Patterns of Culture

Benedict begins the chapter with a stance of cultural relativism. She states that although it is productive to compare different societies and their variations, they should not be judged in terms of each other, for their motivations are different (223). She then turns her attention to scholarly representations of cultures. Benedict highlights the importance of objective fieldwork and cautions against overgeneralizing or selectively picking cultural traits to fit predetermined ideas about a consistent, integrated whole (229). Benedict speculates that it is possible for societies to lack internal cohesion. She hypothesizes that a “lack of cultural integration” is more likely to occur in societies that reside on the “borders of well-defined culture areas” and are exposed to “outside influences” (225).

Benedict also discusses anthropology’s differences with sociology, which she attributes to a difference in datasets. She claims non-Western societies are bound by discrete spatial units, making it possible to study local groups in their entirety. Sociologists largely focus on stratified and geographically dispersed societies. According to Benedict, it is difficult for them to see uniformity within Western societies, and so they focus more on individualization. Sociologists tend to claim that “society is not and never can be anything over and above the individual minds that compose it” (230-31).