Leslie White (1900-1975)

 

Franz Boas’s influence on American anthropology meant that historical particularism became the orthodoxy, and generalization and theories of evolution (such as Edward Tylor’s view) were roundly rejected.  White’s theories represent the revenge both of evolutionary views and of a general (i.e., not particular) science of culture (rather than a set of particular studies of cultures).

 

Functionalism

Like Malinowski, White was a functionalist.  However, where Malinowski’s views were individualistic, claiming that the function of culture was to serve the needs of individuals, White saw culture’s function as serving the needs of the species.  Where Malinowski wanted to explain the patterns of specific cultures (notably the Trobriand islanders), White wanted to explain cultural developments of humanity.

 

Culture: nonbiological and biological

Culture is nonbiological because it is not genetic: babies are not born with culture.  But it is biological both in that it is a product of a particular creature – humans – and in that it serves a biological function – “to make life secure and enduring for the human species.”

 

Cultural Evolution

The most important features of culture are those that impart adaptive advantages.  This has two main implications:

1.     technology is crucial, because it is a means to transform energy and make it available for human use.

2.     the stage of evolution of any culture can be measured by its relative capacity to obtain and divert energy.

 

Subsystems of culture:

  1. technological: material, mechanical, chemical instruments and techniques for use
  2. sociological: interpersonal relations expressed in patterns of behavior
  3. ideological: ideas, beliefs, knowledge, expressed in symbolic form
  4. “sentimental or attitudinal” (a later addition): “the feelings or attitudes that constitute the subjective aspect.”

The technological factor is “the determinant of a cultural system as a whole” because

1.     Dependence: All organisms must meet basic energy requirements, be sheltered and defend themselves from enemies.

2.     Determination: for example, you wouldn’t have a railroad workers’ union, or a certain geographical distribution of population, or other social bodies, if it weren’t for the technological fact of the existence of the railways.  White even believed that such cultural attitudes as conceptions of beauty were determined by technology:

In cultures where technological control over food supply is slight and food is frequently scarce…a fat woman is often regarded as beautiful.  In cultures where food is abundant and women work little, obesity is likely to be regarded as unsightly.

The evolution of cultures is thus controlled by the evolution of technology (contrast with Tylor’s view that patrilineal systems mark an evolutionary advance over matrilineal – this would only be true if the one followed inevitably from a more advanced state of technology than the other).  And because technology is all about the storage and transformation of energy, this means that:

Culture thus confronts us as an elaborate thermodynamic, mechanical system… The functioning of a culture as a whole therefore rests upon and is determined by the amount of energy harnessed, and by the way it is put to work.

This in turn gives us precise units of cultural development and a law of cultural development:

Culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased.

He even proposed a formula: E * T -> C  (where C is the degree of cultural development, E is the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year, and T the quality efficiency of the tools employed in the expenditure of energy).

 

Culturology: the science of culture

Three rules should apply to a science of culture, according to White:

  1. It should be Science (duh!) rather than art.  This implies:
    1. there should be general laws (as Radcliffe-Brown argued).
    2. It should not be subjective, but should be about objective reality
    3. It should be evolutionary, in that there is a definite order to events.
  2. It should be about culture rather than cultures.
  3. It should be deterministic – denying appeals to free will, the individual, or any cause other than culture itself.

 

White agreed with Kroeber’s criticisms of the “great man” (e.g., Ikhnaton, Darwin, Newton, Beethoven, Edison) view of inventions and discoveries – they are inevitable products of culture, and the particular individuals do not pluck them out of thin air, they are just the vehicles of their coming to light.

 

Also, all cultures, no matter what their particular differences, share a great deal:

All have tools, language, customs, beliefs, music, etc.  And every cultural system functions as a means of relating man to the earth and cosmos, and as a means of relating man to man.  The science of culture will therefore concern itself with the structure and function of cultural systems.

 

Criticisms

White argues that the technological determines the other 2 or three categories.  But consider breastfeeding (surely one of the most basic forms of transfer of energy) – it is learned behavior, based on symbols (i.e., ideological).  Does that undermine his claim that technology is prior to ideology?