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1995 U.S. postage stamp honoring Ruth Benedict
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In our July selection, "Anthropology and the Abnormal," Ruth Benedict distills a large body of anthropological field work that had been done in her time. She examines attitudes of traditional cultures such as those of the Dyaks, Hopis, Fijians, and Yakuts regarding social behavior ranging from catalepsy (entering a trance-like state), bereavement, homosexuality and transgendering, megalomania, even simple humiliation resulting from having committed a minor flub like falling out of a boat.
Our group has in the past taken up the issue of "cultural relativism," the idea that human values are neither fixed nor permanent, but rather derive from social norms.
In her classic 1934 book
Patterns of Culture, published around the same time as "Anthropology and the Abnormal," Benedict writes, "Social thinking at the present time has no more important task before it than that of taking adequate account of cultural relativity."
