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Introduction

Ruth Fulton Benidict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist

She graduated from Vassar college in 1909, afterward deciding to travel Europe for a year. Her pursuit for an occupation led her to enroll at The New School, formerly (until 1998) New School for Social Research. A connection established with Elsie Clews Parsons and Alexander Goldenweiser led her to study under "The Father of American Antropology" Franz Boas. She approached anthropology with a uniquely humanistic perspective, meaning that she placed extreme focus on the interest and welfare of human beings. After receiving her PHD for thesis on a pervasive theme among North American Indians in 1923, she began teaching at Columbia University. Studies, research, and documentation of native American cultures and folklore would be a recurring theme throughout her career, and would eventually lead to the development of her most impactful theories referring to the duality shared between culture and personality.

Biography

She was born in New York on June, 5 1887, although the exact place is contested in the biographical community. Ruth's father, Frederick S. Fulton, died from a severe fever when Ruth was only 2 years old. Although her mother, Beatrice Shattuck Fulton, was employed as a schoolteacher, they struggled financially. The never-ending pursuit of gainful employment and the grief over Frederick's passing meant that Ruth had to move around alot as a child, which as she noted, caused an immense sadness in her mother. This would eventually foster a feeling of resentment and contempt toward her mother for being consumed by her grief and essentially abandoning her. Ruth was also driven deeper into isolation due to a partial deafness resulting from an undiagnosed childhood disease. This meant that she went through life very soft spoken, shy, and reserved, despite her choosing a path full of teaching and lecturing. Ruth mainted expanding her interest in art, poetry, and literature. A deep connection between her emotions and the human experience was established early, and eventually led to her enrolling at the University of Vassar, where her mother graduated from. From 1922 until she received her PHD in 1923, Benedict had been passionately engaged in fieldwork that would formulate her anthropological theories. She journeyed to Southern California to conduct ethnographic studies of the Shoshonean Serrano people in the Morongo Valley, She would continue to complete major studies of the Serrano in 1922, the Zuni in 1924, the Pima in 1926, and soon there after the Apache of the Southwest, as well as various Plains Indian tribes. After obtaining her PhD in 1923, Benedict spent a year as Boas's teaching assistant at Barnard College, where she met a senior, Margaret Mead, who would become a lifelong friend and colleague and with whom Benedict shared a strong emotional relationship. After a heart attack claimed her life in 1948, Mead kept the legacy of Benedict's work going by supervising projects that Benedict would have looked after, and editing and publishing notes about Benedicts life and legacy for future generations.

Legacy

She authored the book Patterns of culture in 1934, which looked at some of the intricate correlations between social hierarchies and perceptions about roles played in said hierarchies. In the book she argues that it is the "personality", the particular complex of traits and attitudes, that defines that social status of the people within it. She also published Race: Science and Politics in 1940, in response to the global rise of fascism and its pseudoscientific rationales for marginalizing what it perceived to be lesser people. This was a much needed distinction, as racial persecution based on false biological facts, even in the most liberal of countries, was on the rise. She also authored The Chrysanthemum and the Sword in 1946, which analyzed and predicted what might happen within Japanese culture after world war 2 during the occupation by U.S. and allied occupation of the island. She looked at the evolution and contradiction between traditional Japanese culture during the edo period and meiji restoration to draw conclusion on what the cultural fallout would be like. This book is considered to be one of the main introductions and educational understandings of Japanese culture to Americans. Benidict's contributions to anthropological and sociological understanding of human interaction is immeasurable and often overshadowed by other male collegues of the time period. Her work is still studied and analyzed by anthropologists and scientists alike for its groundbreaking progression toward a healthier and freerer societal structure. While these books have been substantial in cultural and scientific impact, other notable works include, Concept of the Guardian Spirit in North America (1931). As well as some of her unpublished journal entries cataloged in various biographical video essays and projects.

Interesting quotes

Ruth Benidict was known for her insightful quotes that evoked some of the classical philosophical underpinnings of those who she admired and looked up to, as well as her own thoughts and perspectives.

In an early journal, the young Ruth wrote:

"The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers.  There's the answer of Christ and of Buddha, of Thomas à Kempis and of Elbert Hubbard, of Browning, Keats and of Spinoza, of Thoreau and of Walt Whitman, of Kant and of Theodore Roosevelt.  By turns their answers fit my needs.  And yet, because I am I and not any one of them, they can none of them be completely mine. "

"If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits."

References