ingrained ways, and later education rarely, if ever, brings a really fundamental change. That is why the process of Americanization is beset with such grave difficulties. The attempt is being made to teach individuals adjusted to one culture the ways of another. The immigrant who comes to this country is acculturated to a pattern different from the one he finds here, and the process of "becoming an American" is a bewildering one. It is as bewildering to him as it would be, let us say, for a New York college boy who might be forced to readjust himself completely to the Turkish ways of doing things. Not only is the process of reacculturation exceedingly difficult, but the greater the difference between two civilizations the more difficult it is. The American of adult years rarely can totally readjust his habits and beliefs to the French ways of doing things (which fundamentally are not so different from our own). How much more difficult would it be, then, for an Armenian or a Russian Jew, or an Eskimo, to throw over those habits that were adaptations to the civilization of his own culture area and rebuild habits that conformed to our own ways of doing and thinking things. The Indian is often accused of being unappreciative and non-adaptable because he has not taken over the white civilization in the United States. But the gap is too great; readjustment involves too basic a change in habits. This is why primitive civilizations almost invariably are demoralized by contact with a more aggressive white civilization. This point of view also explains why in our immigration laws we tend to favor immigrants from northern European countries and discriminate against the southern and central Europeans. The former have a culture more nearly like that found in the United States -they really are but a slight variant within the Euro-American group. The latter represent a far greater divergence from the type. Their differences stand out; the customary emotional reaction against their ways results. We shall speak more of this in the final chapter of this section. 13. Conclusion. It should now be clear why we have so elaborately developed our analysis of the component parts of culture. It was necessary to show how the traits combine into complexes, and how these are regularly distributed over the earth in order to develop an accurate picture of the nature of this thing we call civilization. Each culture area represents a civilization. Each civilization has its own pattern or patterns. The individual is born into a culture area, and from birth begins to adjust himself to the pattern of his section and class. This adjustment becomes habitual. His ways of doing and thinking things seem to be the only natural and right ways. Variants from these ways seem strange and even evoke resistance. Once ingrained, the reactions to a culture can be changed only with the greatest difficulty. The culture area places its stamp almost indelibly upon the individual. It standardizes his behavior. It produces orderly and regularized social behavior. It gives the element of truth to the saying: "Tell me from what culture area you come, and I will tell you what you are." READINGS IN VOLUME II 1. ALEXANDER A. GOLDEN WEISER, Diffusionism and the American School of Historical Ethnology. 2. A. L. KROEBER, The Culture Areas of the Americas. 3. MELVILLE J. HERSKOVITS, A Preliminary Consideration of the Culture Areas of Africa. QUESTIONS ON THE ABOVE READINGS 1. What has been found concerning the distribution of culture traits by the studies made of American Indian life? 2. Enumerate the culture areas of North America. 3. Is there any divergence of opinion concerning the boundaries of the American culture areas? 4. How many areas are found in South America? Enumerate them. 5. Would an Indian from New England feel "at home" in the Andean area? Defend your answer. 6. Which was the most highly developed culture in the new world when Columbus came here? (Consult Figure 9.) 7. Is the culture area concept applicable outside of North America? How does Herskovits attempt to prove that it is? 8. Does he find the line between culture areas in Africa sharp? 9. How many culture areas does Herskovits find in Africa? How many areas were there found by the students in North America? Does this in any way alter your earlier impressions concerning the uniformity of primitive life? 10. How is it possible to distinguish one area from another? 11. Consult the American Who's Who and find what you can concerning Franz Boas. How did the theory of culture areas suggest itself to him? 12. Does every trait characteristic of a culture area appear in every section of the area? 13. Why is it necessary, as Goldenweiser points out, to consider the relationship of the traits to each other? QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is meant by saying that traits localize geographically? 2. Illustrate this with examples from modern society. 3. How is this fact illustrated by the Indian food areas? 4. What does Wissler say concerning man's tendency to specialize in foods? 5. What were the Indian food areas? 6. Did all Indians have similar methods of water transportation? 7. Did all Indians build similar types of shelter? 8. How is the concept of a culture area derived? 9. What is a culture area? 10. Do we live in a culture area? 11. How many culture areas were there on the continent when Columbus discovered America? 12. What is a culture center? 13. What is a marginal culture area? 14. Are the boundaries of the culture area sharp and readily distinguished? 15. What is the relation between culture and political boundaries? 16. What is the relation between culture boundaries and linguistic boundaries? 17. What is the significance to the student of society of the culture area concept? 18. How does individual behavior become modified by the culture of an area? 19. What is " acculturation"? 20. How does it develop? 21. Why is it difficult to readjust to a foreign culture? 22. What relation has this concept to the immigration problem? CASE PROBLEMS Case I.- Immigrants to our shores tend to cluster together in the large cities. To what extent do you believe the concept of acculturation is a factor in explaining this? Case II. The problem of Americanization is difficult. Programs are often met with little or no success. What factors are involved in explanation of these difficulties and failures? PROBLEMS FOR STUDY 1. Using Wissler's American Indian as your guide, prepare maps of the North American Continent showing the distribution of food, transportation, and shelter complexes. 2. With the same book to help you, make a map of the nine culture areas of the North American Indian groups. 3. Prepare an essay to substantiate the thesis that traits have regular distribution in modern society, illustrating it by reference to food habits of our own society. 4. Prepare an essay illustrating the culture center concept by reference to our own society. 5. Taking any standard work on the lives and customs of some foreign group. Write a paper pointing out the difficulties individuals from this group would have in reacculturation should they migrate to the United States. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS BERNARD, L. L., Social Psychology. Henry Holt and Company, 1926. TOZZER, A. M., Social Origins and Social Continuities. The Macmillan Company, 1925. WATSON, J. B., Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. J. B. Lippincott Company, 1919. Behaviorism. The People's Institute Publishing Company, 1924. WISSLER, Clark, The Relation of Nature to Man in Aboriginal North America. Oxford University Press, 1926. ARTICLES GOLDENWEISER, Alexander, " Cultural Anthropology," in The History and Prospects of the Social Sciences. (H. E. Barnes, editor). Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. HERSKOVITS, Melville, "The Cattle Complex in East Africa," The American Anthropologist, Vol. 28. HERSKOVITS, Melville, and WILLEY, Malcolm, "The Cultural Approach to Sociology," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXIX, September, 1923. CHAPTER VI THE GROWTH AND SPREAD OF CULTURE 1. Culture Is Dynamic. The picture of culture that was developed in the preceding section was largely a static one, and nothing more than an intimation was given that culture is a dynamic thing. In the analysis of the culture area, a cross-section view was shown; the description was of the existing civilization at any one time. In the present section the point of view is to be shifted, and the development of culture over a long series of years will be surveyed. The culture complexes clustering in any one area are constantly shifting, new traits and complexes are being added, and inner changes are taking place. Looked at from a long-time perspective, no culture stands absolutely still. Rates of culture change vary in different areas all the way from the almost imperceptible change in a small and primitive society to the rapidity that characterizes our own. Why culture changes, what forces impel the change, and whether all parts of culture change at an equal rate are some of the problems that now demand attention. 2. How Culture Changes. - Culture changes chiefly in two ways: first, through an addition of new traits and complexes, and second, through a modification of existing ones. The former is probably the more important. This type of change can be illustrated by a simple comparison in the history of our own society. Imagine yourself living in Boston in 1776. There would have been no fine city streets, nor seven story buildings. There would have been no trolley cars nor automobiles. Newspapers were of the simplest kind, published once a week, and containing "news" months old. Farm life prevailed. There would have been no factories and humming looms. No moving pictures would have existed to provide the evening's entertainment. In fact, life in Boston in 1776 would have been far more simple than it is even to-day in a remote New Hampshire farm community. At least the latter has the telephone, the radio, and the newspaper to bring contacts with distant centers. |