can shed light on our own social and cultural behaviors, and 3) that morality is a dependent cultural variable and cultural dissimilarities should not be judged by absolute standards.
A central theme of Patterns of Culture is cultural configurations; Benedict’s hypothesis is that personality patterns can be found in culture. In introducing Benedict’s book, Boas explains configuration to be “a knowledge of the attitudes controlling individual and group behavior.” (Benedict 1934: xvii) Benedict views human culture as “personality-writ-large,” meaning that a culture can be seen as an individual personality and each person in a culture can be perceived in relation to the pattern, types, or traits which characterize their specific culture. According to Benedict, a people’s culture should be viewed as an articulating whole, made up of traits, actions and beliefs that are shared by individuals within the culture. In explaining her theoretical premises, Benedict puts forth that “a culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought an action,” that choose from “the great arc of potential human purposes and motivations” and that “the only way in which we can know the significance of the selected detail of behavior is against the background of the motives and emotions and values that are institutionalized in that culture.” (Benedict 1934: 46, 237, 49) In saying this, Benedict is making clear her theory of cultural configurations (patterns), explaining that each culture has a system of ideas, standards and values that facilitate social cohesion, and that through the process of socialization selected traits are reinforced and the shared behaviors and beliefs of a culture are perpetuated.
Benedict believes that personality patterns can be found in culture and that these patterns can be characterized in a meaningful way. To illustrate this point, she presents chapters on the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest, the Dobu of eastern New Guinea and the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest coast. In the first ethnographic chapter, she describes the Pueblo (Zuni) to be Apollonian, valuing sobriety and inoffensiveness and being controlled and reserved in nature, seeking to follow and reinforce the bounds of their cultural norms; she contrasts the Pueblo Indians with the Plains, and other North American Indians, stating they are Dionysian and characterizing them as prone to irrational excess and continually testing the boundaries of their existence. In the next chapter she presents the Dobu, describing them as paranoid, fearful and suspicious. Finally, she discusses the Kwakiutl, stating they are megalomaniacal in nature, discussing their competitive potlatch to demonstrate their need to dominate others. It is important to take note that Benedict’s accounts of the Zuni came from her own research, while ethnographic material about the Dobu came from Margaret Mead and Reo Fortunes work in New Guinea, and the chapter on the Kwakiutl was largely formed from Boas’ work in British Columbia. In discussing each of these cultures, she presents their perspectives on marriage, family, resources, animism, and warfare/violence. Benedict’s hypothesis is that all cultures can be described as Apollonian, Dionysian, paranoid and or megalomaniacal and that some cultures are combinations of these traits; however, in assigning these terms she is not attempting to create typologies, as “each one is an empirical characterization, and probably not duplicated in its entirety anywhere else in the world.” (Benedict 1934:238)
The second theme in Patterns of Culture is that comparative studies of different cultures are beneficial and can shed light on our own social and cultural behaviors. Benedict puts forth that use of the comparative method in looking at cultures in relation or contrast to each other will act to emphasize differences between cultures and will simultaneously provide “the understanding we need of our own cultural processes.” (Benedict 1934: 56) To this end, in the concluding chapters of the book Benedict touches upon cultural deviance among the Zuni, Dobu and Kwakiutl and provides an analysis of the relative nature in which “abnormal” individuals and their actions can be viewed and the constructed nature of deviance through the imposing of strict standards as it relates to conformity. Margaret Mead states that the questions Benedict raises related to the connection between abnormality and cultures brings to light the need to question the limited definitions of normal behavior, allowing us to reconsider what is normal and abnormal, and that “the widening of cultural definitions might enrich our culture and lighten the load of rejection under which the cultural deviant now labors.” (Benedict 1934: ix) Benedict does make a point to state that use of the comparative method has no room for moralizing judgments and that attempts to do so go against the principles of cultural relativism. To do this would be a futile endeavor as each culture has “certain goals toward which their behavior is directed and which their institutions further,” and that these goals “are incommensurable.” (Benedict 1934: 223)
The third theme in Patterns of Culture addresses the concept of cultural relativism. Benedict clearly communicates throughout the book that morality is a dependent cultural variable and that cultural dissimilarities should not be judged by absolute standards. During her time as a student at Columbia, Boas mentored Benedict and trained her in the, at the time, disputed notion of cultural relativism that greatly shaped his anthropological work. Patterns of Culture highlights the issues in understanding cultures on their own terms, often bringing up Western ethnocentric views; this is key as when the book was first published the target group was a Western audience. Benedict states that a culture’s beliefs must been looked at within the context of their own culture, not judged in comparison to the cultural ideals of the individuals studying them. Benedict takes a highly humanistic approach and clearly leans towards culture in the culture vs. nature debate. Her book has gone a long ways in communicating the importance of being aware of our own ethnocentric tendencies and continues to teach the value of human diversity.
Patterns of Culture in context to the Culture and Personality Paradigm
Benedict received her anthropological training at Columbia University under the instruction of Franz Boas. The anthropology program at Columbia was somewhat new, and its’ foundation was based in the four-field approach, melding physical and cultural anthropology with archaeology and linguistics as a way to study human biological evolution, cultural differences, the uniqueness of each cultural history and the interconnectedness of language and culture. Having studied anthropology during a time when the field was so greatly changing certainly impacted her use of theory and methodology, but also explains why she fell sort of operationalizing the ethnographic data she collected in a more quantitative way.
Believing that culture and personality are so interconnected that they could not be examined independently, Benedict developed and employed use of the configuration approach, which is a specific perspective within the culture and personality school of American anthropology (later known as psychological anthropology) that melds cultural relativism with psychological theory. The roots of the culture and personality school of American anthropology can be traced back to Franz Boas; however, Benedict, Margaret Mead and Edward Sapir largely developed this theoretical approach, focusing on socialization, and developing a course of action for comparing cultures in terms of the benefits for individuals. Proponents of this paradigm consider how cultures understand their own human identify and focus on understanding the relationship between the cultural environment and individual personality. The main premise of the culture and personality paradigm is that socialization constructs personality patterns by shaping an individuals behaviors, thoughts, and norms, and that the behaviors adults display are culturally patterned, allowing them to fit in and function productively within their surroundings.
In Patterns of Culture Benedict clearly uses a theoretical approach to cultural comparisons and culture theories. As Boas points out in his introduction, Benedict’s approach is different and distinct from the functional approach, in that it is more focused on determining the “fundamental attitudes than with the functional relations of every cultural item.” (Benedict 1934: xvii) Although it seems rather questionable that the groups she highlighted in this work so succinctly fell into the categories of Apollonian, Dionysian and paranoid, the examples she provides for each of the cultures clearly demonstrated her theory of culture as “personality-writ-large.” Eighty years later, this view seems a bit simplistic and dated; however, her discussions of ethnocentric tendencies, cultural relativism, and historical particularism are timeless. Her analysis at times seems to have been highly generalized and far too humanistic, specifically in that she did not make use of enough quantitative data. The Zuni, particularly, seemed to be portrayed as devoid of emotion bringing up the question as to if she truly found specific patterns or merely subsets within the culture as a whole. It seemed a bit incongruous to be describing cultures as specific categories while at the same time using a cultural relativistic framework, but I think Benedict’s theory of cultures espousing certain patterns is certainly valid, although simplistic.
The specific methodology employed in this work does not translate to my thesis topic; however, the general concepts of cultural relativism and historical particularism will certainly play a role in shaping all of our theses.
Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture
In her book Patterns of Culture Ruth Benedict presents ethnographic accounts of three unique cultures, the Pueblo (Zuni) Indians of the Southwest, the Dobu of eastern New Guinea and the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest coast between Washington and British Columbia. Benedict employs use of these cultures to demonstrate her theory of culture as “personality-writ-large.” The book starts out with two sections, largely theoretical; Benedict then presents her idea of cultural configurations (patterns) before moving on to compare the Apollonian Zuni and Dionysian Plains Indians, the paranoid Dobu, and the megalomaniacal Kwakiutls’ perspectives on marriage, family, resources, animism, and warfare/violence. The final chapters discuss cultural relativism and also provide an analysis of the relative nature in which abnormal individuals and their actions can be viewed and the constructed nature of deviance through the imposing of strict standards as it relates to conformity.
The purpose of this summary is to review the main themes of the text and to understand this work in the context to the configurationalist approach, which is an extension of the culture and personality school within the field of American anthropology that Benedict developed and made use of in this work. Patterns of Culture contains three central themes: 1) human culture can be viewed as “personality-writ-large,” 2) comparative studies of different cultures can shed light on our own social and cultural behaviors, and 3) that morality is a dependent cultural variable and cultural dissimilarities should not be judged by absolute standards.
A central theme of Patterns of Culture is cultural configurations; Benedict’s hypothesis is that personality patterns can be found in culture. In introducing Benedict’s book, Boas explains configuration to be “a knowledge of the attitudes controlling individual and group behavior.” (Benedict 1934: xvii) Benedict views human culture as “personality-writ-large,” meaning that a culture can be seen as an individual personality and each person in a culture can be perceived in relation to the pattern, types, or traits which characterize their specific culture. According to Benedict, a people’s culture should be viewed as an articulating whole, made up of traits, actions and beliefs that are shared by individuals within the culture. In explaining her theoretical premises, Benedict puts forth that “a culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought an action,” that choose from “the great arc of potential human purposes and motivations” and that “the only way in which we can know the significance of the selected detail of behavior is against the background of the motives and emotions and values that are institutionalized in that culture.” (Benedict 1934: 46, 237, 49) In saying this, Benedict is making clear her theory of cultural configurations (patterns), explaining that each culture has a system of ideas, standards and values that facilitate social cohesion, and that through the process of socialization selected traits are reinforced and the shared behaviors and beliefs of a culture are perpetuated.
Benedict believes that personality patterns can be found in culture and that these patterns can be characterized in a meaningful way. To illustrate this point, she presents chapters on the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest, the Dobu of eastern New Guinea and the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest coast. In the first ethnographic chapter, she describes the Pueblo (Zuni) to be Apollonian, valuing sobriety and inoffensiveness and being controlled and reserved in nature, seeking to follow and reinforce the bounds of their cultural norms; she contrasts the Pueblo Indians with the Plains, and other North American Indians, stating they are Dionysian and characterizing them as prone to irrational excess and continually testing the boundaries of their existence. In the next chapter she presents the Dobu, describing them as paranoid, fearful and suspicious. Finally, she discusses the Kwakiutl, stating they are megalomaniacal in nature, discussing their competitive potlatch to demonstrate their need to dominate others. It is important to take note that Benedict’s accounts of the Zuni came from her own research, while ethnographic material about the Dobu came from Margaret Mead and Reo Fortunes work in New Guinea, and the chapter on the Kwakiutl was largely formed from Boas’ work in British Columbia. In discussing each of these cultures, she presents their perspectives on marriage, family, resources, animism, and warfare/violence. Benedict’s hypothesis is that all cultures can be described as Apollonian, Dionysian, paranoid and or megalomaniacal and that some cultures are combinations of these traits; however, in assigning these terms she is not attempting to create typologies, as “each one is an empirical characterization, and probably not duplicated in its entirety anywhere else in the world.” (Benedict 1934:238)
The second theme in Patterns of Culture is that comparative studies of different cultures are beneficial and can shed light on our own social and cultural behaviors. Benedict puts forth that use of the comparative method in looking at cultures in relation or contrast to each other will act to emphasize differences between cultures and will simultaneously provide “the understanding we need of our own cultural processes.” (Benedict 1934: 56) To this end, in the concluding chapters of the book Benedict touches upon cultural deviance among the Zuni, Dobu and Kwakiutl and provides an analysis of the relative nature in which “abnormal” individuals and their actions can be viewed and the constructed nature of deviance through the imposing of strict standards as it relates to conformity. Margaret Mead states that the questions Benedict raises related to the connection between abnormality and cultures brings to light the need to question the limited definitions of normal behavior, allowing us to reconsider what is normal and abnormal, and that “the widening of cultural definitions might enrich our culture and lighten the load of rejection under which the cultural deviant now labors.” (Benedict 1934: ix) Benedict does make a point to state that use of the comparative method has no room for moralizing judgments and that attempts to do so go against the principles of cultural relativism. To do this would be a futile endeavor as each culture has “certain goals toward which their behavior is directed and which their institutions further,” and that these goals “are incommensurable.” (Benedict 1934: 223)
The third theme in Patterns of Culture addresses the concept of cultural relativism. Benedict clearly communicates throughout the book that morality is a dependent cultural variable and that cultural dissimilarities should not be judged by absolute standards. During her time as a student at Columbia, Boas mentored Benedict and trained her in the, at the time, disputed notion of cultural relativism that greatly shaped his anthropological work. Patterns of Culture highlights the issues in understanding cultures on their own terms, often bringing up Western ethnocentric views; this is key as when the book was first published the target group was a Western audience. Benedict states that a culture’s beliefs must been looked at within the context of their own culture, not judged in comparison to the cultural ideals of the individuals studying them. Benedict takes a highly humanistic approach and clearly leans towards culture in the culture vs. nature debate. Her book has gone a long ways in communicating the importance of being aware of our own ethnocentric tendencies and continues to teach the value of human diversity.
Patterns of Culture in context to the Culture and Personality Paradigm
Benedict received her anthropological training at Columbia University under the instruction of Franz Boas. The anthropology program at Columbia was somewhat new, and its’ foundation was based in the four-field approach, melding physical and cultural anthropology with archaeology and linguistics as a way to study human biological evolution, cultural differences, the uniqueness of each cultural history and the interconnectedness of language and culture. Having studied anthropology during a time when the field was so greatly changing certainly impacted her use of theory and methodology, but also explains why she fell sort of operationalizing the ethnographic data she collected in a more quantitative way.
Believing that culture and personality are so interconnected that they could not be examined independently, Benedict developed and employed use of the configuration approach, which is a specific perspective within the culture and personality school of American anthropology (later known as psychological anthropology) that melds cultural relativism with psychological theory. The roots of the culture and personality school of American anthropology can be traced back to Franz Boas; however, Benedict, Margaret Mead and Edward Sapir largely developed this theoretical approach, focusing on socialization, and developing a course of action for comparing cultures in terms of the benefits for individuals. Proponents of this paradigm consider how cultures understand their own human identify and focus on understanding the relationship between the cultural environment and individual personality. The main premise of the culture and personality paradigm is that socialization constructs personality patterns by shaping an individuals behaviors, thoughts, and norms, and that the behaviors adults display are culturally patterned, allowing them to fit in and function productively within their surroundings.
In Patterns of Culture Benedict clearly uses a theoretical approach to cultural comparisons and culture theories. As Boas points out in his introduction, Benedict’s approach is different and distinct from the functional approach, in that it is more focused on determining the “fundamental attitudes than with the functional relations of every cultural item.” (Benedict 1934: xvii) Although it seems rather questionable that the groups she highlighted in this work so succinctly fell into the categories of Apollonian, Dionysian and paranoid, the examples she provides for each of the cultures clearly demonstrated her theory of culture as “personality-writ-large.” Eighty years later, this view seems a bit simplistic and dated; however, her discussions of ethnocentric tendencies, cultural relativism, and historical particularism are timeless. Her analysis at times seems to have been highly generalized and far too humanistic, specifically in that she did not make use of enough quantitative data. The Zuni, particularly, seemed to be portrayed as devoid of emotion bringing up the question as to if she truly found specific patterns or merely subsets within the culture as a whole. It seemed a bit incongruous to be describing cultures as specific categories while at the same time using a cultural relativistic framework, but I think Benedict’s theory of cultures espousing certain patterns is certainly valid, although simplistic.
The specific methodology employed in this work does not translate to my thesis topic; however, the general concepts of cultural relativism and historical particularism will certainly play a role in shaping all of our theses.
July 27, 2007
Probably the most interesting and compelling introduction to anthropology you could ever hope for. Ruth Benedict lays out some basic principles - that anyone who's ever wondered about the society they live in should read - backed up with explorations of three incredibly fascinating cultures. This is a very profluent book, so I feel I can safely recommend it to people who have never read non-fiction before.
Patterns of Culture is a book that will change the way you see the world.
Patterns of Culture is a book that will change the way you see the world.
June 16, 2016
For any lovers of anthropology, this is one of the classic texts which fundamentally shaped the study of culture.
Though of course we have moved beyond some of the basic theoretical issues inherent in the 'culture concept' (i.e. Critics like Abu-Lughod move towards a definition of culture as unbounded and dynamic, and of course the shift away from 'traditional/modern' cultures dichotomy) so much of this text is still applicable in a globalising world. I was surprised actually by how relevant the first few chapters were.
It is a beautiful read, and encompasses the rich, descriptive style of classic ethnography. I highly, highly recommend this book - I was not expecting to enjoy it at first, but it remains to be one of the great classics, and is a guaranteed enjoyable read for any lover of culture studies.
Though of course we have moved beyond some of the basic theoretical issues inherent in the 'culture concept' (i.e. Critics like Abu-Lughod move towards a definition of culture as unbounded and dynamic, and of course the shift away from 'traditional/modern' cultures dichotomy) so much of this text is still applicable in a globalising world. I was surprised actually by how relevant the first few chapters were.
It is a beautiful read, and encompasses the rich, descriptive style of classic ethnography. I highly, highly recommend this book - I was not expecting to enjoy it at first, but it remains to be one of the great classics, and is a guaranteed enjoyable read for any lover of culture studies.
May 19, 2013
Successful societies reproduce excessively as a hedge against the death (accidental or purposeful) of those intended to fill necessary positions in the coming generation. An upper-class redundant (the unneeded lesser son of a noble family) can move down a notch (fill some ranked position in the church, government, or military). A merchant’s second son might start a new business, become a craft apprentice, or descend to the less-protected ranks of labor (depending on the good graces of the inheriting son). But at the bottom of the underclass, there is really nowhere to go. Society keeps an underclass to fill breeches in the higher ranks caused by war, pestilence, or natural disaster; but it also tries to keep the underclass at some manageable level through those same disasters (in addition to famine).
As we move from a dispersed (hunter-gathering) to more condensed (agriculture-industry-information) societies, the underclass is joined by primitives, farmers, and industrial workers who are no longer required. Paying the landlords for cash-crops produces famine. Crowding primitives and agrarians into “reservations,” ghettos, and airless factories produces pestilence. War exhausts not only your own underclass, but might free lebensraum for your survivors (so you don’t have to invite them home, where they might menace your daughters). In the process, some of the underclass can be elevated (armies, police, prisons) to control the rest of the underclass.
Looking at other societies from the outside helps us to recognize the reprehensible nature of our own society. My anthropology instructor in college used to spend the lecture hour rehearsing some arcane and gruesome ritual (e.g., the Australian aborigine’s practice of sub-incision) and would always end his lecture with the same phrase: “the whole world ain’t like Sebastopol” (the local Podunk). I think Benedict’s point is that we are Sebastopol, we just can’t see it.
Benedict writes beautifully, and she always seems to have interesting material.
As we move from a dispersed (hunter-gathering) to more condensed (agriculture-industry-information) societies, the underclass is joined by primitives, farmers, and industrial workers who are no longer required. Paying the landlords for cash-crops produces famine. Crowding primitives and agrarians into “reservations,” ghettos, and airless factories produces pestilence. War exhausts not only your own underclass, but might free lebensraum for your survivors (so you don’t have to invite them home, where they might menace your daughters). In the process, some of the underclass can be elevated (armies, police, prisons) to control the rest of the underclass.
Looking at other societies from the outside helps us to recognize the reprehensible nature of our own society. My anthropology instructor in college used to spend the lecture hour rehearsing some arcane and gruesome ritual (e.g., the Australian aborigine’s practice of sub-incision) and would always end his lecture with the same phrase: “the whole world ain’t like Sebastopol” (the local Podunk). I think Benedict’s point is that we are Sebastopol, we just can’t see it.
Benedict writes beautifully, and she always seems to have interesting material.
September 14, 2021
Impossible. Benedict did something that no anthropologist would even attempt now. Comparative while contextualized, neither brief nor extensive, the three cultural sketches (four if you include the silent partner, early twentieth century America) which make up the heart of Patterns of Culture alone ensure this book’s legacy as a perennial classic. First published in 1935 and still in print, Benedict’s work does something unique. It borrows heavily from the ethnographic research of others, sometimes digesting lengthy ethnographies into succinct chapters. It’s not likely that anybody today would consent to or even tolerate having their hard-earned fieldwork materials given over to somebody else’s research program or political project. But perhaps back then there was still an esprit de corps among the (in this case, Boasian) ethnographers, who each in their own way surmised that people need to be enlightened about the plurality of the planet’s cultural configurations. The Boasians apparently believed that no individual’s research program, nor one’s ‘name’ in the field, was more important than the dissemination of truth about what humans are, what they are not, and most importantly what they could possibly be.
Patterns of Culture begins by defining anthropology as “the study of human beings as creatures of society.” To be human means above all else to be human in a community with other human beings of like manners and beliefs, which entails being human in a particular way. Today, many psychologists assume that fathoming the mind of an idealized individual is basic to any scientific understanding of human nature. But in anthropology’s first golden age, the individual could only be understood in terms of his or her actions and reactions within the context of a particular cultural configuration. The psychologists ‘human nature’ is really already confused with local traditions. These local traditions are what make us ‘creatures of society’ as opposed to creatures of instinct. A century or so ago, it was felt that the easiest way to appreciate how the individual and the social presuppose one another is to look at primitives, embedded in their matrix of traditional cultures that are smaller and simpler and that can be better encapsulated in a text. The anthropologist can observe each primitive culture as a test case, where, through an observation of cultural traits and their interactions, the culture concept can be developed under local conditions. The point is not to idealize primitive cultures (“no spirit of poeticizing the simpler peoples”) but to instead appreciate through the observation of bare life how all individuals are “plastic to the molding force of the society into which they were born”, and how the individual’s feedback of thoughts, feelings, and actions in time lend their form and substance to the social.
Primitive societies, being simpler, can be characterized by a single concept, one which is derived through a synthetic process, not unlike the heuristic abstraction of a Weberian ideal type. This technique will not work for our own highly specialized roles in our highly stratified civilization. But for the primitive folks, who are neither dispersed from a single locality nor stratified into classes, we can distill a configuration of traits into a gestalt, a holistic representation whose unity is greater than the sum of its parts. Clearly, we can not cut all cultures down to what Benedict calls the ‘Procrustean bed’ of some ‘catchword characterization.’ But it always helps to have a key concept handy to frame an understanding of an unfamiliar cultural configuration, although the narrowness or vagueness of the concept can produce a liability. But in principle, we are dealing with an open set of terminological distinctions and not a limited schema of terms taken from a totalizing and closed set of ethnological ideas.
People are born with many different talents and temperaments, and since some cultures allow more and different variation than others, it follows that the same individual might feel freer in one culture than in another. Thus, being born gay means something different for the Puritan than it does for the Plains Indian, who has access to the tolerated and accepted role of the berdache. Likewise, some cultures expect complete sobriety while other cultures permit experimentation with drugs, or else a culture might place great importance on ecstatic trance states. This means that people whose behaviors are regarded as normal in one society might be seen as devious freaks in another society. A naturally skilled warrior might be a pariah in a pacifist tribe. Young lovers might be celebrated in one locale, only to be condemned in another. But all cultures permit or prohibit certain traits according to their own (sometimes inconsistent or seemingly arbitrary) configuration. And so, at times, tradition can be “as neurotic as any patient.”
While the ethnological chapters of Patterns of Culture are interesting, it is the middle three ethnographic chapters which make this book still so fascinating. The key to Benedict’s method is not only to give enough detail about a society so that its cultural configuration can be discerned, but also to provide a terse enough description that several cultures can be lined up for side by side comparison in a single work. “The Pueblos of New Mexico”, based primarily on the Zuñi ethnography of Ruth Bunzel, depicts an Apollonian civilization. While still primitive in scale and simplicity, this culture appears well advanced in its ethical structure. Moderation and the middle way are emphasized. The wielding of power and the exercise of violence are avoided rather than craved, and any thirst for dominating others is regarded as a sinister sign of sorcery. The individual is in fact submerged, through a system of rituals and initiations, into the foundational matrices of the culture itself. Living in harmony with the community is valued more than any personal glory or pride in individual accomplishment. While not puritanical to any degree, the Zuñi are modest, peaceful, sober, egalitarian. For Benedict, the Zuñi out-Greek the ancient Greeks, thriving in their Apollonian near-utopia.
The Melanesian island of Dobu, on the other hand, hosts a tribe that is about as far from a utopian community as one could imagine. The Dobu, as studied by Fortune, are depicted as paranoid, for they value ill-will and treachery as their highest virtues. From a Western perspective, Dobu ideas of marriage are fairly bizarre. The marriage begins when the girl’s mother traps her new son-in-law in her house, only releasing him once he agrees to the marriage. And when a wife dies for any reason whatsoever, the husband is labeled a sorcerer and is summarily blamed for the death. The widower is then forced to labor like a slave for his wife’s parents for up to two years, or until a hefty ransom is paid by the widower’s clan for his emancipation.
The Kwakiutl of the Canadian pacific, as studied by Boas, had a competitive civilization steeped in a Dionysian and megalomaniac will to power. Like the Zuñi, the Kwakiutl communicate their culture to one another in ritual acts. But unlike the Zuñi, the Kwakiutl do not submerge their egos into the social collective but instead strive toward personal aggrandizement through the shaming of rivals. The famous institution of the Potlatch, by which one acquires power and influence, works through a process of selfishly giving. With great feasting and fanfare, massive quantities of goods (for example, thousands of blankets, or named copper plates worth even more) are presented to one’s enemy in an effort to shame him into a status of inferiority. In a year, the shamed recipient must hold a Potlatch in order to return the goods with 100 per cent interest, or else face further shame and indignation. There is no celebration of the ‘middle way’ like you find in the Pueblo tribes. Rather, ecstatic trance states form part of initiation into the egotistical (to the extreme) Cannibal Society, in which the entranced participant “fell upon the onlookers with his teeth and bit a mouthful of flesh from their arms.” The Kwakiutl are in fact horrified by this display of a cannibalistic lack of self control, but nevertheless accommodate this sort of behavior through ritual initiation as part of the Kwakiutl’s Dionysian, megalomaniac configuration. We have in the Kwakiutl a generalized war of all against all, such that weddings and investitures (purchasing of traditional names together with the prerogatives that go with them) appear more like a personal war than any sort of peaceful projection of the social collective.
Benedict’s Patterns of Culture is a classic for a number of good reasons. The ethnographic sketches of the three main cultures dealt with are succinct and well written, enough so that the reader comes away with impressions of these cultures which are both vivid and lasting. There is no jargon to navigate through or around. The dense webs of ethnographic vignettes help one to visualize the constellation of behaviors which instantiate the cultural configurations. Throughout the point is made that while individual behavior might vary in similar ways in distinct cultures, how that range of behavior is dealt with and made sense of depends to a large extent on the peculiarities of each cultural configuration.
Although I am not aware of Patterns of Culture making much of an impact in any field outside of anthropology, I am intrigued by Kroeber’s 1935 review which claimed Patterns is best suited for the ‘intelligent non-anthropologist’ as ‘propaganda for the anthropological attitude.’
There are a few things which detract slightly from Patterns of Culture. First of all, while the interplay of self and society is expounded with thorough detail, other aspects of cultural context are missing. Apart from the brief statements about the salmon runs making the Kwakiutl rich while barren soils made the Dobu poor, there is no attempt to tie together ecology with the wider economy and society. Maybe the Kwakiutl are wasteful and the Dobu are miserable because of their physical environments. Patterns also lacks any historical depth that one might find in a more modern work of ethnography. And as was later discovered by psychological anthropologists, these concepts that are used to label configurations (as cultural personalities) might be a little too much like stereotypes to be successfully applied to more subtle sociocultural phenomena. I tend to agree with Firth, who in 1936 said that the cultures described in Benedict’s Patterns “seem to demand a more subtle analysis and more varied instruments of measurement.” But I think it is telling that while Firth argues for greater analytical depth, Kroeber makes the contrary argument for more cultures to be included for increased breadth of analysis. Actually, I believe Benedict made optimal choices of what to include and how to characterize these native peoples. Adding more cultures or augmenting the terminology would make the work less effective, not more so.
In the end, Benedict favors a relativist approach to ethnography and ethnology. By not passing judgment on the cultures being explored and investigated, we arrive at anthropology’s Holy Grail: an objective accounting of how one might participate in a unique culture, despite coming into this world as a blank slates free of knowledge or prejudice. Finally, Benedict seems to advocate a program of cultural critique. We need to be sensitive to the fact that those who are odd in one culture might be normal elsewhere, and vice versa. The fact that all cultures are different is not a reason for despair. Rather, the plasticity of human beings means change for the better is always possible, provided sufficient communication and tolerance are condoned. The culture we must live with is ultimately malleable and transformable, as long as it does not succumb under the weight of its own propaganda.
Patterns of Culture begins by defining anthropology as “the study of human beings as creatures of society.” To be human means above all else to be human in a community with other human beings of like manners and beliefs, which entails being human in a particular way. Today, many psychologists assume that fathoming the mind of an idealized individual is basic to any scientific understanding of human nature. But in anthropology’s first golden age, the individual could only be understood in terms of his or her actions and reactions within the context of a particular cultural configuration. The psychologists ‘human nature’ is really already confused with local traditions. These local traditions are what make us ‘creatures of society’ as opposed to creatures of instinct. A century or so ago, it was felt that the easiest way to appreciate how the individual and the social presuppose one another is to look at primitives, embedded in their matrix of traditional cultures that are smaller and simpler and that can be better encapsulated in a text. The anthropologist can observe each primitive culture as a test case, where, through an observation of cultural traits and their interactions, the culture concept can be developed under local conditions. The point is not to idealize primitive cultures (“no spirit of poeticizing the simpler peoples”) but to instead appreciate through the observation of bare life how all individuals are “plastic to the molding force of the society into which they were born”, and how the individual’s feedback of thoughts, feelings, and actions in time lend their form and substance to the social.
Primitive societies, being simpler, can be characterized by a single concept, one which is derived through a synthetic process, not unlike the heuristic abstraction of a Weberian ideal type. This technique will not work for our own highly specialized roles in our highly stratified civilization. But for the primitive folks, who are neither dispersed from a single locality nor stratified into classes, we can distill a configuration of traits into a gestalt, a holistic representation whose unity is greater than the sum of its parts. Clearly, we can not cut all cultures down to what Benedict calls the ‘Procrustean bed’ of some ‘catchword characterization.’ But it always helps to have a key concept handy to frame an understanding of an unfamiliar cultural configuration, although the narrowness or vagueness of the concept can produce a liability. But in principle, we are dealing with an open set of terminological distinctions and not a limited schema of terms taken from a totalizing and closed set of ethnological ideas.
People are born with many different talents and temperaments, and since some cultures allow more and different variation than others, it follows that the same individual might feel freer in one culture than in another. Thus, being born gay means something different for the Puritan than it does for the Plains Indian, who has access to the tolerated and accepted role of the berdache. Likewise, some cultures expect complete sobriety while other cultures permit experimentation with drugs, or else a culture might place great importance on ecstatic trance states. This means that people whose behaviors are regarded as normal in one society might be seen as devious freaks in another society. A naturally skilled warrior might be a pariah in a pacifist tribe. Young lovers might be celebrated in one locale, only to be condemned in another. But all cultures permit or prohibit certain traits according to their own (sometimes inconsistent or seemingly arbitrary) configuration. And so, at times, tradition can be “as neurotic as any patient.”
While the ethnological chapters of Patterns of Culture are interesting, it is the middle three ethnographic chapters which make this book still so fascinating. The key to Benedict’s method is not only to give enough detail about a society so that its cultural configuration can be discerned, but also to provide a terse enough description that several cultures can be lined up for side by side comparison in a single work. “The Pueblos of New Mexico”, based primarily on the Zuñi ethnography of Ruth Bunzel, depicts an Apollonian civilization. While still primitive in scale and simplicity, this culture appears well advanced in its ethical structure. Moderation and the middle way are emphasized. The wielding of power and the exercise of violence are avoided rather than craved, and any thirst for dominating others is regarded as a sinister sign of sorcery. The individual is in fact submerged, through a system of rituals and initiations, into the foundational matrices of the culture itself. Living in harmony with the community is valued more than any personal glory or pride in individual accomplishment. While not puritanical to any degree, the Zuñi are modest, peaceful, sober, egalitarian. For Benedict, the Zuñi out-Greek the ancient Greeks, thriving in their Apollonian near-utopia.
The Melanesian island of Dobu, on the other hand, hosts a tribe that is about as far from a utopian community as one could imagine. The Dobu, as studied by Fortune, are depicted as paranoid, for they value ill-will and treachery as their highest virtues. From a Western perspective, Dobu ideas of marriage are fairly bizarre. The marriage begins when the girl’s mother traps her new son-in-law in her house, only releasing him once he agrees to the marriage. And when a wife dies for any reason whatsoever, the husband is labeled a sorcerer and is summarily blamed for the death. The widower is then forced to labor like a slave for his wife’s parents for up to two years, or until a hefty ransom is paid by the widower’s clan for his emancipation.
The Kwakiutl of the Canadian pacific, as studied by Boas, had a competitive civilization steeped in a Dionysian and megalomaniac will to power. Like the Zuñi, the Kwakiutl communicate their culture to one another in ritual acts. But unlike the Zuñi, the Kwakiutl do not submerge their egos into the social collective but instead strive toward personal aggrandizement through the shaming of rivals. The famous institution of the Potlatch, by which one acquires power and influence, works through a process of selfishly giving. With great feasting and fanfare, massive quantities of goods (for example, thousands of blankets, or named copper plates worth even more) are presented to one’s enemy in an effort to shame him into a status of inferiority. In a year, the shamed recipient must hold a Potlatch in order to return the goods with 100 per cent interest, or else face further shame and indignation. There is no celebration of the ‘middle way’ like you find in the Pueblo tribes. Rather, ecstatic trance states form part of initiation into the egotistical (to the extreme) Cannibal Society, in which the entranced participant “fell upon the onlookers with his teeth and bit a mouthful of flesh from their arms.” The Kwakiutl are in fact horrified by this display of a cannibalistic lack of self control, but nevertheless accommodate this sort of behavior through ritual initiation as part of the Kwakiutl’s Dionysian, megalomaniac configuration. We have in the Kwakiutl a generalized war of all against all, such that weddings and investitures (purchasing of traditional names together with the prerogatives that go with them) appear more like a personal war than any sort of peaceful projection of the social collective.
Benedict’s Patterns of Culture is a classic for a number of good reasons. The ethnographic sketches of the three main cultures dealt with are succinct and well written, enough so that the reader comes away with impressions of these cultures which are both vivid and lasting. There is no jargon to navigate through or around. The dense webs of ethnographic vignettes help one to visualize the constellation of behaviors which instantiate the cultural configurations. Throughout the point is made that while individual behavior might vary in similar ways in distinct cultures, how that range of behavior is dealt with and made sense of depends to a large extent on the peculiarities of each cultural configuration.
Although I am not aware of Patterns of Culture making much of an impact in any field outside of anthropology, I am intrigued by Kroeber’s 1935 review which claimed Patterns is best suited for the ‘intelligent non-anthropologist’ as ‘propaganda for the anthropological attitude.’
There are a few things which detract slightly from Patterns of Culture. First of all, while the interplay of self and society is expounded with thorough detail, other aspects of cultural context are missing. Apart from the brief statements about the salmon runs making the Kwakiutl rich while barren soils made the Dobu poor, there is no attempt to tie together ecology with the wider economy and society. Maybe the Kwakiutl are wasteful and the Dobu are miserable because of their physical environments. Patterns also lacks any historical depth that one might find in a more modern work of ethnography. And as was later discovered by psychological anthropologists, these concepts that are used to label configurations (as cultural personalities) might be a little too much like stereotypes to be successfully applied to more subtle sociocultural phenomena. I tend to agree with Firth, who in 1936 said that the cultures described in Benedict’s Patterns “seem to demand a more subtle analysis and more varied instruments of measurement.” But I think it is telling that while Firth argues for greater analytical depth, Kroeber makes the contrary argument for more cultures to be included for increased breadth of analysis. Actually, I believe Benedict made optimal choices of what to include and how to characterize these native peoples. Adding more cultures or augmenting the terminology would make the work less effective, not more so.
In the end, Benedict favors a relativist approach to ethnography and ethnology. By not passing judgment on the cultures being explored and investigated, we arrive at anthropology’s Holy Grail: an objective accounting of how one might participate in a unique culture, despite coming into this world as a blank slates free of knowledge or prejudice. Finally, Benedict seems to advocate a program of cultural critique. We need to be sensitive to the fact that those who are odd in one culture might be normal elsewhere, and vice versa. The fact that all cultures are different is not a reason for despair. Rather, the plasticity of human beings means change for the better is always possible, provided sufficient communication and tolerance are condoned. The culture we must live with is ultimately malleable and transformable, as long as it does not succumb under the weight of its own propaganda.
February 14, 2025
Fajny opis ludów, ale początek i koniec... nie no, niedobrze
Przeczytałam takiego kloca, a na egzaminie brak pytania o to, jak zyc
Przeczytałam takiego kloca, a na egzaminie brak pytania o to, jak zyc
December 31, 2018
First read in 1960s for an anthropology class. Remembered since.
A foundation building block book for my world view.
***
One leg of Benedict tripod rests on the northwest coast of North America.
***
For a novel look at Salmon Culture social life, I recommend Houston's Eagle Song.
Eagle Song: An Indian Saga Based on True Events
A foundation building block book for my world view.
***
One leg of Benedict tripod rests on the northwest coast of North America.
***
For a novel look at Salmon Culture social life, I recommend Houston's Eagle Song.
Eagle Song: An Indian Saga Based on True Events
June 24, 2023
A Coleção Os Pensadores figurava nas estantes da minha casa desde que me conheço por gente. Provavelmente meu pai comprou essa coleção da Nova Cultural como material de estudo para o curso de Direito. Estive no começo do mês na Feira do Livro do Pacaembu e encontrei uma nova coleção Os Pensadores, dessa vez editada pela Folha de S. Paulo. E, pasmem, na nova coleção tinha até "Pensadores" mulheres desta vez. bell hooks abre a coleção e Ruth Benedict que escreveu este livro é outra. Apesar do título atraente e de um sumário ainda mais atraente. Padrões da Cultura é o puro suco da antropologia tradicional, que estuda os povos "selvagens". Assim minha empolgação com o livro foi pro lixo. Os padrões pensados aqui são muito mais amplos e psicológicos do que a cultura como memória ou ritual pode abranger. Benedict estuda três povos "bárbaros", do México, da Nova Guiné e dos EUA, fazendo aquela análise estranhando os comportamentos estrangeiros, como se os povos estudados não fizessem parte da humanidade. Confesso que não gosto deste tipo de estudo, por mais pioneiro e importante que tenha sido. E assim esse livro vai ser doado ou vendido.
May 27, 2021
A lifetime of assiduous reading and I am still always being embarrassed by the important names I don't know and the important books they've written & I haven't read. Except that I see in my copy of "The Interpretation of Cultures" that she's been slandered by Clifford Geertz, I'm not sure quite how I missed Ruth Benedict. I wish I'd discovered her when I was 13 and turning into a person, or at 23 on the eve of my graduate studies, or at 33 when I maybe started to be political, or at 43 when--but, finally, now. To read her book some 90 years after its publication is, for me, to recognize her as a kind of prophet of cultural relativism: why isn't she (or perhaps she is?) way damn trendier today than she was even super-popular back before WWII? To be an artist and to read her was, for me, to be exhilarated by renewed senses of scopes of possibility; to be an outcast in one's own culture-- or at least a person living between worlds -- and to read her was, for me, an occasion for tears of the sort which flow when you think you've suddenly been seen. There are aspects of it I'm certain seem naïve to contemporary anthropology people, or just obvious in terms of left axioms, but I love this book: beautifully and brilliantly thought, argued and revealed.
December 29, 2025
A really very interesting study of the extreme forms societies can take. And nice reminder that our culture is no more natural or concrete than any other - different motivations bring out different characteristics within us to the fore
August 21, 2022
Benedict is clear, sharp and smart. Her way of expressing difficult concepts in anthropological studies is easy and enjoyable to understand. Her enthusiasm comes through the writing and I found myself excitedly turning pages for more of her insights. I hadn’t read her work before and enjoyed it more than Mead’s. Glad I came across this!
January 12, 2019
A study of different cultures from a systemic perspective.
Benedict states that every culture has “certain goals toward which their behavior is directed and which their institutions further.” Her most important discovery is, those goals of different cultures “are incommensurable.” This means that they cannot be compared, which is described as cultural relativism. If we want to understand any culture we have to understand it holistically. We cannot simply judge a certain behavior, but we have to understand what motivates it and how it is constructed within this specific culture.
How a synergistic culture can be created in business, where the personal behavior and organizational direction are coupled to create synergy is explored in a blog post inspired by this book:
http://www.humanbusiness.eu/synergy-p...
Benedict states that every culture has “certain goals toward which their behavior is directed and which their institutions further.” Her most important discovery is, those goals of different cultures “are incommensurable.” This means that they cannot be compared, which is described as cultural relativism. If we want to understand any culture we have to understand it holistically. We cannot simply judge a certain behavior, but we have to understand what motivates it and how it is constructed within this specific culture.
How a synergistic culture can be created in business, where the personal behavior and organizational direction are coupled to create synergy is explored in a blog post inspired by this book:
http://www.humanbusiness.eu/synergy-p...
August 3, 2011
This book was a very interesting read. It helped me put into perspective cultural values that we take for granted as 'universal'. There are no universal values or ethics - every culture shapes reality according to their own value priorities. Thus it put a large question mark on my mind as to how to solve certain problems that we face as a species - how are we ever going to find a common ground from which to tackle these? I found the perspective of analysis interesting - Apollonian versus Dionysian cultures, but I would add that the basic philosophy and modus operandi of a culture can change over time. If we regard western European culture it becomes obvious that our own cosmological outlook has changed a great deal, from Dionysian in Roman and even pre-Roman times to the rather more Apollonian that we have today. Anyhow, I think it is an important and stimulating read that opens the mind to the kaleidoscopic world of possibilities that the human spirit has evolved to answer the fundamental questions of life.
May 30, 2024
THE FAMED ANTHROPOLOGIST DRAWS CONCLUSIONS FROM THREE CULTURES
Ruth Fulton Benedict (1887-1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist, who studied under Franz Boas, and was close friends (quite possibly VERY “close”) with Margaret Mead.
She wrote in the “Acknowledgements” of this 1934 book, “The three primitive peoples described in this volume have been chosen because knowledge of these tribes is comparatively full and satisfactory and because I was able to supplement published descriptions with many discussions from field ethnologists who have lived intimately with these peoples and who have written the authoritative descriptions of the tribes in question. I have myself lived several summers in the pueblo of Zuni, and among some of the neighboring tribes which I have used to contrast with pueblo culture… For the presentations here I am alone responsible and it may be that I have carried some interpretations further than one or another of the field-workers would have done. But the chapters have been read and verified as to facts by these authorities upon these tribe, and references to the detailed studies are given for those who wish to consult the full accounts.”
She stated in the first chapter, “Anthropology was by definition impossible as long as these distinctions between ourselves and the primitive, ourselves and the barbarian, ourselves and the pagan, held sway over people’s minds. It was necessary first to arrive at that degree of sophistication where wo no longer set our own belief over against our neighbor’s superstition. It was necessary to recognize that these instructions which are based on the same premises, let us say the supernatural, must be considered together, our own among the rest.” (Pg. 3)
She observes, “All over the world, since the beginning of human history, it can be shown that peoples have been able to adopt the culture of peoples of another blood. There is nothing in the biological structure of man that makes it even difficult. Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behavior. The great diversity of social solutions that man has worked out in different cultures in regard to mating, for example, or trade, are all equally possible on the basis of his original endowment. Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.” (Pg. 12-13)
She suggests, “We greatly need the ability to analyze traits of our own cultural heritage into their several parts. Our discussions of the social order would gain in clarity if we learned to understand in this way the complexity of even our simplest behavior. Racial differences and prestige prerogatives have so merged among Anglo-Saxon peoples that we fail to separate biological racial matters from our most socially conditioned prejudices.” (Pg. 40)
She notes, “The diversity of cultures can be endlessly documented… Traits having no intrinsic relation one with the other, and historically independent, merge and become inextricable, providing the occasion for behavior that has no counterpart in regions that do not make these identifications. It is a corollary of this that standards, no matter in what aspect of behavior, range in different cultures from the position to the negative pole.” (Pg. 41)
She states, “Cultures, likewise, are more than the sum of their traits. We may know all about the distribution of a tribe’s form of marriage, ritual dances, and puberty initiations, and yet understand nothing of the culture as a whole which has used these elements to its own purpose. This purpose selects from among the possible traits in the surrounding regions those which it can use, and discards those which it cannot… The process of course need never be conscious during its whole course, but to overlook it in the study of the patternings of human behavior is to renounce the possibility of intelligent interpretation.” (Pg. 43)
Of the Pueblos of New Mexico, she comments, “In their strict Apollonian ethos, the Pueblos distrust and reject those experiences which take the individual in any way out of bounds and forfeit his sobriety. This repugnance is so strong that it has even been sufficient to keep American alcohol from becoming an administrative problem. Everywhere else on Indian reservations in the United States alcohol is an inescapable issue… But in the pueblos the problem has never been important. They did not brew any native intoxicant in the old days, nor do they now… Drunkenness is repulsive to them.” (Pg. 82)
She summarizes, “The segment of human behavior which the Northwest Coast has marked out to institutionalize in its culture is one which is recognized as abnormal in our civilization, and yet it is sufficiently close to the attitudes of our own culture to be intelligible to us and we have a definite vocabulary with which we may discuss it. The megalomaniac paranoid is a definite danger in our society. It faces us with a choice of possible attitudes. One is to try to brand it as abnormal and reprehensible, and it is the attitude we have chosen in our civilization. The other extreme is to make it the essential attribute of ideal man, and this is the solution in the culture of the Northwest Coast.” (Pg. 205)
She notes, “Western civilization tends to regard even a mil homosexual as an abnormal… We have only to turn to other cultures, however, to realize that homosexuals have by no means be uniformly inadequate to the social situation… In some societies they have been especially acclaimed… [With] The American Indians … homosexuals are often regarded as exceptionally able… The emphasis in most tribes was upon the fact that men who took over women’s occupations excelled by reason of their strength and initiative and were therefore leaders in women’s techniques and in the accumulation of those forms of property made by women.” (Pg. 242-243)
This book is one of the “classics” of cultural anthropology, and will be of great interest to those studying this field.
Ruth Fulton Benedict (1887-1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist, who studied under Franz Boas, and was close friends (quite possibly VERY “close”) with Margaret Mead.
She wrote in the “Acknowledgements” of this 1934 book, “The three primitive peoples described in this volume have been chosen because knowledge of these tribes is comparatively full and satisfactory and because I was able to supplement published descriptions with many discussions from field ethnologists who have lived intimately with these peoples and who have written the authoritative descriptions of the tribes in question. I have myself lived several summers in the pueblo of Zuni, and among some of the neighboring tribes which I have used to contrast with pueblo culture… For the presentations here I am alone responsible and it may be that I have carried some interpretations further than one or another of the field-workers would have done. But the chapters have been read and verified as to facts by these authorities upon these tribe, and references to the detailed studies are given for those who wish to consult the full accounts.”
She stated in the first chapter, “Anthropology was by definition impossible as long as these distinctions between ourselves and the primitive, ourselves and the barbarian, ourselves and the pagan, held sway over people’s minds. It was necessary first to arrive at that degree of sophistication where wo no longer set our own belief over against our neighbor’s superstition. It was necessary to recognize that these instructions which are based on the same premises, let us say the supernatural, must be considered together, our own among the rest.” (Pg. 3)
She observes, “All over the world, since the beginning of human history, it can be shown that peoples have been able to adopt the culture of peoples of another blood. There is nothing in the biological structure of man that makes it even difficult. Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behavior. The great diversity of social solutions that man has worked out in different cultures in regard to mating, for example, or trade, are all equally possible on the basis of his original endowment. Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.” (Pg. 12-13)
She suggests, “We greatly need the ability to analyze traits of our own cultural heritage into their several parts. Our discussions of the social order would gain in clarity if we learned to understand in this way the complexity of even our simplest behavior. Racial differences and prestige prerogatives have so merged among Anglo-Saxon peoples that we fail to separate biological racial matters from our most socially conditioned prejudices.” (Pg. 40)
She notes, “The diversity of cultures can be endlessly documented… Traits having no intrinsic relation one with the other, and historically independent, merge and become inextricable, providing the occasion for behavior that has no counterpart in regions that do not make these identifications. It is a corollary of this that standards, no matter in what aspect of behavior, range in different cultures from the position to the negative pole.” (Pg. 41)
She states, “Cultures, likewise, are more than the sum of their traits. We may know all about the distribution of a tribe’s form of marriage, ritual dances, and puberty initiations, and yet understand nothing of the culture as a whole which has used these elements to its own purpose. This purpose selects from among the possible traits in the surrounding regions those which it can use, and discards those which it cannot… The process of course need never be conscious during its whole course, but to overlook it in the study of the patternings of human behavior is to renounce the possibility of intelligent interpretation.” (Pg. 43)
Of the Pueblos of New Mexico, she comments, “In their strict Apollonian ethos, the Pueblos distrust and reject those experiences which take the individual in any way out of bounds and forfeit his sobriety. This repugnance is so strong that it has even been sufficient to keep American alcohol from becoming an administrative problem. Everywhere else on Indian reservations in the United States alcohol is an inescapable issue… But in the pueblos the problem has never been important. They did not brew any native intoxicant in the old days, nor do they now… Drunkenness is repulsive to them.” (Pg. 82)
She summarizes, “The segment of human behavior which the Northwest Coast has marked out to institutionalize in its culture is one which is recognized as abnormal in our civilization, and yet it is sufficiently close to the attitudes of our own culture to be intelligible to us and we have a definite vocabulary with which we may discuss it. The megalomaniac paranoid is a definite danger in our society. It faces us with a choice of possible attitudes. One is to try to brand it as abnormal and reprehensible, and it is the attitude we have chosen in our civilization. The other extreme is to make it the essential attribute of ideal man, and this is the solution in the culture of the Northwest Coast.” (Pg. 205)
She notes, “Western civilization tends to regard even a mil homosexual as an abnormal… We have only to turn to other cultures, however, to realize that homosexuals have by no means be uniformly inadequate to the social situation… In some societies they have been especially acclaimed… [With] The American Indians … homosexuals are often regarded as exceptionally able… The emphasis in most tribes was upon the fact that men who took over women’s occupations excelled by reason of their strength and initiative and were therefore leaders in women’s techniques and in the accumulation of those forms of property made by women.” (Pg. 242-243)
This book is one of the “classics” of cultural anthropology, and will be of great interest to those studying this field.
October 18, 2014
I liked this book overall. It talks about different cultures in three different parts of the world – the pueblos of new Mexico, the Dobu of Papua New Guinea and the Kwakuitl of Northwest America. the book contrasts some of the norms we take for granted around what constitutes a moral action. Ruth looks at the science of custom, the diversity of cultures, its integration, the nature of society and the individual and patterns of society. To be honest there were some very interesting bits in the middle when she talks about the three cultures but i found some of those bits a little boring. The last 2 chapters is where she sums it all up and it all comes to life. Definitely read those last 2 chapters. Overall a very good book if a tad slow in places.
October 5, 2015
I think Benedict makes some interesting points. She has written a book that covers almost exactly the reasons I want to study anthropology. She wants people to understand the idea of cultural relativity, which I think is an important idea. We have to remember that every culture is different and people fit into their cultures and worlds differently. Just because I am a white woman in the US doesn't mean I understand the experience of every white woman in the US. We are all different and we fit into this world as an outsider to one culture but as a normal citizen of another culture. Culture is a ever changing thing that I think is so interesting and will truly never be fully understood.
September 21, 2024
“The Dobuan lives out without repression man's worst nightmares of the ill-will of the universe, and according to his view of life virtue consists in selecting a victim upon whom he can vent the malignancy he attributes alike to human society and to the powers of nature. All existence appears to him as a cutthroat struggle in which deadly antagonists are pitted against one another in a contest for each one of the goods of life. Suspicion and cruelty are his trusted weapons in the strife and he gives no mercy, as he asks none.” The first Marxists?
May 17, 2025
Strangely present, wonderously classic, provides a time traveler's perspective into the entire thought processes of the anthropologists of the last century. Important to us now when we unpack misogyny, racism, colonialism, what are the stories, how much are they true, how do we know? How do we know what we know? How do we know what we know compared to what we observe, how much is what we observe filterefd through an idiosyncratic lens of perspective? Problematic and insightful,
January 31, 2018
Ruth Benedict's classic work on culture through individuals and the arc of human potentialities. "Social thinking at the present time [1934] has no more important task before it than that of taking adequate account of cultural relativity," she writes. The first chapters, re-reads from years ago, were a welcome reminder; the last one was a welcome surprise, as it touches on the arbitrariness of cultural "deviance" and resultant suffering. Skimmed the middle.
Read
June 10, 2009I remember this for the basic dichotomy of 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' cultures. I suspect Benedict chose the case studies she did because she felt they best represented polar forms of this dichotomy. Real societies, of course, aren't neatly cut in two--so she tended to exaggerate a bit betimes, probably.
September 17, 2019
Také to, keď si vyberiete knihu podľa pekného obalu a ona je fakt dobrá. Áno, je to jedno zo základných diel antropológie. Ale písané tak zaujímavo, že baví aj totálneho laika.
October 8, 2019
"...Heredity is an affair of family lines. Beyond that is mythology."
-pg 15
The caliber of thinker we're dealing with, here.
How can any adult believe in what's presented in this book?
-pg 15
The caliber of thinker we're dealing with, here.
How can any adult believe in what's presented in this book?
August 29, 2021
Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture introduces us to cultural studies. Through both the individualized and compared cultures of three societies (Zuni of southwestern United States, the Kwakiutl of western Canada, and the Dobuans of Melenesia) demonstrations of the diversity of behaviors among them served as a deeper dive into the nature of culture. Benedict’s interpretation of the said cultures as being continuously compared to ‘our’ (meaning the universal Western civilization) emphasizes the need to seek a perspective that is beyond the unchallenged lens of early social scientists – their own thinking. “Precisely in proportion as it was fundamental, it had its existence outside the field of conscious attention.” Benedict claimed that since there is an emphasis in the West on the frustrations and pressures of the modern world in attaining “success,” our freedom is then also as restricted (or even more) than earlier cultural communities. The last chapter of the book steered into her stance on cultural relativism, and the importance of seeing what is called ‘abnormalities’ or differences as as critical in not only tolerance, but its further inquiry into the nature of cultures.
I laud her critical assessment on absolutist philosophies and morals that limits us into a cultural lag than we should we open to the transcendence of cultures. More so, she relates this to the constraints felt by society as manifested by the limitations this imposes on an individual who does not find the form presented to them as congenial. From that point on, Benedict solidifies and calls for the opportunity of Anthropology’s further contribution to advocating (suppose it be at present times) for Mental health, LGBTQ+ Rights, and empowerment of the self from one’s disavowal to limiting beliefs that are imposed by society. Benedict also deems that the dominant traits of our civilization need special scrutiny. And it would be of a great inference, to think of our arrogant and unbridled egoists family men, as officers of law and business as forms of ego-gratification culturally supported in a similar fashion to the Kwakiutl’s rivalry, to the traditional Zuni indifference? How different are we then from the same patterns of culture that are seen “primitive?”
It is in the observances and keen perspective of Anthropology into different patterns of culture that make the world, as Benedict quotes it, safer for human differences.
Quotes:
“Custom did not challenge the attention of social theorists because it was the very stuff of their own thinking: it was the lens without which they could not see at all. Precisely in proportion as it was fundamental, it had its existence outside the field of conscious attention.”
“But our civilization must deal with cultural standards that go down under our eyes and new ones that arise from a shadow upon the horizon. We must be willing to take account of changing normalities even when the question is of the morality in which we are bred.”
I laud her critical assessment on absolutist philosophies and morals that limits us into a cultural lag than we should we open to the transcendence of cultures. More so, she relates this to the constraints felt by society as manifested by the limitations this imposes on an individual who does not find the form presented to them as congenial. From that point on, Benedict solidifies and calls for the opportunity of Anthropology’s further contribution to advocating (suppose it be at present times) for Mental health, LGBTQ+ Rights, and empowerment of the self from one’s disavowal to limiting beliefs that are imposed by society. Benedict also deems that the dominant traits of our civilization need special scrutiny. And it would be of a great inference, to think of our arrogant and unbridled egoists family men, as officers of law and business as forms of ego-gratification culturally supported in a similar fashion to the Kwakiutl’s rivalry, to the traditional Zuni indifference? How different are we then from the same patterns of culture that are seen “primitive?”
It is in the observances and keen perspective of Anthropology into different patterns of culture that make the world, as Benedict quotes it, safer for human differences.
Quotes:
“Custom did not challenge the attention of social theorists because it was the very stuff of their own thinking: it was the lens without which they could not see at all. Precisely in proportion as it was fundamental, it had its existence outside the field of conscious attention.”
“But our civilization must deal with cultural standards that go down under our eyes and new ones that arise from a shadow upon the horizon. We must be willing to take account of changing normalities even when the question is of the morality in which we are bred.”
March 3, 2018
Revisiting classics almost always provides a worthy read, and such is the case with reading Benedict's Patterns of Culture. More well-known for developing culture and personality school of thought, in this book we could actually see Benedict's wider influences on anthropology.
Benedict begins the book with three solid chapters on theoretical discussion of the way we should see and understand culture. Being a student of Franz Boas, Benedict takes a particularistic view on culture, seeing it is developed as an unique, local response to a problems encountered commonly by mankind. Though we can still see the universalist tendencies as a writer of her age, in this book Benedict clearly sets out her goal to "differentiate between those responses that are specific to local cultural tyes and those that are general to mankind."
Pointing out the permanence of culture in individual lives, Benedict explains in her often quoted words, that "No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes." That "life-history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community."
This reminds us of Durkheim's way of approaching of society as sui generis--something independent of its own--but with an agentive bent. Here Benedict already established that it is individual actions and thoughts that make up culture; a random set of unconscious, unintended action that leads to, in Sahlin's terms, "events". Some of these "events" are discarded, some are sedimented, that in turn it becomes the "patterning of culture". In this work already we can see the very prototype of action theory, 50 years before its mainstreaming by Ortner.
At the same time, Benedict emphasizes the importance of understanding culture as its whole. Attacking earlier anthropologists who take bits of cultural elements (traits) to construct a "Frankenstein monster" composed of different, unrelated traits, Benedict pushes a way of thinking in seeing culture in terms of gestalt. "The only way in which we can know the significance of the selected detail of behaviour," writes Benedict, "is against the background of the motives and emotions and values that are institutionalized in that culture" And here, again revolutionary, we can see the traces of interpretetive anthropology, later developed by Geertz in the 1960s.
The parts which later developed to her culture and personality school is not that interesting, but tracing her ideas that would later develop to something we all know is refreshing.
Benedict begins the book with three solid chapters on theoretical discussion of the way we should see and understand culture. Being a student of Franz Boas, Benedict takes a particularistic view on culture, seeing it is developed as an unique, local response to a problems encountered commonly by mankind. Though we can still see the universalist tendencies as a writer of her age, in this book Benedict clearly sets out her goal to "differentiate between those responses that are specific to local cultural tyes and those that are general to mankind."
Pointing out the permanence of culture in individual lives, Benedict explains in her often quoted words, that "No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes." That "life-history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community."
This reminds us of Durkheim's way of approaching of society as sui generis--something independent of its own--but with an agentive bent. Here Benedict already established that it is individual actions and thoughts that make up culture; a random set of unconscious, unintended action that leads to, in Sahlin's terms, "events". Some of these "events" are discarded, some are sedimented, that in turn it becomes the "patterning of culture". In this work already we can see the very prototype of action theory, 50 years before its mainstreaming by Ortner.
At the same time, Benedict emphasizes the importance of understanding culture as its whole. Attacking earlier anthropologists who take bits of cultural elements (traits) to construct a "Frankenstein monster" composed of different, unrelated traits, Benedict pushes a way of thinking in seeing culture in terms of gestalt. "The only way in which we can know the significance of the selected detail of behaviour," writes Benedict, "is against the background of the motives and emotions and values that are institutionalized in that culture" And here, again revolutionary, we can see the traces of interpretetive anthropology, later developed by Geertz in the 1960s.
The parts which later developed to her culture and personality school is not that interesting, but tracing her ideas that would later develop to something we all know is refreshing.
November 18, 2024
Benedict’s opening sentence is: “Anthropology is the study of human beings as creatures of society. “ This seems hive-mindish to me.
Furthermore, we can in no way be objective when looking at people and events in the world: “No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking. From the moment of his birth, the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, it’s beliefs, his beliefs…”
So, we are the subjects of cultural conditioning which we can not get around. This means our actions are culturally determined.
She makes this comment about culture: Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.“ It is also not psychologically or environmentally transmitted.
The bulk of this book looks at three primitive cultures: the Zuni Pueblo, the Doba and the Kwatkiutl of the Pacific Northwest. Each has some shocking practices, some seeming pathological and impractical, some seeming murderous.
“ What really binds men together is their culture, – the ideas and the standards they have in common.“
“if we are interested in human behavior, we need first of all to understand the institution that are provided in any society. For human behavior will take the forms those institutions suggest, even to extremes of which the observer, deep died in the culture of which he is a part, can have no intimation.” P. 207
“There is however, one difficult exercise to which we may a custom ourselves as we become increasingly culture conscious. We may train ourselves to pass judgment upon the dominant traits of our own civilization. “
The purpose of anthropology is not to judge these cultures as we cannot get past our own blinders. We must be tolerant of them. “Social thinking at the present time has no more important task before it than that of taking adequate account of cultural relativity.
Her position is not serious. It is childish. What is a culture for? Primarily to pass on the knowledge and skills and ideas to the next generation. It is also assumed that the culture has been constructed on the basis of its adequacy to the task of protecting the people of that culture from the vicissitudes of life. She looks at culture as if it is a piece of furniture. She never looks at these cultures as to whether the peoples live adequate lives. Surely, anthropology at least can do that?
Furthermore, we can in no way be objective when looking at people and events in the world: “No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking. From the moment of his birth, the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, it’s beliefs, his beliefs…”
So, we are the subjects of cultural conditioning which we can not get around. This means our actions are culturally determined.
She makes this comment about culture: Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.“ It is also not psychologically or environmentally transmitted.
The bulk of this book looks at three primitive cultures: the Zuni Pueblo, the Doba and the Kwatkiutl of the Pacific Northwest. Each has some shocking practices, some seeming pathological and impractical, some seeming murderous.
“ What really binds men together is their culture, – the ideas and the standards they have in common.“
“if we are interested in human behavior, we need first of all to understand the institution that are provided in any society. For human behavior will take the forms those institutions suggest, even to extremes of which the observer, deep died in the culture of which he is a part, can have no intimation.” P. 207
“There is however, one difficult exercise to which we may a custom ourselves as we become increasingly culture conscious. We may train ourselves to pass judgment upon the dominant traits of our own civilization. “
The purpose of anthropology is not to judge these cultures as we cannot get past our own blinders. We must be tolerant of them. “Social thinking at the present time has no more important task before it than that of taking adequate account of cultural relativity.
Her position is not serious. It is childish. What is a culture for? Primarily to pass on the knowledge and skills and ideas to the next generation. It is also assumed that the culture has been constructed on the basis of its adequacy to the task of protecting the people of that culture from the vicissitudes of life. She looks at culture as if it is a piece of furniture. She never looks at these cultures as to whether the peoples live adequate lives. Surely, anthropology at least can do that?
January 7, 2021
Today we hear a lot about "culture." Some examples are, "I'm into culture..." "I don't like the culture at work..." and "we need to respect other cultures..." Mostly these sentences only weakly arrive at what the anthropologist means by the term. For this reason, the book we have in hand here is R. Benedict's Patterns of Culture in the paperback edition published in 2005/following the original 1934 edition. Benedict provides expositions of three unique cultural phenomena: Zuni, Dobu, and Kwakiutl.
Before visiting each location and making a few comments, it must be understood that it is a work such as this which has made typical white Americans self-conscious about "culture" and the unknown "other." Take this sentence, written by Louise Lamphere in the Foreword, "Deeply embedded in Benedict's analysis of other cultures is a critique of American society." Fine, I am a very severe critic of "American society," less so of "American culture." American culture is a unique blend of European and African influences with a dominant moral note. This makes the culture less about "white bread" and more about a type of striving, a striving to improve ourselves, even if that is misguided as in technical proficiency.
1. Zuni: "The Zuni are a ceremonious people, a people who value sobriety and inoffensiveness above all other virtues." (p. 59) Oddly there is another sentence that makes sense and happens to be true: "The American people are a ceremonious people, a people who value sobriety and inoffensiveness above all other virtues." Our respect for the privacy of others is legendary. And teenagers cannot buy alcohol.
2. Dobu: "Dobuans are noted for their dangerousness. They are said to be magicians who have a diabolic power and warriors who halt at no treachery...they are lawless and treacherous. Every man's hand is against every other man." (p. 131) Oddly there is another sentence that makes sense and happens to be true: "Americans are noted for their dangerousness. They are said to be magicians who have the forced nuclear power to yield devastating results on simple peoples...they are lawless and treacherous because they settle many of their problems with firearms. In America each is for himself and community involvement is for the most part weak because private property is considered sacred."
3. Kwakiutl: "The Kwakiutl are a people of grand possessions comparatively speaking. They built up an ample supply of goods, inexhaustible, and obtained without excessive expenditure of labor...they kept up constant communication by means of seagoing vessels. They were adventurous...pushing in all directions..."(p. 174) Oddly there is another sentence that makes sense and happens to be true: "Americans are a people of abundant possessions, each attempting to secure his or her future through home ownership, shopping at large discount stores, and hoarding items in fear of instability...they also pressed their communications in all directions, making a global network and taking care of the business of others with more rational methods..."
So, you see, "culture" while not making me reach for my pistol does cause me some discomfort.
Before visiting each location and making a few comments, it must be understood that it is a work such as this which has made typical white Americans self-conscious about "culture" and the unknown "other." Take this sentence, written by Louise Lamphere in the Foreword, "Deeply embedded in Benedict's analysis of other cultures is a critique of American society." Fine, I am a very severe critic of "American society," less so of "American culture." American culture is a unique blend of European and African influences with a dominant moral note. This makes the culture less about "white bread" and more about a type of striving, a striving to improve ourselves, even if that is misguided as in technical proficiency.
1. Zuni: "The Zuni are a ceremonious people, a people who value sobriety and inoffensiveness above all other virtues." (p. 59) Oddly there is another sentence that makes sense and happens to be true: "The American people are a ceremonious people, a people who value sobriety and inoffensiveness above all other virtues." Our respect for the privacy of others is legendary. And teenagers cannot buy alcohol.
2. Dobu: "Dobuans are noted for their dangerousness. They are said to be magicians who have a diabolic power and warriors who halt at no treachery...they are lawless and treacherous. Every man's hand is against every other man." (p. 131) Oddly there is another sentence that makes sense and happens to be true: "Americans are noted for their dangerousness. They are said to be magicians who have the forced nuclear power to yield devastating results on simple peoples...they are lawless and treacherous because they settle many of their problems with firearms. In America each is for himself and community involvement is for the most part weak because private property is considered sacred."
3. Kwakiutl: "The Kwakiutl are a people of grand possessions comparatively speaking. They built up an ample supply of goods, inexhaustible, and obtained without excessive expenditure of labor...they kept up constant communication by means of seagoing vessels. They were adventurous...pushing in all directions..."(p. 174) Oddly there is another sentence that makes sense and happens to be true: "Americans are a people of abundant possessions, each attempting to secure his or her future through home ownership, shopping at large discount stores, and hoarding items in fear of instability...they also pressed their communications in all directions, making a global network and taking care of the business of others with more rational methods..."
So, you see, "culture" while not making me reach for my pistol does cause me some discomfort.
May 26, 2024
Patterns of Culture - Benedict, Ruth
First released in 1934, Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture speaks to us as an intellectually gifted representative of the first part of the last century; and I read her work now in a roughly equivalent part of this century.
Her discussions of two Native cultures from the South Pacific and one from the U.S. Northwestern state of Washington are startling contrasts with the North American cultures of the early 20th century and those of today. Happily, Ms Benedict wrote with a clarity that is not always easy to find among academic anthropologists.
Patterns of Culture seems still to be honored among anthropologists as important introduction to their field. Justifiably so in my view.
Beyond that, Ms Benedict’s insights into multicultural nations and the psychologies of persons who lead their institutions still rings true. Maybe more so in light of contemporary issues of wars and elected leaders’ attempts to diminish or eliminate important institutions.
I strongly recommend Patterns of Culture to anyone who wants to understand more about how people live together and deal with their own society’s life ways.
First released in 1934, Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture speaks to us as an intellectually gifted representative of the first part of the last century; and I read her work now in a roughly equivalent part of this century.
Her discussions of two Native cultures from the South Pacific and one from the U.S. Northwestern state of Washington are startling contrasts with the North American cultures of the early 20th century and those of today. Happily, Ms Benedict wrote with a clarity that is not always easy to find among academic anthropologists.
Patterns of Culture seems still to be honored among anthropologists as important introduction to their field. Justifiably so in my view.
Beyond that, Ms Benedict’s insights into multicultural nations and the psychologies of persons who lead their institutions still rings true. Maybe more so in light of contemporary issues of wars and elected leaders’ attempts to diminish or eliminate important institutions.
I strongly recommend Patterns of Culture to anyone who wants to understand more about how people live together and deal with their own society’s life ways.
October 26, 2025
A rather dull and dry work of anthropology, Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture throws around unscientific terms like "Dionysian" and "treacherous" to describe cultures from around the world in what is ostensibly a serious scientific enquiry.
Focusing on the three case studies of the Pueblo and Northwest Coast Indians of North America and the Dobu of the Pacific, Benedict makes broad generalizations of these cultures, describing them as "Apollonian", "Dionysian" and "treacherous" respectively in an attempt to capture their essence.
Unfortunately her analysis seems unconvincing, apart from rightly pointing out that certain "human types" are considered aberrant in some cultures while in others they would fit right in.
The work is at its best when it merely describes the various customs of the people studied but flounders when it comes to analysis.
Overall I found the book rather boring or maybe I just realized that I don't like anthropology all that much.
Focusing on the three case studies of the Pueblo and Northwest Coast Indians of North America and the Dobu of the Pacific, Benedict makes broad generalizations of these cultures, describing them as "Apollonian", "Dionysian" and "treacherous" respectively in an attempt to capture their essence.
Unfortunately her analysis seems unconvincing, apart from rightly pointing out that certain "human types" are considered aberrant in some cultures while in others they would fit right in.
The work is at its best when it merely describes the various customs of the people studied but flounders when it comes to analysis.
Overall I found the book rather boring or maybe I just realized that I don't like anthropology all that much.
January 6, 2019
本尼迪特提出一种研究方法，即通过研究作为整体的活的原始文化，考察某一特定文化对各种可能的要素的选择、不同要素之间的联结方式、和该文化以此方式建构背后隐含的目的和文化指向的方向。
她是文化多元论的有力提倡者。其一，所谓原始文化并非进化论意义上“我们”至高无上文化的较早、较差版本，而是不同的、平等的存在；其二，生物遗传学并非决定个体特质的要素，更主要的因素是社会化整合过程。
她认为文化研究不能仅仅描述和比较不同文化间具有表面相似性的要素，譬如婚姻、财产、战争，而是要研究这些要素之间的完形、连线，和社会执行这些要素时起到的功能。一些文化中，婚姻和财产分配没有过多的联系，而在另一些文化中，财产分配几乎是婚姻最重要的目的；“一个女孩的初潮可能引发整个村落的财产再分配”是一个用自然或生理事件为由头，完成社会调整目的的典型例子。
本尼迪特关注“精神病”和其他病理在不同文化中的命运，他们是不是能够成为被社会承认的一部分，还是被边缘化。癫痫患者在一些文化中是被赋权的萨满，社会用发病进行仪式，分配权力。女装的男子也可以收到尊敬，因其扮演部分女性的社会角色，完成部分女性的社会任务，切掌握较高的技艺。他们和男子同居受到认可。即使他们是社会生活中的失败者，也是因为他们能力的不足，而非女装身份所致。
书中对三种不同特质的文化作出详述。本尼迪特将其分别描述为日神、酒神和妄想狂式的，但这一分类不是简单划分类型，而是便于另读者理解。每个文化都是独特的点和线的组合，分类只是对庞杂的高维特征做一简要的聚类描述。
具体到文化内不同的生活，该文化所具有的特质对不同生活事件的渗透程度也是不同的。同样是安葬，文化强调尽量忘却死者，避免其影响，但对婴幼儿的哀悼依然悲痛；我们的文化强调竞争和财富的获取，但这并没有完全渗透入家庭生活，在外冷酷无情者回家依然可能是温情的父母。
个人心理应置于文化的目的这一背景上加以考虑。不是猜疑导致仪式和制度，而是分配制度和社会伦理造就猜疑。但文化目的同时也是历史的，可变的。
但本尼迪特的确较少论述文化特质的发生和演化，较多地立足于静态的观察。
她是文化多元论的有力提倡者。其一，所谓原始文化并非进化论意义上“我们”至高无上文化的较早、较差版本，而是不同的、平等的存在；其二，生物遗传学并非决定个体特质的要素，更主要的因素是社会化整合过程。
她认为文化研究不能仅仅描述和比较不同文化间具有表面相似性的要素，譬如婚姻、财产、战争，而是要研究这些要素之间的完形、连线，和社会执行这些要素时起到的功能。一些文化中，婚姻和财产分配没有过多的联系，而在另一些文化中，财产分配几乎是婚姻最重要的目的；“一个女孩的初潮可能引发整个村落的财产再分配”是一个用自然或生理事件为由头，完成社会调整目的的典型例子。
本尼迪特关注“精神病”和其他病理在不同文化中的命运，他们是不是能够成为被社会承认的一部分，还是被边缘化。癫痫患者在一些文化中是被赋权的萨满，社会用发病进行仪式，分配权力。女装的男子也可以收到尊敬，因其扮演部分女性的社会角色，完成部分女性的社会任务，切掌握较高的技艺。他们和男子同居受到认可。即使他们是社会生活中的失败者，也是因为他们能力的不足，而非女装身份所致。
书中对三种不同特质的文化作出详述。本尼迪特将其分别描述为日神、酒神和妄想狂式的，但这一分类不是简单划分类型，而是便于另读者理解。每个文化都是独特的点和线的组合，分类只是对庞杂的高维特征做一简要的聚类描述。
具体到文化内不同的生活，该文化所具有的特质对不同生活事件的渗透程度也是不同的。同样是安葬，文化强调尽量忘却死者，避免其影响，但对婴幼儿的哀悼依然悲痛；我们的文化强调竞争和财富的获取，但这并没有完全渗透入家庭生活，在外冷酷无情者回家依然可能是温情的父母。
个人心理应置于文化的目的这一背景上加以考虑。不是猜疑导致仪式和制度，而是分配制度和社会伦理造就猜疑。但文化目的同时也是历史的，可变的。
但本尼迪特的确较少论述文化特质的发生和演化，较多地立足于静态的观察。
September 9, 2020
Reviewing this book is almost meaningless but having read excerpts many years ago as an undergraduate it was interesting to read the whole. I did so because I was trying to get to the root of the idea of Puebloan society as Apollonian. An argument I am even less convinced of than ever.
From this distance Benedict suffers from the flaws of all anthropologists, but considering her reputation she was more sensitive to historic evolution of societies than I realized, it us a shame she did not bear this more in mind in her anthropological work.
Her case studies are mostly wretched, though in her defense the Zuni material is less absolutist than when she recounts Boaz’s work among the Pacific Northwest Kwakiutl or Fortune’s horrible fieldwork on the Melanesians of Dobu. She had an axe to grind and it shows.
From this distance Benedict suffers from the flaws of all anthropologists, but considering her reputation she was more sensitive to historic evolution of societies than I realized, it us a shame she did not bear this more in mind in her anthropological work.
Her case studies are mostly wretched, though in her defense the Zuni material is less absolutist than when she recounts Boaz’s work among the Pacific Northwest Kwakiutl or Fortune’s horrible fieldwork on the Melanesians of Dobu. She had an axe to grind and it shows.
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