The Paradoxical Anthropology of Leslie White

The Paradoxical Anthropology of Leslie White
Author(s): Richard A. Barrett

Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Dec., 1989), pp. 986-999
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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RICHARDA. BARRETT
of New Mexico
University
The Paradoxical Anthropology of Leslie White
Themanycontradictions in theanthropology of Leslie Whitederivemainlyfrom thefact thathe

embraced twocontradictory modelsof culture:thesuigenerisconception thathe receivedfrom
his
Boasianeducation,and thematerialist-utilitarian frameworkthatdeveloped outof his concern
withculturalevolutionism. Whiteneverreconciled thetwo, butin anyinstanceofconflicthegave
preferenceto thesui generis,Boasian-derived conception.This led him eventuallyto repudiate
aspectsof his utilitarian-adaptive
significant framework.
T HAS FREQUENTLY BEEN NOTED THAT THERE ARE SEVERAL paradoxical elements in
the anthropology of Leslie White. Many have remarked, for example, the painstak-
ingly descriptive and atheoretical ethnographies that he wrote on the Keres Pueblos,
which seem entirely unrelated to his materialist-evolutionary thinking, or to any macro
theory at all (Service 1976:614; Evans-Pritchard 1981:204). Others have pointed to the
conflict between his cultural determinism-which denied to individuals free will and the
ability to make autonomous choices-and his frequent resort to explanations in terms of
individual self-interest, in which individuals make choices that have important sociocul-
tural implications (Hatch 1973:153-157). And many of White's followers have been puz-
zled by his tendency to minimize the impact of natural environment on society and cul-
ture (Carneiro 1981:237-239). Given his materialist bias, and the importance he attached
to techno-economic forces, it has seemed strange that he did not grant at least parallel
significance to the environment.
These incongruities are all relatively minor, however, when compared with the more
basic and most commonly remarked paradox in his thinking: the incompatibility between
his materialist-evolutionary thought and his culturology. In the first, White argued that
most aspects of culture are epiphenomenal to a material substratum and that the forms
that society and culture take are determined by the technology and economic institutions
upon which they are based. In the culturological theory, on the other hand, White in-
sisted that culture has a life and dynamic of its own, implying that it is not a reflex of its
techno-economic base, but that it achieves considerable autonomy (1949a:406). In this
framework White insisted that "culture must be explained in terms of culture"
(1949a: 141) and that the explanation of any cultural phenomenon lies in antecedent cul-
tural events.
The culture of any people at any given time is the product of antecedent cultural forces, and
consequently is to be explained only in cultural terms. The English language of New England in
1949 is to be explained in terms of antecedent linguistic processes and events, just as the auto-
mobile, paper currency, courts of law, Mormonism, relativity, andjazz music are to be explained
in terms of their respective cultural antecedents. [1949a:79]
In the materialist-evolutionary theory we are encouraged to understand cultural phe-
nomena in relation to their technological and material underpinnings, while in the cul-
turological theory we are told that explanation lies in culture history.
RICHARDA. BARRETTis AssociateProfessor,Department Universityof New Mexico,Albuquerque,

of Anthropology, NM
87131.
986

Barrett] ANTHROPOLOGY
PARADOXICAL OFLESLIEWHITE 987
This paradox has attracted considerable comment. Service, in an effort to absolve

White from the charge of inconsistency, argues that the two perspectives should simply
be kept apart.
the science of culture as he [White] presented it, is not the same thing as, nor does it
Culturology,
even imply any connection to, his ideas about the evolutionofculture.[1976:613, emphasis in orig-
inal]
Others are not content with this solution. Carneiro finds a definite contradiction.
Is there an inconsistency or contradiction between White's culturology and his cultural mate-
rialism?Can he hold that cultural phenomena are to be explained solely in terms of other cultural
phenomena and at the same time argue that raw materials and energy sources, things whose
existence is external to culture, are the prime movers of cultural development? [1981:235]
And Sahlins points to the "theoretical opposites" that inhabit White's work.
In the work of... Leslie White, the Boasian paradigm lives alongside the Morganian, without,
however, achieving a unity of the theoretical opposites.... For White, ideas are on the one hand
the reflex of the technological base.... On the other hand, there is White's own insistence upon
the uniqueness of "symbolic behavior," that is, a system of meanings specifically not bound to
physical reality. [1976:103]
Harris notes the same conflict when he writes that White's
refrain, "culture must be explained in terms of culture" . . . is opposed not only to Steward's
admission of the importance of environmental factors but to the theories of Morgan and Tylor
as well. [1968:636]
Since the inconsistency has been widely remarked (see also Murphy 1981:185), the
question is, how did it come about? And how did White maintain these different positions
for most of his scholarly life? The latter question has been given a partial answer by Ser-
vice (1976:613, cited above): White seems to have kept the ideas separate in his mind.
Only in the final publication of his life did he acknowledge a significant contradiction.
Something can be said, however, about how he came to hold these different perspec-
tives, and about the weight that each carried in his total scheme. The argument to be
developed here is that the most significant core of ideas to White himself, ideas to which
he remained faithful all of his scholarly life, derived from the essentially Boasian milieu
in which he received his training as an anthropologist. This is the core of concepts that
he handled under the rubric of culturology. There is even evidence to indicate that this
set of fundamentally Boasian notions became increasingly important to White, until at
the end of his career they threatened even to unravel his materialist-evolutionary scheme.
Early Boasian Influences

White has acknowledged, as have those who have written about his early career, that
he absorbed the main doctrines of Boasian anthropology as a graduate student (White
1959:ix; 1987:12-14; Barnes 1960:xvii; Harris 1968:639-640; Carneiro 1981:214). His
first paper in anthropology was a call for greater recognition of culture as a force shaping
individual personality (1925). Harris remarks that it was suggestive of the work that Mar-
garet Mead was about to undertake (1968:640). And in an early paper on anthropology
and religion, the Boasian influences regarding culture history and thematic integration
are unmistakable. Here White argues that,
In the growth of cultures, types are developed. A culture type is an organization of culture about
a nucleus; the attention is focused upon one, or a few traits which are then specialized. The choice
of this nucleus, within the limits of the environment, depends upon the cultural-historical life of
the group. A specific culture, then, is really a work of art; a work of art because it is the elabo-
ration of chosen materials by selected techniques, into a kind of unity or pattern, possessing
symmetry and form. [1926:546]
And again, he expresses a thesis that recalls Ruth Benedict:

988 AMERICAN
ANTHROPOLOGIST [91, 1989
Why the religion of the Todas should center about the dairy, the Crow religion about the vision,
and the Blackfoot about the medicine bundle is a problem for the culture historian rather than
for the psychologist. [1926:548]
In a letter to Benedict at about the same time (1927), White called for a subjective ap-
proach to ethnography and extolled the skills of the artist over those of the scientist.
If someone could only invade the mind and spirit of these people, to dissolve one's self in their
life, and then interpret it-description is not enough-then, I feel, we should have some-
thing.... It seems to me that what we need is more of an artist than a scientist. Why should the
spirit, the feelings, sentiments and attitudes receive so little attention when great labor is lavished
on textiles and pottery? [quoted in Leeds-Hurwitz and Nyce, 1986:501]
One can see, then, that White was committed both to the historical approach and to
subjective interpretation, the two principal pillars of Boasian method (Hatch 1973:44-
45).
Most of White's publications in this period (1925-30), however, were descriptive ac-
counts of the Keres Pueblos. These are entirely within the historical-particularist tradi-
tion and reflect the influence of Elsie Clews Parsons, White's mentor in fieldwork. Par-
sons, though never a student of Boas, was deeply influenced by him and by his program
for study of the American Indian.
White's Evolutionism and Materialism

The foregoing is sufficient to show that White was imbued with "a strong Boasian out-
look" (Harris 1968:639) at the outset of his career. Only after he accepted a position at
the University of Buffalo in 1927 did he develop reservations about aspects of Boasian
anthropology, most particularly the strictures against cultural evolutionism. The circum-
stances of his conversion have been detailed several times (see White 1987:13; Barnes
1960:xxvi-xxvii; Carneiro 1981:214-215), and there is no need to cover that ground here.
It is important to note, however, that the conversion marked a significant shift in his
career. He began to develop a perspective that contradicted fundamental tendencies in
American anthropology. His insistence that societies could be placed on a scale from sim-
ple to advanced, and that the differences could be measured in energy-capture, contra-
vened deeply held notions about cultural relativism and the supposed "democracy" of all
cultures. He also insisted, incorrectly, that his evolutionism was nothing new, but simply
a restatement of the views of 19th-century evolutionists. Since the schemes of the latter
had been severely criticized-and largely discredited in the eyes of most anthropolo-
gists-it was difficult to take White seriously on this point.
But the most important change associated with his evolutionism was a new means of
interpreting customs. He began to view culture as the principal mechanism through
which humans ensure their survival.
In order to live man, like all other species, must come to terms with the external world.... Man
employs his sense organs, nerves, glands, and muscles in adjusting himself to the external world.
But in addition to this he has another means of adjustment and control.... This mechanism is
culture.[1949b:373, emphasis in original]
Cultural practices were, then, to be understood in adaptive, utilitarian terms. A custom
is explained once we understand how it aids humans in adjustment to the material cir-
cumstances of everyday life.
White's first papers on evolutionism were accompanied by a relatively mild criticism
of what he called the "Boas group." He first criticized their antievolutionist bias
(1931:483; 1938:386-387) and alleged that they had misrepresented the cultural evolu-
tionism of Morgan, Spencer, Tylor, and others (1943, 1945a, 1945b). As he was criticized
in turn, however, the discussion became increasingly acrimonious.1 White began to dis-
sociate himself pointedly from the Boas school and from historical-particularist anthro-
pology. By 1949 he was assailing not only antievolutionism, but the entire program of
Boasian anthropology. He was particularly critical of the Boasian failure to find corre-

lations between the practical needs of getting a living and the rest of sociocultural life,
alleging that the Boasians saw customs as fortuitous or random (1949b:368). This criti-
cism was accompanied by acerbic comments on the work of established scholars and an
unremitting attack on the reputation of Franz Boas. This aroused hostility throughout
the profession and led to estranged relations with many erstwhile colleagues (Service
1976:612).
The controversy, and the polemics that it engendered, had important consequences. It
led White into a posture of apparent opposition to all of Boasian anthropology, and it
earned him a reputation as a maverick who espoused doctrines radically different from
those of his contemporaries.
The perceptions on both sides exaggerated the differences. For apart from the highly
publicized-and very real---deviation on the issue of evolutionism, the rest of White's
work remained very much within the tradition in which it began. It is remarkable, in fact,
just how little his evolutionary and materialist philosophy affected his other scholarly
concerns. It would have been perfectly reasonable, for example, for him, once he devel-
oped his evolutionary outlook, to have revamped the rest of his thinking so that it ac-
corded with his new point of view. But this is not what one finds. The papers that he
published between 1931 and 1949, the most creative epoch of his career, can be sorted
into three essentially independent series: (1) papers on evolutionism (and on evolution-
ists), (2) those on Pueblo ethnography, and (3) others on the culture concept. The eth-
nography and culturological writings betray almost no influence of his evolutionism. The
ethnography began, as noted above, in the Boasian "salvage ethnography" tradition and
never changed. It "could have been written," Hatch remarks, "by any one of a number
of Boasians who were dogmatic antievolutionists" (1973:130).
White's Culturology as Boasian Anthropology
Certainly less well known is that the same can be said of his culturology: it was based
almost entirely on notions that were common to the Boasian anthropology of the first
three decades of this century. This is readily apparent when one examines the content of
The Scienceof Culture (1949a), his most influential statement of culturology. Except for a
single chapter on cultural evolution, the volume is a collection of papers that deal with
his thinking about the culture concept.
The effort in virtually all of the chapters is to demonstrate a unitary thesis: that a dis-
tinctive level of cultural phenomena exists and that these phenomena have properties that
are not reducible to lower-level phenomena. The attempt to understand certain aspects
of culture, therefore, in terms of environment, biology, or psychology is futile, since un-
derstanding can only be achieved by treating cultural phenomena on their own level and
in terms of their own principles and laws. Not all of the papers treat the entire argument,
but each contributes some element to the general thesis.
Now, anyone familiar with Stocking's research on Boas will recognize these themes
(Stocking 1968:195-233). It was Boas who first insisted upon the sui generis nature of
culture. Boas also struggled to extricate the culture concept from its entanglements with
biology, and he rejected facile explanations of customs in terms of habitat. Boas's thinking
on these matters grew out of his opposition to the evolutionists who tended to reduce
culture to the level of the individual, interpreting primitive customs as products of the
uninformed reasoning of savages (Stocking 1968:221). Boas reversed their argument: cul-
ture does not arise from the reasoning of individuals; rather the thinking of individuals is
determined by the cultural tradition of which they are a part (Stocking 1968:220-222).
In constructing this argument, Boas committed himself and virtually all of his students
to an antireductionist and culturally deterministic perspective. Stocking concedes that
these notions were tentative and merely implicit in Boas's writings (1968:230). It was
only in the work of his students---of Kroeber, Lowie, Benedict, Sapir, Mead, and others-
that the ideas were given full expression.

990 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST [91, 1989
The tentative character of these conceptions in Boas's writings is perhaps the reason
that White was insensitive to any intellectual debt to Boas. He readily acknowledged the
influence of Boas's students, however, remarking that his first awareness of culture as a
distinct order of phenomena was inspired by Kroeber's "The Superorganic" (1917) and
Lowie's Cultureand Ethnology (1917) (White 1987:159). But White thought that their ef-
forts to develop a sui generis conception of culture was a departurefrom the Boasian tra-
dition rather than an elaboration of it (White 1949a:94-95; 1963:377). Hatch has noted
that this was an egregious misreading of intellectual history on White's part (1973:142-
144).
If we agree, therefore, that Stocking and also Hatch (1973:74-161) have properly
traced the lineage of these ideas, then White's promotion of culturology shared a definite
kinship with the work of Kroeber, Lowie, Sapir, Benedict, and Mead: all labored to elu-
cidate and extend a perspective fathered in the first instance by Boas. Like the others,
White made important contributions to the paradigm (Hatch 1973:157).
His most noteworthy contribution was his work on the symbol. The theme appeared
in his earliest publications and was in all likelihood stimulated by contact with Sapir. In
the years White studied under him, Sapir lectured and wrote cogently on the symbolic
nature of language (Sapir 1921, 1933). White sent Sapir his first paper on symbolic mean-
ing for prepublication comment (White 1932:72). In this paper, "The Mentality of Pri-
mates," White argued that the ability to create and use symbols is the distinctive property
of humanity. Eight years later in "The Symbol: The Origin and Basis of Human Behav-
ior" (1940), he extended the argument. The symbolic faculty not only differentiates hu-
mans from animals, but symbols are the crucial building blocks upon which all culture
and civilization rest (1940:451).
This provided support, therefore, for the superorganic, sui generis conception of cul-
ture. If culture is founded upon and composed of nonbiologic phenomena, it is clearly
not reducible to the organic. Furthermore, if it is based upon a capacity unique to hu-
mans, then it should be viewed as a distinct order of phenomena, in a class by itself.
White's other distinctive contribution to the paradigm was his effort to place it on a
scientific footing. He believed that the self-determined nature of culture, independent of
the vagaries of human wills or choice, provided the basis for a generalizing, predictive
science. "What man thinks, feels, and does is determined by his culture," White wrote,
"and culture behaves in accordance with its own laws" (1949a:344). This is the cultural
determinism of Boas and Kroeber, but elevated to lawful regularity.
The remainder ofWhite's work on culturology was derivative. Many of the culturologi-
cal papers published between 1931 and 1949 were restatements of themes expressed years
earlier by Kroeber and Lowie. Anyone who reads Kroeber's "The Superorganic" (1917)
and then reads The Scienceof Culture (1949a) cannot fail to note the similarity. Kroeber's
analyses of simultaneous inventions and of the relationship between genius and culture
are trotted out three separate times in White's book and occupy more than fifty pages
(1949a: 168-171, 190-232, and 292-298). Yet the discussion adds nothing of substance to
Kroeber's original arguments.2 Much the same can be said in relation to Lowie. The
following summarizes the culturological thrust of The Scienceof Culture.
If, then, we cannot explain cultures in terms of race or physical type, or in terms of psychological
processes, and if appeal to environment is equally futile, how are they to be accounted for and
made intelligible to us? There seems to be only one answer left and that is fairly plain .... Cul-
tures must be explained in terms of culture. [1949a:339]
Compare this to Lowie's statement that summarizes the argument contained in Culture
and Ethnology.
Psychology, racial differences, geographical environment, have all proved inadequate for the
interpretation of cultural phenomena. The inference is obvious. Culture is a thing sui generis
which can be explained only in terms of itself. [1917:66]

In the later years of his life, White expressed disappointment that his culturology had
not achieved the recognition that he thought it deserved (Orlove 1980:238; Service
1976:613-614). Yet except for his contributions on the symbol and his efforts to establish
culturology as a science, there is little in it that was not expressed as effectively by Kroe-
ber and Lowie two or three decades earlier. As White should have known, history is not
generous to latecomers.
White's Evolutionism as Post-Boasian Anthropology
Turning now to White's evolutionism, we confront an immediate dilemma. If White
was as Boasian in outlook as the preceding suggests, how could he embrace the evolu-
tionism of Tylor, Morgan, and Spencer? As we have seen, their thinking was virtually the
antithesis of the Boasian conception of cultural determinism. Yet despite White's uncom-
promising adherence to determinism, he insisted that his evolutionism was merely a re-
statement of the position of 19th-century predecessors (White 1943:354; Dillingham and
Carneiro in White 1987:6). He even resented the term neoevolutionismwhen applied to his
work because of the implication that his theory was new and in some sense different from
theirs. His approach did not differ, he wrote, "one whit in principle from that expressed
in Tylor's Anthropologyin 1881" (White 1959:ix).
Despite this categorical assertion, it is simply not true. His evolutionism was different,
both in detail and in principle, from that of any of the 19th-century thinkers. And while
he was occasionally tempted to reason as they had, he always returned in the end to his
Boasian antireductionist cultural determinism, a pattern of thought that was foreign to
19th-century evolutionism (Hatch 1973:152).
Thus, the "intellectualist" assumptions that played such a prominent part in the think-
ing of Tylor, Morgan, and Spencer are virtually absent in White's work. When the former
scholars sought to account for customs and institutions, they frequently attributed them
to the minds or thought processes of primitives. The remarkable similarity that Tylor
thought he saw in "savage" customs in different parts of the world was a result of the
operation of similar minds:
it strikingly illustrates the extent of mentaluniformityamong mankind to notice that it is really
difficult to find, among a list of twenty items of art or knowledge, custom or superstition..,. a
single one to which something closely analogous may not be found elsewhere among some other
race, unlike the first in physical characters, and living thousands of miles off. [1878:233, empha-
sis added]
Morgan reasoned similarly. "The principal institutions of mankind have developed," he
wrote, "from a few primary germs of thought" (1877:18). And Spencer also attributed
the character of customs to the character of minds (see 1876:89-90). There was a signif-
icant reductionist element, therefore, in the thinking of all of the evolutionists, since they
sought the origins of customs in the thought processes of individuals (Hatch 1973:18).
But an even more significant point is that, according to the evolutionists, these thought
processes were unaffected by prior culture. Any human being, given the same state of
knowledge, would reason the same. A Chinese, Tasmanian, or Greek, placed in similar
circumstances, would come to similar conclusions. And this was why the evolutionists
thought that they could place themselvesin the natives' shoes and successfully rethink "sav-
age" thought: any human should arrive at similar conclusions under similar circumstan-
ces.
Whenever White reviewed the work of these scholars he ignored or minimized the in-
tellectualist strain in their thinking (1943:351-355; 1949b:361-367, 381-382). His own
mature evolutionary writings, though, are free of such reductionism. It is not "men's"
thought that generates institutions, but their cultural traditions, conditioned ultimately
by technology, that determine their thought. White writes:
man's whole experience becomes tinged with culture. .... Culture is interposed between him and
the external world, and all his experience of it is refracted by this medium through which it
passes .... As the culture, so the experience, as the experience, so the philosophy. [1959:273]

992 AMERICAN
Thus the individuals who people White's evolutionary writings are not the rational
beings of the evolutionists, "freely selecting among properly weighed alternatives"
(Hughes 1958:4). They are individuals in the thrall of culture; their perceptions of the
world and their thoughts about it are culturally determined.
As mentioned, this was White's matureevolutionary viewpoint. There were, however,
in his earliest evolutionary writings certain rationalistic elements that were later purged.
In his original (1943) statement on cultural evolution, "Energy and the Evolution of Cul-
ture," White thought that he could pinpoint the actual mechanism of evolutionary
change. "We know," he wrote,
not only howculture evolves, but whyas well.... In the case of man. . . the power to invent and
to discover, the ability to select and use the better of two tools or ways of doing something-
these are the factors of cultural evolution. [1943:339]
Here White adopts a stance similar to that of the evolutionists. Tylor had argued that the
driving force of evolutionary progress was the tendency of individuals to favor practices
that were effective (in adjustment of means to ends) over those that were not. Worthless
practices were thus continually swept aside, while sound ones were established (1867:93).
Morgan reasoned similarly: the advantages of certain institutions were recognizedby in-
dividuals and were retained at the expense of less advantageous practices (Sahlins
1976:58-60).
When White incorporated his original paper on evolution into The Scienceof Culture,the
argument concerning the mechanism of evolution disappeared. We can only surmise why
it was deleted. But by that time White had committed himself to a very different-and
essentially Kroeberian-version of the inventive process. Humans were no longer con-
ceived as unfettered beings who could make rational decisions. Their thinking was now
a function of their culture, and an invention was merely a synthesis of already existing
knowledge (1949a:203-212). Far from standing apart from and guiding the culture pro-
cess, inventors were now regarded as expressionsof culture and entirely incapable of af-
fecting its course.
Another recantation of intellectualist views can be seen in White's equivocation on the
matter of social engineering. Virtually all of the 19th-century evolutionists thought that
evolutionary development was the result of the application of knowledge and reason to
human affairs; and since both knowledge and the sphere of reason tended to expand,
humans were bound to gain increased control over their own destiny. Thus Tylor could
write of "advances toward perfection" (1871:34) and suggested that humankind was en-
tering a new age founded upon "conscious progress" (1881:275). Spencer, Lubbock (Bur-
row 1966:214, 275), and Morgan (1877:561-562) expressed similar optimism and for the
same reasons. Tylor even considered anthropology a "reformer's science" because he
thought it could provide the knowledge to enable humans to expunge retrograde and
pernicious institutions (1871:539).
Early in his career, when he was most profoundly influenced by the evolutionists
(White 1975:12), White expressed similar views. He argued that once scientific methods
were applied to the study of culture we would discover the "laws" of culture. And once
these laws are known "it will be possible to control these phenomena and bend them to
our desire and will.. . for culture is but a human by-product"(1938:388). This passage
was deleted when the article was reprinted in The Scienceof Culture.There he argued pre-
cisely the opposite: that knowledge of culture would do nothing to help us control it.
the fallacy of assuming that we can increase or perfect our control over civilization through social
science is even more egregious than we have indicated .... No amount of development of the
social sciences would increase or perfect man's control over civilization by one iota. [1949a:343]
He could not therefore envision a new dawn for humanity as had the evolutionists. The
march of technology might effect a breakthrough to a higher plane of civilization, but it
is just as likely to cause its destruction in nuclear holocaust (1949a:391). Whatever the

PARADOXICAL OFLESLIE
WHITE 993
outcome, it will not occur because humans "reason together" or because they enlarge
their fund of scientific knowledge (White 1948:218).3
Thus, White's evolutionism differed from the 19th-century version in both mechanics
and principle. It was founded upon, and made to conform to, a 20th-century conception
of culture that rejected the assumption that institutions can be understood from the point
of view of the rational actor. In White's view, and in Boasian anthropology generally,
humans are in the grasp of forces that they neither create nor control (Hatch 1973:152-
153).
The Denouement: Cultures as Systems

In the foregoing, a significant trend can be discerned in White's scholarship: the ten-
dency to modify positions adopted in his evolutionism to make them more compatible
with his cultural determinism. It was noted earlier that when White developed his evo-
lutionary and materialist perspective, he did not then revise positions that he had adopted
earlier even though they appeared to contradict his materialism (see above). We can now
understand why this was so: the trend in his thought was just the opposite. On the rare
occasions when White perceived a conflict between his materialist-evolutionary theory
and his culturology, it was the culturology that prevailed.
Generally speaking, however, White was not obliged to choose between his two major
philosophies. He tended to treat them as independent theoretical systems and saw little
contradiction between them (Carneiro 1981:239). Then, at the very end of his career this
quite unexpectedly changed. It dawned on him "almost as a revelation" (Service
1976:614), that there had been a long-standing contradiction in his thinking about cul-
ture. He was sufficiently inspired by the realization to put other work aside in order to
develop some of the implications. This was accomplished in his final publication, The
of CulturalSystems(1975).4
Concept
There he conceded that the utilitarian conception of culture that had dominated his
evolutionary writings was incompatible with the sui generis conception that was the foun-
dation of his culturology. In his evolutionary scheme he had insisted repeatedly that "The
purpose and function of culture are to make life secure and enduring for the human spe-
cies" (1959:78). The aim of interpretation, then, was to show how any aspect of culture
met a particular need. His explanation for the origin of the incest taboo illustrates this
reasoning. The taboo was a means of forcing early human families into marital alliances,
fostering cooperation and mutual aid, which in turn enhanced the security and welfare
of the population (1949a:316, 329). His interpretation of mythology and religion was
based on the same utilitarian logic (1959:9). Human life, he claimed, is full of fear, frus-
tration, and suffering. Religious devices provide humans comfort and consolation.
Mythologies flatter, encourage, and reassure him. By means of magic and ritual he can capture
the illusion of power and control over things and events.... Thus culture gives man a sense of
power and confidence. It assures him that life is worth living and gives him courage to endure
it. [1959:9]
In all these instances, cultural devices promote human welfare. Culture is the "benevo-
lent custodian of mankind" (White 1975:12).
In White's culturological writings, however, a rather different image of culture occa-
sionally crept in. Culture was there conceived as a self-determined system that operated
according to its own laws (1949b:xviii). As such it operated independently of the needs,
interests, or desires of its human carriers. Furthermore, the attempt to control it for ra-
tional or humane ends is futile. If culture dictates that men should wear coats and ties,
they must do so "no matter how hot the weather" (1949b:333). The attempt to reform
antiquated and irrational elements of culture-like getting rid of the b in lamb, or sub-
stituting the metric system for chaotic traditional measures-is extremely difficult to ac-
complish (1949a:333; 1963:375). Cultural evolution is itself a nearly random force. "The
fact is," White writes, "that culture has been evolving as an unconscious, blind, bloody,

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brutal, tropismatic process so far" (1949a:355). This was straying rather far from an im-
age of culture as the "benevolent custodian of mankind."
When White became suddenly cognizant of this conflict, he unequivocally repudiated
his utilitarianism. In his own words:
At this point I must reverse a position that I have held for years. In TheEvolutionof Culture(1959)
I wrote: "The purpose and function of culture are to make life secure and enduring for the human
species." [1975:9]
This position was simply wrong, he realized, and it was the concept of cultures as self-
determined systems that made him aware of its inadequacy.
[I] no longer think of culture as designed to serve the needs of man; culture goes its own way in
accordance with laws of its own. Man lives within the embrace of cultural systems, and enjoys
or sufferswhatever they mete out to him. [1975:159]
Cultural systems are unresponsive to human needs, he decided, because they are com-
posed of distinct interests, power blocks, and pressure groups, which he called "vectors."
Each vector "strives to have its own interests served, regardless of the welfare of other
vectors or of the society as a whole" (1975:62-63). White cites the American automotive
industry as a vector that, by virtually eliminating competition, has imparted a particular
bias to American life. The industry has grown to colossal proportions not because the
automobile is more efficient or less expensive than the trains, subways, and buses that it
has nearly replaced. On the contrary, a rational system of mass transit would be far su-
perior, White claims, conferring the benefits of safety, economy, and reduction of atmos-
pheric pollution (1975:71). It is neither efficiency nor public welfare, therefore, that ex-
plains the success of the automobile, but the millions of dollars spent by automotive com-
panies in advertising their products and in lobbying governments for the roads, express-
ways, and other facilities that undergird the system. The result is that the automobile has
grown like a tumor on society, creating congestion, traffic jams, and nearly lethal pollu-
tion (1975:71).
Thus the rational-utilitarian image of culture that permeated all of White's evolution-
ary writings is entirely put aside. Culture operates by "reflexes and tropisms," and cul-
tural systems are incapable of "intelligent" behavior (1975:175). And while cultural sys-
tems have sometimes promoted human welfare, they have also done the opposite.
As for making life secure and enduring for the human species, cultural systems have extermi-
nated entire species of birds and animals that have served human needs. The arts of agriculture
have rendered huge areas unfit for food production.... The atmosphere of the planet is being
polluted by noxious gases. In short, cultural systems are moving rapidly to make the earth un-
inhabitable. [1975:11]
By taking this step, and arguing that culture is not basically utilitarian-that is, that
advantageous culture traits do not necessarily prevail in cultural evolution over delete-
rious traits-White eliminated the element in his philosophy that had most distinguished
him from his Boasian contemporaries. Thus Hatch writes:
White's evolutionary theory had an important influence on American anthropology during and
after the 1940s, and it is not difficult to see why. First, according to the Boasian version of culture,
institutions were viewed as "purposeless," in that they were thought to be virtually autonomous
from the exigencies of life . . . To White, the diacritical feature of culture is its utility, for both
its purpose and function are to promote the welfare of the human animal. Culture is not without
meaning or design, after all. [1973:135]
Once he abandoned the utilitarian element and began, like the Boasians, to view culture
as "autonomous from the exigencies of life," his explanations became very similar to
theirs. He revived, in essence, a version of historical explanation that he had disparaged
much of his life (White 1949b:371). Thus when a historical particularist like Benedict
sought to explain the ascendancy of a particular trait in a particular society, she thought
that it was a matter of selection among alternatives (1934:34-35). At some point choices
were made so that a certain tendency gained the upper hand. The system then continued

to develop along the grooves of the established pattern, incorporating elements compat-
ible with it and rejecting incongruent elements (1934:53-54, 220). In The Conceptof Cul-
tural Systems, White promotes explanations ofjust this kind; and the thinking is remark-
ably similar to that of his unadulterated Boasian period (see above). He asks, for exam-
ple, why representation of the nude figure has been so prominent in Western art, yet has
received little attention in the art of China and Japan. "The answer," he writes,
is like the theory of the origin of languages. In depictive art as in language there was an almost
infinite number of possibilities. One could choose---or hit upon-this or that subject and treat it
in this or that way. But once a choice had been made... it would develop along the path
adopted and would tend to exclude other ways and forms: the original vector would inhibit the
development of other and different vectors. [1975:62]
Or why did the sin-and-salvation complex become prominent in the Judeo-Christian tra-
dition and not in other great religions?
Somewhere along the line the religion of sin and salvation became established; later innovations
could not compete successfully with the accepted modes and patterns and consequently did not
develop. [1975:63]
Here White brought his culturological premise-that culture has a life and dynamic of
its own-to its logical conclusion. In so doing, while simultaneously repudiating his ra-
tional-utilitarian outlook, he reverted in all essentials to his Boasian roots.5 Culture is
both autonomous and irrational: it develops according to an internal logic that is not
necessarily responsive to economic necessities, environmental constraints, or considera-
tions of human welfare. Patterns perpetuate themselves even to the detriment or injury
to society as a whole. He may have even surpassed Benedict (1934:41, 42) here in insisting
upon the destructiveness or "asocial elaboration" of cultural traits.
This was a remarkable turnabout. The considerable reputation that White had gained
since the 1940s was due, in the main, to what Harris has called his cultural materialism
(1968:636). His followers and those who considered themselves his intellectual heirs (in
cultural energetics, neoevolutionism, cultural ecology, and archeological theory) were
drawn to his image of culture precisely because of its naturalistic and rational character.
Since it was rooted in the hard realities of the material world, and since institutions were
solutions to problems of human livelihood, Whitean culture was thought not to be auton-
omous and not quixotically dependent upon the vagaries of history. But here White argues
just the opposite. Culture is autonomous (obeying "laws of its own" [1975:159]); it is
unresponsive to human requirements ("indifferent to the welfare . . . or very existence-
of man" [1975:11]); and is subject to considerable historical variation (the early success
of one vector "inhibits the development of other and different vectors" [1975:63]).
One must also wonder about the impact of this position on his evolutionary theory. It
is apparent that White was unconcerned in this regard, since he recapitulated his familiar
evolutionary scheme in The Conceptof Cultural Systems (1975:16-23). But as Hatch has
pointed out, his evolutionism was founded upon a utilitarian conception of culture
(1973:131) that was essential to his argument regarding human progress. White had rea-
soned that cultural institutions all have a common aim, "the security and continuity of
life" (1947:182). Evolution is progressive, therefore, since in each new stage humans har-
ness more energy per capita, which they employ to gain greater control over nature and
to enhance their security and welfare (1947:187). Successive stages of evolution are there-
fore "higher and better" than antecedent stages (1947:186).
But what becomes of this notion of progress once culture is not thought to serve the
interests of humankind? White did not address the issue. But he certainly could not argue
as he once had in his controversy with the Boasians. In 1940, Lowie argued that, while
it is legitimate to speak of progress in the technological sphere, one cannot do so in rela-
tion to culture. He posed the question: "The purpose of an ax is to fell trees; but what is
the purpose of art, communal life, belief, marriage?" (quoted in White 1947:182). White
reacted disdainfully to the question, exclaiming that it was "almost incredible" that it

996 AMERICAN
could be posed at all, since the answer was obvious: the purpose of culture is to provide
"a secure and agreeable existence" for mankind (1947:183). And since cultures at higher
levels of energy-capture accomplish this more effectively than those at lower levels, we
can confidently speak of progress (1947:186-187).
But what seemed "almost incredible" to White in 1947 became eminently reasonable
in 1975. Like Lowie, White came to doubt the premise that culture necessarily promotes
human welfare. The notion, therefore, that higher cultures are "better" than those lower
on the scale lost its meaning. The agricultural revolution, for example, which availed
humans of vastly increased supplies of energy, did not, according to White, advance the
cause of human welfare. The majority of the population probably suffered a regression.
They were reduced, he wrote, "to slavery or serfdom" and were condemned "to a life of
labor, privation, and piety" (1975:10). This revision in his conception of the agricultural
revolution, and in his thinking about evolutionary progress that it implies, suggests that
crucial aspects of his evolutionary scheme could not stand without the utilitarian support
upon which it rested.
Conclusion
The place that Leslie White occupies in the history of American anthropology is closely
associated with the manner in which he diverged from the historical particularism of his
day. His affirmation of evolutionism, his materialist-utilitarian interpretation of custom,
and his call for a nomothetic science of culture are the pillars of his scholarly reputation.
It is tempting for those who write about White today, therefore, to focus on this legacy
of positive achievement. A short sketch on White in an encyclopedia of anthropology is
representative of how he is often remembered.
White,LeslieAlvin (1900-1975). It was White who almost single-handedly reintroduced the con-
cept of cultural evolution back into cultural anthropology. He has profoundly influenced the
thinking of an important school of anthropology by viewing culture as adaptation and as a sys-
tem for producing and controlling energy. Furthermore, he has concentrated on the evolution of
culture in general as opposed to particular cultures-what his disciples call general as opposed
to specific evolution. Among his most influential books is TheEvolutionof Culture(1959). [Hunter
and Whitten 1976:405]
The statement is not specifically inaccurate, but because it deals so selectively with
White's accomplishments, he emerges as far more consistent and more of a materialist
than he actually was.
This selective attention to the past also overlooks the many links between White and
the Boasian anthropology that he so vigorously assailed. Thus, one summary of White's
contribution states that he "wrote a historical particularist dissertation, but he made a
sharp break with that approach soon after" (Orlove 1980:238). But given the data pre-
sented here, can we say that White ever broke with the approach? And when Carneiro
assembles a list of scholars who he considers had the greatest influence on White, he men-
tions Marx and Engels, Morgan, Tylor, Spencer, Durkheim, Malinowski, and Radcliffe-
Brown (1981:216-217; see also Bee 1974:121). Not one of the Boasian school is men-
tioned, not even Kroeber, Sapir, or Lowie, the three scholars who had most to do with
White's lifelong addiction to determinism and culturology. The only scholar in Carnei-
ro's list who could possibly have influenced White's culturology is Durkheim; but White
was probably a confirmed culturologist long before he read Durkheim (White 1987:159).
An aim of this article has been to counter the above-mentioned tendency: to highlight
precisely those details that demonstrate how profoundly White was influenced by his
early Boasian apprenticeship. These influences have certainly been remarked before
(Hatch 1973:157; Sahlins 1976:103). Nevertheless, the extent of White's attachment to a
Boasian conception of culture has been insufficiently appreciated. This may be due, in
part, to the well-publicized controversies that attended White's affirmation of evolution-
ism and his harsh criticism of Boas and his followers. Certainly White would himself have
bridled at the suggestion that he was in any respect a follower of Boas.

There are, nevertheless, certain aspects of White's anthropology that are only compre-
hensible if we consider that he was held, for most of his life, in the embrace of two different
and contradictory paradigms. Almost all of the paradoxes in his anthropology stem from
this basic circumstance. Take, for example, the problem mentioned at the outset of this
article regarding his propensity to minimize the impact of natural environment on society
and culture. He adhered throughout his life to the environmental "possibilist" position
(Geertz 1963:1-2) common to historical particularism, and even quoted Kroeber's views
in support of his own (White 1959:51In).
Why would a materialist like White, cognizant of the importance of techno-economic
forces, deny any significant role to the natural environment? Since he held that cultural
practices are the means employed by humans "to come to terms with the external world"
(1949b:373), and he acknowledged the significant role of technology in generating socio-
cultural forms, it would have been a simple step to reason that any technology must be
specifically geared to environmental conditions. Environment could then be assigned an
important place alongside technology as part of the material conditions to which insti-
tutions are a response.
Why did White never take this simple step? The likely reason is that to do so would
have violated the dictum that culture is to be explained in terms of culture. In this frame-
work culture is not reducible to, or explainable in terms of, any systems external to it.
Human biology, psychology, and environment are all external to culture and therefore
not included in the explanatory scheme. White did not confront the same obstacle in
regard to technology since he considered technology a part of culture, one of three (some-
times four) subsystems that compose any cultural system. To argue, therefore, that tech-
nology generates sociocultural institutions did not violate the premise that culture causes
culture.
In this instance and in many others White was prevented from developing a thorough-
going materialist perspective because he was wedded to a system of thought that insisted
upon the autonomy of culture. When he ultimately abrogated his utilitarian-adaptive
framework, he did so specifically and unequivocally because it could not be reconciled
with the conception of culture as a self-determined system (1975:xi).
The great irony is that in so doing he retracted portions of his cultural materialism, for
which he is today widely respected, in favor of a culturology that never earned the respect
of the anthropological community. In a thoughtful appraisal of White's work, written two
years before White recanted his utilitarianism, Hatch argued that the distinguishing
characteristic of White's anthropology, and the whole trend of his thought, was toward
"a fully utilitarian view of culture" (1973:344-345)!6
It is intriguing to ask, therefore, what effect White's final-hour shift is likely to have on
our historical appraisal of his work. Will it lead to a general reassessment, or will it be-
come merely a minor footnote to an otherwise unaltered evaluation of his work? The latter
seems to be by far the most likely outcome. As Thomas Kuhn has pointed out, the history
of any science is mythologized history (1962:138). The aim of those who chronicle a sci-
entific discipline is generally to display the valid and useful knowledge that the discipline
can claim. The tendency, therefore, is to refer to only the work of past scientists that can
be considered contributions to the paradigms of greatest concern at the time of writing.
The blind alleys of our scientific predecessors rarely get into our textbook accounts of the
field. Since White's culturology is considered, in the main, a blind alley, it will continue
to be ignored. The tendency to focus on the "positive accomplishments" of his evolution-
ary and cultural-materialist frameworks will persist as long as these paradigms have large
numbers of adherents. Thus White is likely to remain a materialist who made a radical
break with Boasian particularism, and fictitious lists of scholars who had great influence
on him will continue to be drawn up, and some will even claim that he belongs "very
much in the ecological camp" (Carneiro 1981:239). Future anthropologists are therefore
likely to falsify their history, just as other scientists do, because they will ask themselves

998 AMERICAN
in relation to White's culturology, "Why dignify what science's best and most persistent
efforts have made it possible to discard?" (Kuhn 1962:138).
Notes
'It is no exaggeration to state that one of White's personality traits was an intense dislike of
criticism. The students in his classes were well aware of his defensiveness. As Barnes wrote
(1960:xxii): "There is little argument in his undergraduate classes, for Dr. White is not notably
receptive to, or tolerant of, views markedly different from his own."
"2Butsee Carneiro, who has written (1981:241-242), "in its clarity of exposition and persuasive-
ness of argument, White's discussion of the Great Man vs. the culture process excels even the cel-
ebrated treatments of the subject by Herbert Spencer . . . , William F. Ogburn . . . , and A. L.
Kroeber." There is perhaps no basic disagreement since Carneiro says nothing about substance.
"3ButWhite continued to equivocate on this issue. See his comments in "The Culturological Rev-
olution" (1963:38).
4This was the final publication of his lifetime. A posthumous volume appeared in 1987 edited by
Beth Dillingham and Robert L. Carneiro (see references).
"5"Allessentials" in regard to interpretation. But he never abandoned his scientism, which also
distinguished him from the Boasians.
6This is not intended as criticism of Hatch's account, which I consider the best treatment of
White's anthropology. I clearly disagree with Hatch on this point, however. The high-water mark
of White's utilitarianism was reached in TheEvolutionof Culture(1959). After that, the trend was all
in the direction of culturology. His disappointment with utility theory may have even been the
reason that he never completed the long-promised sequel to TheEvolutionof Culture.
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