21

CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION: IN MAN AND OUT THERE

Raymond D. Gastil

University of Oregon

Leslie "dhite2 has issued in recent years a challenge to American
anthropologists which though cri ticized, has gone largely unanswered. He
has proposed two very different propositions: (1) that culture be seen

primarily as a whole for all mankind through time; and (2) that culture be
seen as existing independently of men, or at least particular men. It is
proposed here that his arguments have been misapprehended through often
polemical opposition, while in fact much of his posltio5 pertains to as-
pects of cultural studies.  In terms of semantic fields  we will, then,

describe the field of "culture" as it is now used in the social sciences
as usefully divisible into general culture (civilization) and partitive

culture (cultulre). The latter field, in turn. wl"l. be divided into culture
independent of men (superorganic culture) and psychologistic culture (modal
culture). Arguments wrill be adduced for the value and productivity of the
distinctions made,

In a recent paper It has been suggested th-at "the determinants of
human behavior" may be profitably analyzed in a semantic field including
bloloical, biosocial, cultural, and situational factors, each class of
factors having historical and ahistorical dim aensions.4 The biological

factors included specifically those abilities and needs common to all men,

and their variation by age., sex, or statistical scatter, Biosocial factors
are those hypothetical factors whaich seem to shape human behavior in groups
universally, or in certain typesit)uations. Cult.ural factors were those
which shaped the behavior of incivliduals by vQirtue of their being in one
group rather than another or of learni `1g from one tradiXtiorn rather than

another. Situational were those particular geographical, social, or per-

sonal factors which influenced belhavlor in such a way as to modify predic-
tions which mightt be made without knesowledge of these particularities. Of
course all of these abstracted factors are the products of the influence

of the same or other types of factors over an indefinite nast. It should
again be emphasized here that this categorization implied no judgment of
the relative influence of one or another category. But the distinctive

contribution of anthropology has been in its emphasis on cultural factors,
and one of its future ro es should be continued explorations of the limits
of cultural variability. '

Culture treated in this way automatically excludes, however, view-
ing culture as a pan-human accomplishment. In fact there is little room
left for the word "culture" but only for "a culture" and "cultures."  The

explanatory value of the concept of culture lies in the fact that cultures
Are different. Yet certainly in the attempt to ferret out the ways in
which men differ from animals, the course of hunan biological evolution or

the accumulative nature of human progress the concept of culture as a uni-
versal biosocial process has also been rewarding. But dealing with this
partially biosocial process of culture(2) under the same rubric as the

splintering force of cultures(l) leads to confusion of expression and ter-
minolggy even for the most professional--the "al and the I's keep getting

lost.  As Kroeber and Kluckhohn have pointed out, if we say "the religious
system of the Haida is cultural" we do not i imediately know whether culture

22

is in the general sense or particular sense. They add that if one thinks of
culture as patterned, the reference is primarily to "culture in the parti-
tive sense" rather than general culture.7 Perhaps it would be clearer if

we saw man as civilization creating and culture creating.8 This seems to be
close to the distinction of R. Thurnwald:

[culture] the totality of usages and adjustments which relate to

family, political formation, economy, labor, morality, custom, law
and ways of thought. These are bound to the life of the social

entities in which they are practised and perish with these; whereas
civilizational horizons are not losto . . .9

Thus we could speak of the course of civilizational evolution with-
out infringing upon the equally valid concept of cultures as ultimately

non-additive. The early studies of diffusion would then be seen as dealing
with items of pan-human ci'vilization which pass from culture to culture in
time and space, ultimately making possible new levels of energy unilization
in 'Whitets terminology, or new levels of moral consciousness in Redfield's
or Kroeber's. Items of usage considered as cultural would remain relative
to the total cultural systems (and congeries) of individuals in groups;

considered as civilizational they would occupy positions in chains of devel-
opment (however conceived) from the stone age to the atomic.

While the distinction of cultures(il and culture(2) has been gener-
ally admitted, although the attempt was nad to get by wits one term,

White's concept of culture(3  in the extrasomatic context has been generally
misunderstood or reduced to   pseudo-argument.10  Thus we find:

There is no genuine problem as to the Itinwardnesstf or "outwardness"
of culture.  It is "outward" and "impersonal" as an abstraction, a

logical construct; it is very much "inward" and affective as intern-
alized in a particular individual . . . culture is manifested in and
through personalities, culture exists to the extent to which the
"tprivate worlds" . . . overlap.11

While this may explain the position of the authors, and thus appear to be

an "unrewarding controversy,"' it certainly does not touch upon the position
which White suggests.

For a consideration of White's culture(3) let us turn to a more

extended discussion of the idea of culture(1 as it is usually conceived

today.  In these terms "cultures" have be   frovisionally defined as exist-
ing essentia ly in the shared aspects of the personalities of the members

of a groupol   Individuals learn cultures and extrapolate from this learn-
ing and add to this learning those thoughts and actions which may become
part of a culture in the future. One always learns his culture in an

essentially individualistic manner; it is recreated by him in his own con-
scious or unconscious memory, or else it is lost to him and cannot influ-

ence his behavior. Thus, group culture exists between the discrepancies of
cultures of individuals and the necessities of biosocial existence. At

this point we may consider a culture as a statistical abstraction residing
in the shared behaviors of its carriers.

With these considerations in mind, let us particularly focus our
attention upon an expanded concept of cultural role. In this way we may
most usefully organize our knowledge about cultures psychologistically.

23

Thus we may thinka of most of what an individual has learned of his group's
culture as classifiable into clusters of expectations013 This expanded

concept. would include not only techvnical and interpersonal role-expectations
for particular parts of an indilvidual's lfe9 but also generalized roles in
terms of which a person identlfies himself,   Thus a Nuer would presumably
think of hi'mself as a member of a particular homestead, hamlet, village,

tribal section., tribe, or as a "Nuer." In the non-Nuer world he attempts

to act in terms of his expectations of himself playing the role of a "Nuer,"
and others e  ect him to act in the ways in which they conceive this cul-
tural role. 4In more universalistic societies one may play the role of
"man" or t"human being."

Overriding roles of this sort9 then, may be called identity or

allegiance roles0  With what cultural grou-os one identifies is of course
often briQttle, yet. knowing whether a perscn conciv'es of himself  or

feels that he is conceived aS, a "Navaho" or an "Amierican,"' a "Southerner"

or a "Negro" (when tnis word designates a subculture) is particularly rele-
vant in determining what sort of future learning experiences will be sought
out or accepted as proper to the self, and which will be rejected.   In the
process of acculturation certainly this shift in cultural group allegiance
or identification is a crucial issue.   A lack of positive decision either

by the person or those around him ieaves the future growth and organization
of a personallty entirely up to personal resources.   This leads to diffi-

culties, since the organization of roles in most personalities comes largely
ready-made, belng worked out painfully over centuries by the forebearers of
the cultural group with which a person ident'ifies0

The items of typical uitur#s are avmltts;4 Od ryost to be lirnked

together 1n what one may conce'vre o a   "'ea.rning chai-ns,"1 If a primitive
man becomes a "Chistianl" he will find that more and m       ire cultural items
are linked, at leas-t by owttrs     h wi_th  he cotincept "Christian."  In the

Middle East   . Mhas been pointed ou.-t t tlhaS. nay peasants are poor Muslims.

Illiterate and isolted they may kn.w litte me than that they identify
themselves as Muslims.  Yet this identi-fication may allow us to predict

that when educational opportunities are open to them they will want first
of al1 to learn more of Islam.l) The same story is repeated in the case
of an isolated community of Indian Jews wno after hundreds of years of

persisting on the shreds and patches of thelr lore, learned again much of
their lost tradition--a process whlch was to be repeated several times-l6

The concept of cultural identsification is particularly relevant if
we propose, as lWhite does, a non-statistical aspect    culture. What we
may call the superorganic culture exists 'in vehicles   and symbols, is
"out there."  The superorganic traditlon exists as potentiality. As a

child grows up in a particular group what is potentially his culture, in
that it is contained in the tradition to which most of those in his group
bear allegiance, becomes to some extent his modal culture, especially

those aspects which are related to the roles tie is called upon to play or

react to. It was by a broadenlng of aliegiances to include ancient tradi-
tions that Renaissance Nan changed the potentialitles of h'is culture long
before he changed its statistical, modal reality.   The concept of "super-
organic culture," then, gives an added conceptual tool for predicting

future behavior0  And it also provrldes a ratlonale for imputing cultural
behavior to past societies.  The cultures of the archaeologist exist in

material or symbolic form; we can only imagine what those who lived among
these artifacts,, bearing allegiance to the traditions that produced them,
must have thought and believed, must have learned as their culture. Some

traditions which today have little influences on modal cultures(,) may be-

come again influentlal in the future, just as the ideals of Greece and Rome
were found and rethought from papyri and stone.  In the Middle Ages perhaps
no one "livedt Greek culture, yet parts of this tradition in the forms of

art and writing and scientific systems were understood and ultimately influ-
ential in forming new cultures and cultural traditions. Cultural traditions
of great complexity can perhaps only exist outside of us.  Perhaps no

anthropologist has within his mind a coherent system of anthropology, but

rather a mass of ideas and facts out of a scholarly tradition. Yet logical-
ly organized traditions in anthropology do exist "out there," and so can be
comprehended and explained and rationalized in an objective, organized

fashion. In these terms the "culture" which moves and changes in a super-
organic realm  which achieves a significant degree of "logico-meaningful

integrationt'lt generally sets apart from the average man in the group but

may be the "tradVIion" to which the individuals in the group bear allegiance.
"Great" or "high" traditions are seldom completely identifiable with the

mentation of individuals, but have existence through history and ultimately
shape indivildual lives or cultures(,).

But let us remember another sense in which cultures in the "extra-
somatic" context may be conceived to influence human behavior. It is

obvious that men do not create their own cultures, yet the culture of a

group offers the only available basis in terms of which an individual can

think and create. One may be very creative, yet in a long-term perspective
his creations don't carry him very far from this base. Thus Leonardo da

Vinci was doomed not to fly in his time, or Aristotle to discover the struc-
ture of the cell, In this negative sense there was no choice for these men,
the force of culture lay beyond their comprehension. Positively, others
with the carriage and the gasoline engine thrust upon them by their time
had a high probability of creating the automobile, and it made from this

predictive perspective little difference who precisely did invent it. We
must assume only, as White does, that the human mind can handle symbolic

behavior with a certain degree of competence and that man has certain gener-
alized tendencies, and the formula that culture creates culture does not
seem an unreasonable way to conceptualize what we find. It is a limited
concept of causation that leads Barnett to deny this aspect of reality by
saying:

As we have seen, the wherewithal for an invention must preexist

the conception of it; but an accumulation of the necessary materials
for it does not predetermine it any more than the existence of brick
and mortar determines that a building shall be constructed. Cult W e
does not determine or cause anything. Ideas about it may and do,

To use Bidney in reverse, because one is interested in "efficient" causes,
the actual individuals or psychological processes involved, does not mean
that other types of causality involved in situations are unimportant or
trivial.20

Long ago Durkheim added another dimension of the superorganic with
his concept of the "social fact."' Disregarding what seems doubtful in

this concept, Durkheim appears right when he suggests that even if we want

to mail a package after the closinlg times of the post office, it is simply
a fact that we cannot   Even if we hiiave not Learned when the post office
closes we still cannot mail the package. It may be that no one in the

community likes this fact or even accepts it. Yet they act in terms of it.
Of course with unity and pressure the post office may in the future stay
open all night--but what abolut now?  Isnit the closing hour sltting out

there by itself, entailed in a maze of other cultural facts about law, work
hours, meal times, etc. which are equally  0o complex for any person or

group of persons to alter in a short time,?    And let us look at the maze
of Chrlstmlas gi'ving.  Increasingly adults may not accept the proposition

that exchanging presents is a legitimate expectation, yet they still feel

a cultural obligation to match the presents of otners when these are given.

Theoretically all adults in a aroup could reject this cultural trait intern-
ally and yet because of the barriers of conmuni'cation among people in a

delicate situation, the exchange could go on for years by its own momentum.
The ethnographic record seems to suggest that this has happened elsewhere.
Of course some would distinguish here between internalized and non-

internalized cultural expectations, But if so,, why is not the external
cultural trait that one should exchange presents to be concei'ved of as
existing outside of individuals in the extraszrnatic context?

Shifting oiur argument, the cultures of "others" have an external
reality which would seem to be 1'ust as real as the individual and his
thoughts, or indeed the physical 1zSnverseo  If th-ie proverbial Martian

were to arrive in a religious area of I-cland and ki?ck the cross in plain
sight of the parishioners, the res.ult would be juist as real as though he

had walked off a cllff in the dark. Bec-ase we cannot see, touch, or feel
cultural facts does not mean that. theyy ar.e somehow less "real."  Reality
relates to predictability rather than s:bj,1ective --udginent.  The ultimate
of such re ctionism is to assert thiat noth-in6g exists besides subatomic
particles.

Material culture(3) poses yer anotUAter problem, for it surely

exists separately from persons.  The psychologi cally bDent suggest that
only the ideas behind the artifact are cultural.23   And it is presumed

that transmission of the ideas must be through persons.   But surely this
is not necessary. Material objects are themselves models for the next

generation, even without explanatlon.  Material objects themselves limit
the possibilities of the coming generation--if there are no wheelbarrows,
dirt cannot be moved in them.   In the limlting case the castoff tin cans
of modern peoples have often served primltives in many ways without the
medlum of the psychologistically derived Idea of cultural transmission.

It may be claimed these cans are not "cultural," but it would be foolish
to thereby deny their influence or existence.

Let us then refrain from value Judgments of the concept and admit
that cultures have their modal reality in the average man's training, but

also a superorganic, extra-indivridual reality0  The former is more direct-
ly involved in influenci ng behavlor in certain si tuations, yet the other

exists, and potenltially will influence the behavlor of men through becom-
ing a part of their modal cultures through linkage, prior existence,

existence in others, limiting or providing tools for thought or fabrication.

26

In this essay an attempt has been made to sharpen the limits of the
concept of culture so that testing the range of cultural influence in human
affairs could be facilitated. At the same time it was felt necessary to

not exclude as non-existent those aspects of human experience which we are
not presently inclined to label "culture." For this purpose we have dis-

tinguished "culture" from "civilization." Although this paper assumes the

concept of culture in personality to be central, a fair review of other ways
in which cultural traditions exist and allow predictions led to the differ-
entiation of superorganic from modal cultures. The terms chosen may not be
the best, but the distinctions, however phrased, would seem important.

NOTES

1This paper is essentially that delivered at the conference of the

American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia, November, 1961. I am
indebted to D. Wallace, R. Emrich and H. Goldfried of the University for
their suggesti ons.

2Leslie White, The Science of Culture (New York, Grove Press, 1949);
"The Concept of Culture,"t American Anthropologist 61 (1959), 227-251; and
The Evolution of Culture (New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1959).

3Cf. Leo Weisgerber, Vom Weltbild der deutschen Sprache (DUsseldorf,
PNdagogischer Verlag, Schwann, 1950 54); and Suzanne 3hman, "Theories of
the Linguistic Field,," Word 9:(2)(1953):123-134.

4Raymond D. Gastil, "The Determinants of Human Behavior," American
Anthropologist 63(6)(Dec., 1961):1281-1291.

5The study of cultural systems or structures could either concen-
trate on strictly cultural analysis (considering the unique configuration

of the cultural unit) or be approached biosocially in the spirit of search
for universal factors.

6E.g. E. A. Hoebel, Man in the Primitive World (New York, McGraw-
Hill Book Co., 2d ed., 1958), p. 159 (2).

7A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, Culture: A Critical Review of

Concepts and Definitions (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1952),
Peabody Museum Papers, 47:1, p. 185.

8While other uses of "civilization" are more current, the usual
dichotomy of systems in quantitative terms of their size or complexity

seems both unwarranted and crippling to the potential use of the comparative
method. American or European "civilization" might best be described as a

complex or multifaceted culture. If, on the other hand, the focus is on the
urban - non-urban dichotomy, then urbanization is the phenomenon under con-

sideration. "Urban civilization" would also be acceptable in this framework.

,Quoted in Kroeber and Kluckhohn, op. cit., p. 44 and passim.

10E,g. David Bidney, Theoretical Anthropology (New York, Columbia
University, 1953), pp. 108-113 passimo

1Kroeber and Kluckhohn, op. cit., p. 114l

12Cf. Melford E. Spiro, "Culture and Personality: The Natural Histo-
ry of a False Dichotomy," Psychiatry 14h19-46. This position is modified
somewhat in the thinking of Anthony Wallace, Culture and Personality (New

27

York, Random House, Inc., 1961), especially pp. 34-41. His contribution is
a considerable one, yet the implication Is that behavioristically people in
the cultural group generally act as if they had shared cognitive understand-
ings and personality traits, except for occupational or subcultural special-
izations.

13Normative, verbal or behavioral, as in Kroeber and Kluckhohn,
op. cit., p. 162.

4E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1940), pp. 114ff.

l5Cf. Najmeh Najafi, Reveille for a Persian Village (New York,
Harper Bros., 1958), pp. 40 and 2370

16Haeem Samuel Kehimkar, The History of the Bene-Israel of India
(Tel-Aviv, Dayag Press, 1937), pp. 40-42, 61, 65, 166ff.

Pitirim A' Sorokin, Society, Culture and Personality (New

York, Harper Bros., 1947), pp. 555ff.   The concept of the superorganic was
popularized in anthropology by A. L. Kroeber, "'The Superorganic," American
Anthropologist XIX(1917):163-213 (reissued in his The Nature of Culture,
Chicago, 1952).

Cf. Sorokin, p. cit., pp. 332-335.

19H. G. Barnett, Innovation:  the Bsis of Cult-ural Change (New
York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1953), p. 44.

20Bidney, Op. cit., pp. 33 and passim,

21Emile Durkheim, The }Rules of Sociological Method, G. Catlin (ed.)
(Chicago, Chicago University, 1893 [1938]) pp   3-13 and     s

221Thus for purposes of argument and in fear of the reification of
the culture concept Barnett appears at times to go too far. (Barnett,
9. cit., pp. 13-14 and passim, 1000-1002.)

23Cf. quotations in Kroeber and Kluckhohn, op. cit., pp. 127-128.