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Chapter 7:
Boas and the Demise of Cultural Evolution
© 2014 Mark Moberg
• Most anthropological volumes published in the US and UK from 1870 until
1910 employed evolutionary schemes in which white Anglo-Saxons were
ranked “higher” than dark-skinned people in colonized parts of the world.
As formal democracies with colonial holdings, both countries were in a
contradictory position. The logic of democracy implies that colonized
people have a voice in their governance, yet that would almost certainly
lead to their independence. Alternately, colonized societies might be
annexed as states, in which case they would have a voice in Congress.
Both alternatives horrified political and military leaders.
• Evolutionary theory played a vital role in resolving this contradiction. To
justify democracy at home while denying it to others you must posit a
fundamental difference between yourself and the people you have
colonized. Evolutionists suggested that non-whites were less intelligent and
thus less capable of self-government than whites. Newspaper editorial
cartoons of the time represent colonized people as ungrateful, misbehaving
children, while an exasperated Uncle Sam steps in to punish such
miscreants. From this viewpoint, imperialism is a benign force, helping
child-like natives to “mature” so that they would be able to run their own
affairs at some indefinite point in the future.
© 2014 Mark Moberg
• In his paper, “The Limitations of the Comparative Method,” Boas
challenged the evolutionary paradigm. Societies were assigned to an
evolutionary rank according to single traits, but Boas showed that their
position would change if other practices were considered. Nor did
outwardly similar features in different places demonstrate psychic unity, as
the practices may serve different purposes. Finally, he asserted that
diffusion was as likely to account for similarities as independent invention.
Each culture was the product of both processes, and few generalizations
were possible when comparing different societies. Only rigorously
collected data could resolve such questions.
• Boas’ paper anticipates the relativistic viewpoint that became more
assertive over the course of his long career. His reluctance to generalize
may have arisen in response to the grandiose, racist theories of most
anthropologists before 1900. Growing up as a Jew in Germany, he was
sensitive to racism, a sentiment that he carried over into his support for
civil rights for American Indians and Blacks. As a founding member of the
NAACP, an advocate of anti-lynching laws, and an opponent of
imperialism, Boas remade anthropology as a strong empirical science, and
emerged as one of the century’s most courageous public intellectuals.
© 2014 Mark Moberg