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Ruth Benedict
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Anyone who doubts Ruth Benedict's desire to be a political educator need only read the last chapter in Patterns of Culture. According to Clifford Geertz, “To say one should read Benedict not with the likes of Gorer, Mead, Alexander Leighton, or Lawrence Frank at the back of one's mind, but rather with Swift, Montaigne, Veblen, and W.S. Gilbert, is to urge a particular understanding of what she is saying. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is no more a prettied-up science-without-tears policy tract than [Gulliver's Travels] is a children's book.”(2)
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Ruth Benedict, a world renown American anthropologist, was an early supporter of the theory of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism states that no single culture can be viewed as being any better than any other culture. Each culture is distinct and different in its own right and each attempts to solve the problems of its people the best way it knows how. However, when World War II broke out, Benedict was forced to reconsider this stance as she could not bring herself to believe that the Nazi culture was just as valid and adaptive as any other. This internal conflict led Benedict to her concept of synergy which states that "any society that is compatible with human advancements is a good one, but a society that works against basic human goals is antihuman and evil, and can be judged as such."
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Ruth Benedict's life and work shaped the discipline of anthropology in the United States and throughout the world. She studied at Columbia University under Franz Boas, whose egalitarian and antiracist approach to culture deeply influenced her own work. Benedict developed a new and innovative methodology, focusing on the choices and behavior of individuals as a key to cultural themes. "The purpose of anthropology," she stated, "is to make the world safe for human differences" (Haviland, Cultural Anthropology, 133). Her emphasis on socialization implicitly critiqued theories of nature and inborn temperament. Benedict taught at Columbia University for more than twenty years and published several books, including Patterns of Culture (1934), a classic in the field; Zuni Mythology (1935); Race: Science and Politics (1940), a refutation of racist theories of culture; and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946).
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As anthropologists, public intellectuals, and feminists, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead played remarkable roles in twentieth-century life and thought—and far beyond the academy. Their work helped to popularize anthropology while introducing such terms as culture and racism into common parlance. At the same time, they contributed to wider debates about environmentalism, sexuality, the women's movement, and American foreign policy. In this collection, prominent international scholars come together to explore the lives, works, and legacies of two influential figures in American anthropology. The contributions reflect a wide range of topics and perspectives: Benedict and Mead's complicated personal and professional relationship; their activities as scholars and outspoken intellectuals; their efforts to promote feminism and undermine racism; their contributions to (and the challenges they posed to) the imperialist project; and the stories behind their best-known works, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword and Coming of Age in Samoa. Together, the essays provide a useful and provocative introduction to Benedict and Mead as well as to the ongoing debate about the legacy they left behind.
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Ruth Benedict is regarded as one of the pioneers of cultural anthropology. She was ... one of the first to apply anthropology to the study of advanced societies. Benedict is best remembered for her works dealing with the national character of various culture groups, most famously the Japanese circa World War II. Her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (1946) is still recommended as introductory reading for students of Japanese culture. Other significant published works include: Patterns of Culture (1934), Zuni Mythology (1935), Race: Science and Politics (1940).
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In summary, Benedict says that what is habitual is synonyous with whatever is normal (whatever is socially agreeable to the majority of people raised in that society). But she ... says that whatever is acceptable as normal due to social conditioning is moral. (For example, if racism is moral in one's society, then it is moral to engage in the racist practices that are normal in the society.)
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Ruth Benedict