FREE ESSAY ON FROM UNILINEAL CULTURAL EVOLUTION TO FUNCTIONALISM

FROM UNILINEAL CULTURAL EVOLUTION TO FUNCTIONALISM

Several anthropological theories emerged during the early twentieth century. Arguably, the
most important of these was Functionalism. Bronislaw Malinowski was a prominent
anthropologist in Britain during that time and had great influence on the development of
this theory. Malinowski suggested that individuals have certain physiological needs and
that cultures develop to meet those needs. Malinowski saw those needs as being nutrition,
reproduction, shelter, and protection from enemies. He also proposed that there were
other basic, culturally derived needs and he saw these as being economics, social
control, education, and political organization Malinowski proposed that the culture of
any people could be explained by the functions it performed. The functions of a culture
were performed to meet the basic physiological and culturally derived needs of its
individual constituents. 
A. R. Radcliff-Brown was a contemporary of Malinowski's in Britain who also belonged to
the Functionalist school of thought. Radcliff-Brown differed from Malinowski quite
markedly though, in his approach to Functionalism. Malinowski's emphasis was on the
individuals within a culture and how their needs shaped that culture. Radcliff-Brown
thought individuals unimportant, in anthropological study. He thought that the various
aspects of a culture existed to keep that culture in a stable and constant state.
Radcliff-Brown focused attention on social structure. He suggested that a society is a
system of relationships maintaining itself through cybernetic feedback, while
institutions are orderly sets of relationships whose function is to maintain the society
as a system. Goldschmidt (1996): 510 
At the same time as the theory of Functionalism was developing in Britain; the theory of
Culture and Personality was being developed in America. The study of culture and
personality seeks to understand the growth and development of personal or social identity
as it relates to the surrounding social environment. Barnouw (1963): 5. In other words,
the personality or psychology of individuals can be studied and conclusions can be drawn
about the Culture of those individuals. This school of thought owes much to Freud for its
emphasis on psychology (personality) and to an aversion to the racist theories that were
popular within Anthropology and elsewhere at that time. American anthropologist Ruth
Benedict helped develop the Culture and Personality school. She described cultures as
being of four types Apollonian, Dionysian, Paranoid and Meglomaniac. Benedict used these
types to characterize various cultures that she studied. 
The most famous exponent of the school of Culture and Personality is Margaret Mead.
Margaret Mead was a student of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. Though in the course of her
career she would eclipse the fame of her tutors, particularly the latter. Mead's first
field study was on the Pacific Island of Samoa, where she studied the lives of the
adolescent girls in that culture. From this field study, she produced her famous work
Coming of Age in Samoa (1949). In this work, she investigated the relationship between
culture and personality by comparing the lives of adolescents in Samoa to those of
American youths. She concentrated particularly on the sexual experiences of the girls she
studied in Samoan culture; drawing the conclusion that the sexually permissive atmosphere
of Samoan culture produced healthier less "stormy" adolescents than that of her own more
repressed American culture. 
The theories of Culture and Personality and Functionalism addressed and rebutted many of
the more quaint aspects of the Evolutionary and Diffusionist theories of the nineteenth
century. The methodology developed by these pioneers is still in use by anthropologists
today. That is, participant observation and a complete involvement in the culture and
language of the people being studied.
Eric Wolf counters the functionalist position by suggesting that a culture cannot be seen
just in relationship to the psychology of the individuals within the culture and the
conclusions that might be drawn from that. Wolf sees culture and society as a process of
structuring and change. He contends that a society must be seen in its historical
context. When Wolf says - The functionalists, in turn, rejected altogether the
conjectural history of the diffusionists in favour of the analysis of internal
functioning putatively isolated wholes Wolf (1982), he is taking issue with the exclusion
of the historical context of a society and the putative isolation of societies. He is
contending that a society can be more properly explained as part of an expanded community
and in a historical context. He has been against functionalism, viewing society as a
bounded system of ordered relations and structured entity. Wolf views society as
heterogeneous, interacting across boundaries, more interpenetrating, more
interdigitating, and more complex and interconnecting. Wolf (1988): 753) Wolf is paying
attention here to history and its importance in explaining a society. He is also paying
attention to societies on a grand scale; where previously, cultures had been studied in
isolation or compared as entirely separate entities. Now, a society can be examined as a
part of a big picture and in its historical context.
On the opposing schools of thought, Carrithers says this about the school of Culture and
Personality - On this theory the human world is composed of separate, distinguished
entities: one society and culture might be dominant, but it is still only one separate
variant among equals. Carrithers (1992): 12-33. About Funtionalism's Radcliff-Brown
Carrithers says - He is interested in an 'arrangement of persons', a 'social structure',
and as he reveals elsewhere, his conception of a social structure concentrates on 'the
political institutions, the economic institutions, the kinship organization, and the
ritual life. Carrithers (1992): 12-33. However, Carrithers thought that Radcliff-Brown
"displayed an orientation to diversity which in important respects is fundamentally
similar to Benedict's". Carrithers (1992): 12-33. They both 'took the natural sciences as
a model of knowledge' and thought that such knowledge could be applied to a culture
occurring any place or any time in history. Carrithers goes on to note that Benedict,
representing the school of Culture and Personality and Radcliff-Brown representing the
Functionalists had their work criticized, and built upon by later generations of
anthropologists. Eric Wolf's criticisms of the functionalist approach can be seen as
building upon the body of knowledge accumulated up to that time. 
Anthropology 103 Text. 2000. Unpublished: University of Otago, Dunedin.
Abbink, Jan & Hans Vermeulen eds. 1982 History and Culture: Essays on the Work of Eric R.
Wolf. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis.
Barnouw, Victor (1963) Culture and Personality. 
Bibliography
included in the essay