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Synergy: Some Notes of Ruth Benedict

Author(s): Abraham H. Maslow and John J. HonigmannSource: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 72, No. 2 (Apr., 1970), pp. 320-333Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/671574

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Synergy: omeNotesof RuthBenedictSelected byABRAHAM H. MASLOWBrandeisUniversity

JOHN J. HONIGMANNUniversityof North Carolina, Chapel Hill

IntroductionbyMARGARET EADAmerican Museum of Natural HistoryExcerpts from 1941 lectures by Ruth Benedict call attention to the correlation betweensocial structure and character structure, especially aggressiveness. Social orders char-acterized by high or low synergy, by a syphon or a funnel system of economic distribu-tion, are compared for their different capacities to support or humiliate the individual,render him secure or anxious, or to minimize or maximize aggression. Religion, aninstitution in which people apotheosize the cooperation or aggression their cultural lifearouses, difers between societies with high and low synergy.

INTRODUCTIONMARGARETMEAD

IN 1941 RUTH BENEDICT held theAnna Howard Shaw Memorial Lecture-ship at Bryn Mawr College and built herlectures about the concept of synergy. Shehad hoped to use materials gathered duringthe 1930s under grants to the Departmentof Anthropology, Columbia University, asdetailed documentation of the theme thatis only sketched in these few brief excerpts.However, complications of World War IIled her to shift her interest to wartime prob-lems (Mead 1959). She relinquished the ed-itorship of the field studies on which she hadintended to draw to Professor Ralph Linton,then chairman of the department, and thefield studies were published in Acculturationin Seven American Indian Tribes (Linton1940), rather inadequately documented asto date of fieldwork or intent. Although shetalked with me frequently about her plansfor the book, which would grow out of thelectures, I never saw the manuscript.

In the autumn of 1941, I taught a smallAccepted for publication 6 December 1969.

senior seminar at Vassar and set my five stu-dents to working within the context Dr.Benedict's idea of synergy provided. Afterthe war her interest was absorbed in finishingThe Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Bene-dict 1946) and in directing Research in Con-temporary Cultures (Mead and Metraux1953). She did not mention the Bryn Mawrlectures, and after her death in 1948 nocopies were found. In authorizing the publi-cation of these excerpts, I assume that shedid not destroy the manuscripts but simplylost interest in them.Had she lived, she would have acknowl-edged some of her sources, so I do so here:on the distinction between funnelling andsyphoning societies, Ruth Bunzel (1938);on segmentation, Gregory Bateson (1934);and on types of integration, the discussionsin Naven (Bateson 1936, 1958), "Bali: TheValue System of a Steady State" (Bateson1949), and in Cooperation and CompetitionAmong Primitive Peoples (Mead 1937).

THE LECTURES[E[Knowledge of the language is an impor-tant tool for culture-personality studies; it is

320

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[MASLOM & HONIGMANN] Synergy: Ruth Benedict 321also necessary to learn the names of thepeople,the ceremonies,etc.]These are firststeps, and in the course ofobservingand noting these things you haverecorded a great deal of usual behavior inyour tribe. If you are studying personalityand culture, you need two more studies:studiesof individualswith consecutive nfor-mation about their life from firstto last andstudies of the way childrenare broughtup.The first-the life histories-are importantbecause from them one can study specialcases of the kind of impact this culture hason individuals;you can studythis impactinthe pillar of society and in the deviant. Ifyou have autobiographies,too, you canstudythe way they tell theirown life storiesand comment on them. Only if you knowcase histories,enough of them, can you saywhether men learn to go into trances andbecome shamansbecause they are youngestsons who can't compete with their olderbrothers or because they're respondingto areligious call; only with life histories canyou say that the troublemakersn the tribewere left orphansas babiesor were the spe-cially favored children. Life histories aredataon all kinds of problemsof behavior natribe.The other study,that of the way childrenare broughtup, is a most necessarypart ofany understandingof personality and cul-ture, and it is one of the most neglected.Inmany tribes,perhapsin most, male anthro-pologists are barred from intimatestudy ofchildrearingbecause so large a part of it isin the hands of the women. Women anthro-pologistshave the advantage.To study chil-dren's lives systematically s to have to ob-serve and to record detailedobservation.Atribe that can verbalize all its law and itsceremoniescan tell you little that is helpfulabout childrearing.Perhaps it can tell thepregnancytabus and the pubertyceremony-the rest may be an unverbalizedblank.Yet from the nursingcustoms to the boys'andgirls'gangsof preadolescence, hildrear-ing is as systematicand as basic to the cul-ture as any activityof adult life-more so,

for it has the formative years in which toexert its specialpressure.In child study, besidesthe detailedobser-vation, there are certainlaboratorypossibili-ties. One can have a child's playroom fur-nished with paper and crayons and collectthe drawingwith annotationsof name, date,and comment.One can have toys and dolls;one can use them for projectivestudies tosee what storieschildren act out; with dollsthat come apartone can learn much of thechildren'sview of their own anatomy.Morerigid test situationsare not as yet satisfac-tory; there are too many implicationsspe-cific to our culture in most tests. If they areadapted to use in another culture, thenscores cannot be comparedon a commonscale. It is desirableto have tests, and somestudents have used the Ink Blot tests withinterestingresults. But it is too early to sayhow muchenlightenmenthey give in differ-ent cultures.[Personalityand culturestudy utilizes thewhole culture, including the socialorganization.] From comparative materialsuch study bringstogetherculturalfacts andindividualbehavior.It shares with all psy-chology the axiomthat any individual hinksand acts differentlyaccordingas his experi-ence in life has been different,and it insiststhat his experiencediffers with the kind ofsocial order under which he lives. This so-cial order in his tribe or nation patternstechniques of production,wealth, distribu-tion, marriage,the authorityor lack of au-thorityof the ruleror the chief and the ob-jectives toward which war and religion aredirected,the care and educationof children.Personality and culture has often beenloosely used to mean any comparativenoteson personality,but these are only elemen-tary gestures in the direction of this field.Real investigationof personalityand culturehas not begun until it is a studyof total ex-perienceas it is relatedto behavior.In any one culture area tribes share overthe whole region most of the separate temsthat go to make up their civilization. How-ever, the infiniteminutiae of the organiza-

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American Anthropologist [72, 197022tion of their men's societies or of totemiccults that they have in common do not pro-duce like psychologicalbehavior;not even acommonform of chieftainshipor a commonkinship terminology producesthis. Behaviorusuallyvarieswidelywithin one culture areabecause psychological behavior can be in-fluenced only by the way chieftainship,men's societies, totemic cults, and kinshipsystems are built togetherinto the total so-cial order, in other words, by the way inwhich they function in the total organizedsocial life of the tribe, which is always idi-omatically different from that of its neigh-bors. None of the lists of culture traits sodear to the diffusionist-bald "presence"or"absence"tems-will give you more than aguess about any problemof personalityandculture.Take, for example, suicide. Suicide hasrepeatedlybeen shown to be related to thesociological environment; t goes up undercertain conditions and goes down underoth-ers. In Americait is one indexof psycholog-ical catastrophebecauseit is an act thatcutsthe Gordianknot of a situationwith whicha man is no longer able or willing to deal.But suicide, listed as a common trait of cul-ture, may be an act with very differentsig-nificance in some other culture where it iscommon. In old Japanit was the honorableact of any warriorwho had lost his battle; twas an act that reinstatedhonor more thanlife--the whole duty of man in the Samuraicode. In primitivesocieties suicide is some-times the final loving duty of a wife or sisteror mother or father in the extravaganceofmourning;t is the reaffirmation hat love ofa close relative s more than anythingelse inlife and that when that relativeis dead, lifeis no longer worthwhile.Where this is thehighestmoral code of such a society, suicideis a final affirmationof ideals. On the otherhand, suicide in some tribesis more like theChineseidea of suicide,as they say, "on thedoorstep"of anotherman;meaningthat sui-cide is an acceptedway of revengingoneselfagainstone who has wrongedone or againstwhom one holds a grudge.Such suicide inprimitivetribes,where it exists, is the most

effectiveand sometimes the only action onecan take against another, and it stacks upwith actionat law in othercultures,not withany of the kinds of suicide we have alreadyspokenof.A fieldworkermighthave to get the histo-ries of a coupleof dozen suicides in his tribefrom a hundreddifferentpersonsand watchthe consequenceof actualoccurringsuicideswhile he is with the tribebefore his descrip-tion of suicide would be adequateto use indiscussionof personalityand culture.[Withrelationto the kind of initiationinwhich the girl or boy participates,the for-mal description of the ceremony is notenough. We must know the meaning it hasfor the person: does she feel like a debu-tante in our society;is he humiliatedor doeshe graduatewith honors?]If you are inter-ested, as the studentof personalityand cul-ture is, in the "howcome?"of behavior, t isthis impact of the ceremony on the boy'slife that is important,not whetherflutes orbull-roarers r slit gongs are the voice of theSwallowingMonster.[In

Now, more than ever, we need data onthe consequences or human life of differenthuman social inventions. We need to knowhow different inventions have worked-in-ventionslike the absolutestate,or inventionslike wars for conquest, or inventions likemoney. We have no longer the normativefaith that social problemscan be solvedby aphilosophical appeal to the eternal values.Eternal values themselves are suspect.Nor-mativetheoriesof society,we know only toowell, have always reflected the special andlocal culture of the theorist and statedcosmic conclusions drawn from specialtem-porary conditions. The conditions changeever so slightlyand the "laws"of the earlierdayno longerhold.We need a broader base for our socialthinking.We need firsthandobservations ostudythe consequencesof these variedsolu-tions. The study of primitiveculturesmeetsthese conditions if we avail ourselvesof theopportunity.Each of [the cultures] s an ex-

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MASLOW & HONIGMANN] Synergy: Ruth Benedict 323periment in running human life accordingto certainrules, and they can be studied atfirst hand, and with a detachmentno mancan attain in his own fatherland.They areset up like a laboratoryexperiment, oo-inlittle. They are small and homogeneousandhence can be controlledby the scientific ob-server.They arepreliterateandhence all de-tails of culture must be carried by livingmen; and there is no otherpreservationpos-sible.[Size is unimportantin the contrast be-tween primitive peoples and ourselves.]Thecrucial difference s in the social structuringof the known world, whatever its size maybe .... Now, there are certainforms of so-cial structure that are impossibilities n themodern world. They have certain conse-quences, and the reason that we must dis-cuss them here is becausein our society weconstantly speak as if we could have theconsequencesthough we have lost the ar-rangements hat producethem.The very simple societies are atomistic.They recognize only individual allegiancesand ties. They lack the social forms neces-sary for group action. Supposethat a mur-der occurs.The GreenlandEskimo do abso-lutely nothing. No one penalizes the mur-derer in any way; he will be given the samehospitalityas any other man .... The Es-kimo are not organized nto clans or into so-cieties that mightconductsuch an enterprise[in group action]. They live in winter vil-lages,but the compositionof the village maybe differenteach year. There is no chief, nocouncil of elders, no division of labor sothat two men must be interdependent.Hus-bandandwife are interdependent, ndeverymarriedcouple, pooling the results of theirindustryhave made their own utensils andclothing,butthatis all ....Varying with other factors in the socialorder, behavior [in atomistic societies] maybe mild instead of violent; the atomistic in-dividual may attainhis goals by helpfulnessto other individuals,but he helps them ontheir enterprisesand they help him on his,rather than carrying out enterprises thatsome permanently onstitutedgroupengages

in together, where the results are commonproperty. Whether violent or helpful andmild, individual acts are at the discretionofthe individual, and society does nothingabout it if men behave according to thewhim of the moment.Freuchen tells the story of the Danishjailbirdwho found his way to the Eskimo.He stole their food supplies,and they said,"See how modest he is. It shames him toask,but he takes whathe can."He killed hisEskimo guides, and the Eskimo said, "Seehow strong he is. He is a great man." Heabductedone of the villager'swives, and theman said, "He is the strongest among us.We are glad this strong man has come."Since he could outrageno one by his deeds,he eventually accepted the honor theyshowed him and became a pillarof society.He could not terrorize them since it was atenet of their philosophythat any man didwhat he had strength o do and since as a re-sult of their trainingin hardihood and self-reliance no man cringedbefore another ..... . . Just as soon as societies are trulycorporateand have the forms that make so-cial restraintpossible[whichmaygive libertyto engage in wider undertakingsand free-dom from physical assault], the only prob-lem is whetheror not these social restraintsare such that they add or take away fromthe individual'sability to conducthis life ashe desires. There are some that lay a heavyhand on the individual and some that en-courage individual initiative. But the truequestion is, What are the social restraints,and what sorts of human activity do theyfoster?The point is not that what is addedto the state is therefore by definition sub-tractedfrom the individual. In any tribe orstate that has corporatesocial forms, the in-dividual's freedom of movement and ofchoice is bound up with what the social ar-rangementsare, not with there being socialarrangements t all.Most primitivetribes are corporatesoci-eties. They are set up accordingto severaldifferentschemes,the groundplansof whichare different and pose different problems.Thoughtheir scale is small, they are ground

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324 American Anthropologist [72, 1970plans that are present also in our modernworld.One of the common groundplans is likea pie cut into servings,where each servingcontains the filling and the crusts of everyother serving.Let each serving representanAustralian clan with its totem and its totemcave and its ceremonyand its medicine menand its wise old men and the waterholes itvisits and the territoryover which it hunts;then each other clan of the tribe duplicatesthese items. They are homologous. The so-cial problemsuch a corporate society mustmeet is to make this homologousnessa bondthat ties the parts togetherratherthan a rea-son for one'sknifingthe other. It is not hardto see why many primitivetribes have beenable to make this homologousnessa bond.But on the other hand we can observeonlytoo clearly in modern nationalism how itmay be a reason for annihilation.Everyna-tion has sovereignty, a ruler, an electivebody of some sort, its currency, imports itneeds, goods to export, and for this veryreason [nations]are at each other'sthroats.The social problemin a social structureor-ganizedby homologousunits is to makeuseof likeness as a bond among the segmentedunits.Likeness is a familiar and usable basisfor humanties;it makeseasy sympathy,em-pathy,"likemindedness" s we say. It avoidsdifficulties of the different, the strange,which is so easily interpretedas hostile.Thedangerspresentin this type of homologousgroundworkare those of conflictingclaimsand activities based on likeness itself: mymedicine man is like yours, but he isstronger than yours and can kill him; myrightand your rightto take to wife the samewoman;my rightto be a ChosenPeopleandyour right; my nation's "manifest destiny"andyournation's.A second basic social plan is one that isfundamentallybased on group difference. Itis the groundplan, for instance,of the castesystem of India, and there, as very oftenhappens, the different and nonhomologousgroups are ranked from high to low. Eachgroup there has its own specializedheredi-tary labors to perform, its special insignia;

[these groups] do not intermarryand maytherefore remain specialized physical typesislanded among other islands of contrastingphysicaltypes.Among primitivepeoplesthiskind of social ground plan is common inEast Africa, where the herders live as adominantgroup in the midst of an agricul-turalcommunity,and still a thirdgroup,theironworkers,are the pariahs.The problemof social solidarity here is strictly that ofmutual services. Social solidarity must bebuilt not on likeness, but on differenceses-sential for the exchangeof serviceson whichthe society is based. Division of labor hereoccupies the place that homologousnessdidin our firsttype, and on division of labor isbased the obvious interdependenceof thesocial groups.The social problem s to makethis interdependence mutually beneficial,and it is done in stable cultures of this typeby a mutual recognition of services per-formed.. . . It is important to recognize thatmany stable societieshave been builton thisgroundplan,and it is not in itself disruptive.Nor does it necessarily become disruptiveeven where the underprivileged ive verymiserably. t is stable as long as the differentgroups are really interdependentupon eachother for mutual necessities and recognizethatthey arereceivingbenefits rom the oth-ers. These benefitsmay be phrasedas food,or as land, as assumptionof debts, as pro-tectionfrom enemies,or as intercessionwiththe supernatural.But social solidarity n sit-uations with this groundplan depends uponsome recognitionof mutualbenefit;if thereis this recognition,very great differences nprestige, in wealth, and in authority mayoccurwithin a stableandzestfulsociety.Neither of these two ground plans ofcorporatesociety dependsupon allegiance oa high chief or a king. There are somegroundplans wheresuch an envelopingalle-giance is central to the scheme. The ordi-nary type can be diagramedas a series ofconcentric circles, where the individualstands at the center and looks out fromthere over his society. In a South Africantribe he is surrounded irst by his family, a

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MASLOW & HONIGMANN] Synergy: Ruth Benedict 325group of brothers and cousins and theirwives and children with whom he lives in alargekraal....This groundplan is the typewe use in set-ting up politicaljurisdiction. am firsta citi-zen of my native city, then of my county,then of my state, then of my nation. My tiescarry throughfrom the least to the greatest,and they must if the society is to continueatall. If my state takesup armsagainstthe na-tion, only its defeat in civil war can preventthe nation's disruption.But the ties of onecity to another or of one state to another-or of one kraal to anotherin South Africa-are not essential to the scheme;they mayvary with circumstanceswithout threat tothe society. Each little groupis tied into thestructurethroughits own direct allegiancesto the same hierarchy,and it is these ties tothe hierarchy hat are crucial. [In these soci-eties it is essential that there be no conflictsamong the allegiances that are set up in aseriesrunningfrom kraal to king. The soci-ety must enlist the consent of the governedif it is not to become a dictatorship.]

. . . Each of these differentground plans,as I have indicated,may foster very differ-ent kinds of individuals,write behaviorthatis violent and aggressiveand bend all its en-ergies towardgettingpower over people, orwrite behavior that is warm and affiliativeand innocent of power drives. Thoughknowledgeof these groundplans is essentialfor understandinghow cultures work, theydo not as such correlate with gross differ-ences in characterstructure.In a study of personality and culture,therefore,we have to ask, Is there any so-ciological condition common to all thesetypical social structures hat correlates withcharacter types? When we have answeredthat, we can go on to differentiate he wayin which this sociological conditionis set upin different ypical groundplans.[ll]

The pressing problem about human be-havior that I want to considernow is aggres-sion. Aggression is behavior in which theaim is to injureanotherpersonor something

that standsfor him; it may be angry or re-sentful, combative or [secretively] malicious,but its object is to expel or humiliate an-other painfully. Is there any sociologicalcondition that correlateswith strongaggres-sion and any thatcorrelateswith low aggres-sion? All our ground plans achieve one orthe other in proportionas their social formsprovideareas of mutualadvantageand elim-inate acts and goals that are at the expenseof others in the group. Sociologically[societies]must do this differentlyaccordingto their groundplan,but the ultimate condi-tion is the same for all of them. From allcomparative material the conclusion thatemerges is that societies where nonaggres-sion is conspicuous have social orders inwhich the individualby the same act and atthe same time serves his own advantageandthat of the group.The problemis one of so-cial engineering and depends upon howlarge the areas of mutual advantageare inany society. Nonaggressionoccurs not be-cause people are unselfishand put social ob-ligations above personaldesires but becausesocial arrangementsmake these two identi-cal. Consideredjust logically, production-whetherraisingyams or catchingfish-is ageneralbenefit,and if no man-made nstitu-tion distorts the fact that every harvest,every catch, addsto the village food supply,a man can be a good gardenerand be also asocial benefactor.He is advantaged,and hisfellows areadvantaged.Let me give a simple example from therelationsbetween a chief and his band.Theymay be set up for mutual advantage-thechief needs adherents to have chieftainshipat all, the adherents want to belong to anoutstandingband. Even if the chief must beexaggeratedlygenerous o be a "good"chief,it advantageshim and his adherents,both inthe same act. On the otherhand, in anotherpart of the world, a chief may hold hisgroup by a rod of iron and exploit them forhis privateadvantage.I shall need a term for this gamut, agamut that runs from one pole, where anyact or skill that advantages he individualatthe same time advantagesthe group, to the

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[72, 1970326 American Anthropologistother pole, where every act that advantagesthe individualis at the expense of others. Ishall call this gamut synergy, the old termused in medicine and theology to meancombined action. In medicine it meant thecombined action of nerve centers, muscles,mental activities, remedies, which by com-bining produced a result greater than therunof theirseparateactions.I shall speak of cutures with low syn-ergy, where the social structure providesfor acts that are mutually opposed andcounteractive,and of cultureswith highsyn-ergy, where it provides for acts that aremutuallyreinforcing.

There is no problem about which weneed more enlightenmentthan about con-crete ways in which synergyis set up in so-cieties; and the way in which synergy isachieved differs according to the variousgroundplans we have described.Anthropologists have not found anyatomisticsociety with high synergy;coursesof action in mutualoppositionto each otherare the orderof the day, and the possibilityof people joining together for common ac-tion is minimal. Nevertheless,areas of mu-tual benefit are set up in some degree insome atomistic societies.Among the CentralEskimo there are two major areas wherepeople share a mutual advantage: one infood supplyand one in removingconditionsthat preventsuccessfulfishing.When a sealis broughtto the village, all those who areliving there at the time sharein the distribu-tion. The seal hunter has demonstratedhisown powers-which they value most highlyas achievement-and at the same time allthe villagers are fed. The other occasion onwhichthey work togetherfor mutualbenefitis more backhanded;t is when they confesstheir sins. Their belief is that every brokentabu causes a veil of murky fog to settlearound Sedna, the goddess of the sea and"owner"of all deep-seaanimals, and whenthis murkbanksup aroundher, the sea ani-mals are hiddenfrom the fisherman.There-fore the bankof fog causedby brokentabusmust be annually removed. To do this ev-eryonemust gatherand go througha check

list of tabus confessingthem all. The otherschant: "It is a little thing.Let it not be heldagainstus," and when all have unburdenedthemselves,the shamangoes to Sedna at thebottom of the sea and clears the atmo-sphere.It is a typical common enterpriseofan atomistic society; they support one an-other in the proceeding,but they have notharnessedsomethingthe individual s proudof doingto something he groupwants done.The individualis not proud of his brokentabus;neverthelessthe group supportshimin this nonpridefulactivity in behalf of thecommongood.Extremely low synergy in atomistic so-cieties is the commoner rule. The man whocan, takes what he can get; he seeks super-naturalpower to get his own way at the ex-pense of others; he defeats others and hu-miliates them. He is his own court of lastappeal. He is aggressive,acquisitive, tyran-nous,vengeful,andinsecure.In all corporatesocieties the social ordermakes certain provisions for synergy. Allhomologous, segmented societies dependupon and build up in their membersan ex-perienceof social solidaritywithin each sep-aratesegmentof the society,howeversmall.A man's own kin-group,his class, his vil-lage, his horde-whatever it is-supporthim in his undertakingsunless he defaults.The group may be so tiny and so at oddswith other like segmentsof the society thatit is in endless conflict with others. Butsomewherethere is a groupto which one isunited. If other factors in the social ordermake synergy low, the own group also isless dependable;but it is still there. Thisgroundplan does not exist in primitivesoci-ety without this primaryprovisionfor iden-tification.And this identifications in termsof positive ends to be achieved-sharing offood, joining togetherin the hunt, worshipof the totem ancestor, support of one'sbrothers n gettinga wife or financingmar-riage.Thoughthere are also sometimesneg-ativeends that arepeculiarto this faction ofthe tribe-ends like defendingitself againstother clans in war or in a blood feud-theyare not, except in almost suicidaltribes,the

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Synergy: Ruth BenedictASLOW & HONIGMANN] 327primarybasis of solidarityas they often arebetween two tribes that have no dependenceof any sort on one another.[Suchgroup synergyis shown in a varietyof social arrangements:iving together,tak-ing meals, tasks in common, calling men ofthe same generationbrothers,women sisters,and older men fathers;the chief's position,if thereis one, is one of responsibility atherthancommand;marriage s a collective ven-ture of one house with another;young menare set up in productionas soon as they areable to work.]... [a society]with this groundplanoften[has] provisions for synergy that extendover all the fractional units that make upthe tribe. They are all ideally homologousand relations among them are not threat-ened by foreignness and difference. Theypool their individualmasksor ceremoniesormedicine bundles in greatoverall tribal cere-moniesfor common tribalblessing,like rainor humanincrease.[Apartfrom pie-slicesthere may be othersociologicalmechanisms or synergyin soci-eties of this type, for example,age-societies,which unite a man with his age matesthroughout he tribe.Thisway the men reaf-firmtribalunity through age-gradeactivitiesfrom birth to death. Another example isdoubledescent:] the stronglocalized groupsmay be made up of descendants throughmales, but cross cuttingthe whole tribemaybe a warmer, more permissive matrilinealline that provides strong ties in groupsout-side one's own gens. One can act thereforeto one's own advantagenot only with onesegmentedgroupbut also with the cross-cut-ting group, and a wider identification--trib-ally wider- is therefore structurally pro-vided for.Whenhomologoussocieties are set up so-ciologically in such ways as these, the ex-perience of the individual is unfamiliar tous. Structurallyhis society is like a joint-stock companysharingthe profitsand pool-ing the risks.Differences in the amounts ofindividualholdings certainly exist within it-that is, there are differences n status, insupernaturalpower, or in wealth-but that

fact still leaves the joint-stockoperations n-tact. No man is singled out among his fel-lows for humiliationbecausehe is individu-ally ruined;he is not individuallyruined.Hemay be disciplined,even expelled from thetribe, for faults, but he is ordinarilygivenmanychances to reform,and people are aptto wait patientlyfor his growthin wisdomand discretion.The whole course of his ex-periencehas inculcated n him a faith in therewardsof acting with his fellows. He seeslife as an area of mutual advantageswhereby joint activityhe attainshis own personaldesires. His thoughts and behavior havebeen shaped and molded by the wholecourse of his life, which has convinced himthat his own goods are the goods of society.His achievementsare the boast of his groupand his group's prestige is his boast. Ourtheories of human nature must be wideenoughto include the kind of behavior thatoccurs in such sociological settings.Will topower over people has not been called intobeing by his experience;fear of desertion,fear of humiliation,are only deterrentstoimproper behavior; and desertion and hu-miliationwill not fall to his lot unlesshe de-faults;he does not live in a threateninguni-verse, and he does not have to snatch andgrabto maintainhimself.This segmentedgroundplan may also beset up so that each separategroupis at oddswith the other. Because the groups are al-ways set up as ideal duplicates, f there areprizes they can all try to appropriatetothemselvesalone,they will fighteven thoughthey are all intermarried nd partsof a sin-gle tribe.In modern civilizationit is our na-tions that are set up on this segmentedgroundplan, each with its own sovereignty,its own dream of a place in the sun, its stakein international trade. Naturally nationsfight. In our internationalrelations betweensovereignnationsthere is anarchy; here areno mechanicsto ensurepeace among them.The mechanisms hatprovidemutualadvan-tage have always,even in the smallesttribe,beenreciprocityandjoint-stockcompanyar-rangements,and these are absent in interna-tional affairs. I believe we are misled by

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328 American Anthropologist [72, 1970merescale and too easily believe thatwe arefaced by a condition civilizations have notmet before. Small scale or large, the funda-mentalcondition of peace is federationformutualadvantage.In the groundplan where interchangeofdifferent ervicesis basic, thereare againso-cietiesthat foster aggressionand those thatdo not. Again it is a question of whethertheycontribute heirservicesto theirmutualadvantage.But, in contrast to homologoussocieties,difference s socially basic.It is so-ciologicallya problem of making the sep-arateservices compatiblewith self-interest.Theinterestsare almost inevitablydifferent;theherder's nterestis pasture,the farmer'sa fenced field, the ironworker'shis techno-logicalefficiency.And theirrewardsmay bedifferent. Conflict of class against classcomeswhen the servicesof some groupfindno takers, and so far as we know fromprimitive orporatesocieties that have beenstudied, his dilemma was left for civilizedsocieties to invent. The class war is notfound n primitivesocieties ....The hierarchal ground plan, again, hastribesof high and low synergy. Here thecrucialpoint is the relationto the state.Thestatemay seek its own exclusive advantageat he expense of its citizens, and in primi-tivesocieties as in civilized groupsthis ad-vantage as always been power-to have itswillby naked power at the expense of thegoverned.We are wrong to think dictatorsarea new invention. Some African stateshavedictators who could give pointers toHitler;ach individualis reckonedas man-powerof the king's,ndif he breaksa leg heispenalizedbecausehe has decreased he ef-ficacyf that manpower;abortion s a crimebecause t lessens his manpower ....Aggressions of course rampant. On thecontrary,he Bathonga . . . are also hierar-chaland conflicts are minimal because theking'sdvantage s the advantageof his sub-jects, nd his subjects'advantagethe king'sadvantage.e has responsible,not irrespon-sible,tatus;his family goods are the tribalgoods,ndhis courtsarenot venial.Whateverhe special type of groundplan,

therefore,synergyis set up sociologicallybya social order that providesmutual advan-tage and eliminatesactivitiesat the expenseof other groups involved. When synergy ishigh,psychologicalbehaviorresponds;whenit is low, it responds .... To understandaggressivenessor nonaggressiveness,perse-cutionor mutualhelpfulness, n any humansocial group, one must check the socialorderand its man-made nstitutions or theirprovisions or social synergy.[lVmThere is nothing we feel so personalaboutas we do about our likes and dislikes,ourwillingnessand unwillingness,our confi-denceand our lack of confidence.It is bythese hingsthatwe recognize ourselves,andwhenwe explain them we fall back on inci-dents of our personal lives: the accidentwhenwe were five,a harsh,unsympatheticparent; bad breakn the officeor the fac-tory. And these are important. Individualdifferencesn experiences,individualdiffer-encesn temperament,areneverabsentevenin the most regimented primitive culture,and he interplaybetweendifferent ndivid-uals s somethingthat canbe studiedin anyculture. Italways has social consequencesandt is always mportant.Butour personalfeeling about ourselvesandour behavior needs much correction,andt will not serve, as it stands,as a basisfor a science of behavior. Not just thechancehappenings of individual life, butalsogross cultural facts have entered intoone's xperience.Last week I spoke of oneof hese great culturalcontrasts.I spoke ofsocietieswith high social synergy, wheretheir nstitutions ensure mutual advantagefromtheir undertakings,and of societieswithow social synergy, where the advan-tageof one individual becomes a victoryover notherand the majoritywho are notvictoriousmust shift as they can. I spoketoo f the differences he structureof societymakes.One's family life has been one kindof hing if one was brought up in a tinyhouseholdf father and mother and ownsiblings,nd divorce or death of one's par-

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MASLOW & HONIGMANN] Synergy: Ruth Benedict 329ent could make a difference n whether one erythingand channels it toward the richesthad food or education. It has been a differ- persons.The collective wealth has only oneent kind of thing if instead,in anothercul- prime destination,the person who alreadyture, one was brought up in a clan house has valuable possessions. This system de-where a dozen or more mothers and fathers pendsupon certain men's claims to the laborwere practically indistinguishableand one's of others, or upon ownershipand the rightplace could never be threatenedby the di- of favoredpersonsto corner certain articlesvorce or death of one's parentsbecause the of wealth. It reaches its highestdevelopmentunit of society was not an unstableconjugal wherethereis interest and where wealth canpair but instead an extended family line of be used to obtain forced labor. [The systembrothers and cousins and their children,all has no relation to any particularstate ofof whom would teach the child and give it economic development.] Among agricul-adult implementsto work with just as soon tural tribes of this type there must be own-as the time had come for it to be interested ershipof land, althoughit need not be indi-in such things. One's experienceis different vidualownership.A family may own land inif one's culture makes it a father's boast to common,but a family of many workers cansupport his children in everything even get into its control the bulk of availablewhen they are married and themselvesfa- land, and the "have nots" can grow foodthers, or whetherit is humiliatingto be de- only by rentingthe land. For this they mustpendent on one's father. One's life experi- borrow,and withhighinterestrates the rent-ence is different if economic institutions ers are doomed to increasingindebtedness.make it impossibleto be hungryas long as Whenevera costly funeral or marriagemustanyone in one's world has food at all, or if be celebrated,they go further and furtherthey make it necessarythat, like some Afri- into debt. The rich man gets richer and thecans, you sell yourself or your children as poor man gets poorer, but no man in thedebt-slaves if your individual harvest has funnelingsystem can reach a securityfromfailed. which he cannot be dislodged either byIndividualbehavior,as one can see it in other rich men ganging up on him, or bystudies of differentcultures,is never what it failure of crops, or by death in his family.is as the "result"of any singleselectedphase He is insecure.His only security ies in hav-of traditional ife .... Actually, in order to ing not merely much property but moreunderstand individual behavior in different property hanhis neighbor.societies or epochs, it is necessaryto know He is driven into rivalry with his peersthe interactionof all traditional nstitutions: and he must outdo them, better yet, if hechildrearingand the economic order and can, undo them. He is driven into rivalrythe sexual arrangementsand tabus. It is an not because he is a bad man or because heillusionto seek for a single determinant. is an ungenerousman but impersonallybe-Nevertheless,for purposesof description cause the system works that way. Copyingsuch categoriesas economiclife and religion the rich man, the poor man competes tooare n.cessary and helpful.And of course I and triesto outdo otherpoor men. In primi-mustspeakof economicarrangements. n so tive tribes this rivalry over and over againdoing I am segregatingone aspect of social takes the form of heaping up goods insynergy,and I am discussingeconomics spe- competition with one's rivals and lettingcifically as it patterns aggression or non- them rot....aggression n individualbehavior... Nevertheless,even in tribes with a funnel. . . Primitive economic orders fall into systemof economics all men have some ac-two main types.The firstof theseI shall call cess to means of production. If they arethe funnel system. All that the community agriculturalists,here is land for sweet po-producesyou are to imagine going into the tatoes that they have a right to cultivatelarge end of the funnel, which collects ev- though the rice fields are beyond their

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330 American Anthropologist [72, 1970means. If they are hunters, there are nogame wardens. Some few tribes have indi-viduals who are adrift and hungry, andsome even sell the poor into slavery whenthey are in debt.But even slavesare fed andhoused. By these provisionsprimitivefunnelsocieties often attain a comparativelyhighsynergy; they provide that essential meansof livelihood shall not be put into the funnelat all, and hence food, clothing,and sheltercannot be diverted from the majorityof thepopulationto the man who is alreadyrich.There is another mechanism found wherethe funnel system depends on exploitedlabor, and it is a mechanismwith which weare all familiar becauseit was characteristicof feudalism .... The feudal lord benefitedby his serfs' labor, but he was responsiblefor them too; he could not dischargethem,for they belongedto the land. His responsi-bility included, too, protectionagainst ene-mies. We areshocked at the low standardofliving among feudal serfs in Europe in theMiddle Ages, but there was nevertheless ncertain centuries real exchange of servicesand responsibilityon both sides. Primitivesocieties have sometimesused this pattern nfeudal setups and built upon it stable andzestful societies, but such societies have en-sured the mutual responsibilityof lord andunderling.The second great patternof economic or-ders is one I shall call the syphon system.This is the economy where wealth is con-stantly channeled away from the point ofgreatest concentration-from any point ofconcentration-and spread throughout thecommunity. Thus, if one has fields, one'sneighborsgatherat work bees and one feedsand entertains hem at planting,hoeing, andreapingseasons .... The syphonsystemen-sures great fluidity of wealth; if a man hasmeat or garden produceor horses or cattle,these give him no standing except as theypass throughhis handsto the tribe at large.Tribes often stage huge giveaways, whichbringhonor-and poverty-to the erstwhileowner .... Constantfluidityof goods is en-sured also in many culturesbetween inter-

marrying families. All the extended kingroupunitein gift-givingnot only at betroth-al and marriagebut also at birth of chil-dren and at death and even at the subse-quent marriageof the children.Goods passfrom handto handendlessly.The syphonsystemsoften begin theirop-eration even beforeaccumulation an occur.In such societiesproduceis actually pooledwhether or not it is stored in privatestore-houses. It is on call for publicpurposes ikeintervillageentertainments hat are there theprime way in whichprestige-group prestige-is achieved....? . . Since everyone is providedfor . . .povertyis not a word to fear, and anxiety,whichdevelopsso luxuriantly n funnel soci-eties, is absent to a degreethat seems to usincredible. These are preeminentlythe so-cieties of good will, where murderand sui-cide are rare or actuallyunknown.If suchsocieties have periods of great scarcity,allmembersof the communitycooperateto getthrough heseperiodsas besttheycan....When one is studying aggressionin dif-ferent cultures, therefore,one of the thingsone looks for is the degree to which eco-nomic distributions set up accordingto thesyphonmethod or the funnel method.Thesetwo methodsdo not correlatewith stages inhumanprogress,but they are relevantto thekind of individualbehaviorthatoccurs. [Weneed not have selected economic order;wemight have selected law and the state, struc-ture and obligations of the kin group, sexand maritalarrangements.][V]

Because the patterningof religionhas inone sense a differentsignificancefrom thatof economics or the law or the state or thefamily, I have chosen religion as the otherinstitutionI shall speakof in relationto psy-chological behavior. For in their religion,societies have transcribedand apotheosizedthe cooperativenessor the aggressions heircultural life arouses. It is not true that thecommon element in all religions has beenworship of a power that makes for righ-

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MASLOW & HONIGMANN] Synergy: Ruth Benedict 331teousness; he will to righteousnesshas to beinculcated in the daily round of life or itwill not find expressionin religion. In theirreligions people have cast on a screen theirhates and maliciousnesses f that was whattheirsociety inculcated,or warmth andrigh-teousness if that was what was possible intheir daily lives. You must rememberthatprimitive people have no bibles . . . every-thing in primitivecultureis preserved n theminds and bodies of livingtransmitters,whonot only change the functions of religionwith changing conditions as they arechangedin our culturebut also are then un-able to check those changes againstthe gos-pel of an antiquemanuscript.... In any in-tegratedprimitivesociety, religionis a workof the imagination in which people havestatedtheirthoughtsandemotions,whateverthey are, that their life in society has al-lowed them to have.Societieswith high synergyconstructreli-gions in which they prayand danceand singfor benefitsthat are benefitsto all the tribe.Thesemay be rain or good cropsor a runofsalmon or many children or general healthor ensuringthe success of the seasons.Theirceremonies may remove all evil influences,leaving right of way to all good things, orthey may be worship or propitiation oftribalancestorgods. In the elaborateservic-ing of these ceremonies many individualshave prideful roles, and often every persontakes activepart in the singingand dancing;even when some participateonly as audi-ence, they are includedin the performancein a way not allowed to audiences in ourculture. In such ceremonies there need beno conflict between the pleasureswe associ-ate with a social dance or a general goodtime and those we associatewith a cathedralMass; social pleasures and worship minglewithno sense of incongruity.In addition to the general tribal ceremo-nies, individualsupernaturalpowers are al-ways present. These may be amulets orcharms,or they may be guardianspirits ....In tribes of high synergy, amulets are usednot to harm anotherbut to strengthenone-

self, and guardianspiritsgive power to winagainsttribalenemies, to cure the sick, andto name children-all of which are generalbenefits.Tribes with low synergy, however, withlittle experience in their daily lives of anybenefits not gainedat the expenseof others,typicallybuild their religious practices uponthese privately owned supernaturalpowersand use them according to the habits ofaggressionset up in their daily lives. Theyuse them, if they are amulets,to buryin an-other'sfield and ruin the crops; if they arecharms or spells, to bring starvation orsmallpoxor elephantiasisor madnessupon afellow tribesman; f they are guardianspir-its, to go at their command to kill a rival incombat. Almost always these powers areboughteitherby paymentof goods or of ar-duous service or they are inheritedas pri-vate property.The extreme developmentofthis sort of religion is the full practice ofsorcery.Primitivepeople seldom make ourdistinctions between one kind of power, ofGod, and another,of the devil, but sorcerytribesfrequentlydivide ambivalent upernat-uralpowerinto low (which is for good) andhigh (which is for evil). In this way theycan account for the fact that people withhardly any powermay dallywithcuring,butpeople with real power will be occupiedwith working harm. Some tribes even be-lieve that power for good does not reallyexist; the only way you can be cured of anillness is to prevail upon the personwho hasworked the sorceryto remove it. Any goodthat is worked by supernaturalpower isthereforeonly renouncing he evil sorcery.In sorcerytribes the shadow of fear liesheavy over the society. In many such tribesa man who believes he has been cursedtakes to his bed, refusesall care, anddies intwo or three days with no diagnosableail-ment ....Sorceryflourishes n societies of low syn-ergy where people have good reasons toknow that the universethey live in is hostile.They have no reason to expect good willfrom others,and they do not expectit either

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332 American Anthropologist [72, 1970from their gods. The gods in such societiesmay be cannibalisticdemons who lie in waitfor men. They may be spirits busy abouttheir own affairs who, when they concernthemselves with men at all, enjoy playingtricks upon them. They may be powerfulgods who have to be overcome and leftprostratebefore they will accede anything.For all people have made gods in their ownimage, and the ways in whichthey deal withthem are ways they know are effective indealingwith humanbeingsin their own cul-ture. When they know they can get whatthey want in daily life by hurling nsults at arival, they may trust insult in getting theirway from the gods; they may shout whenthey want rain: "You great beggars,give usrain "Or they may threatenthat they willend their ceremony by stagingan incestuousrite so that the gods will come across. Ifthey trust punishment in their daily life,they may threaten their idols or theirsacredflutes that they will let them down into theriverwiththe crocodiles.Theydo it, too....To the comparativestudenttherefore,re-ligion is not an institution whose commoncharacteristics a strivingfor ethical values.Rather, it is a sensitive plate upon whichpeoples have inscribed their emotions and,in so doing,whether these are warm and af-filiative feelings or whether they are hostileand malevolent ones, have given them aforce of their own that heightens and car-ries further the love or the hostility withwhich their social orderis charged.

The student of psychological behavior indifferent cultures will always check, there-fore, the sorceryin any tribe,and when it isvirulent, he knows he has before him themakingsof greataggressionand greatabase-ment. Even when its worst effects are con-trolledby the state's making every sorcerera malefactor,one does not find the friendli-ness and the psychic ease of behavior onefinds in a tribe with a religionof high syn-ergy.[V'/

. . . The social arrangementsare neverjust something outside the individual. The

possibilitiesor impossibilities hey createbe-come his possibilities and impossibilities;they are internalized in men and women.The individualwill have a type of function-ing differentfrom that of an individualinanother culture and this functioning be-comes steadilymoreirreversible.As a resultof his immersion in one particularculturehe will have a particularcharacterstruc-ture ....[Vll]

Societies with good morale fall into twoclasses in relation to humiliating institu-tions: on the one hand,they may not inventthem at all, and on the other handthey mayprovide the individual with [readily]avail-abletechniques or wipingout the mortifica-tion, ways that will lead to higher prestige.Both methods are possible, and both givedemocraticsocieties that do not succumb totyranny and sorcery. But the two methodsare differentand depend on fostering verydifferent character structures n their mem-bers.NOTE

'For twenty-eight years we have held thesenotes of Ruth Benedict's Bryn Mawr lecturesas we awaitedpublicationof the complete seriesof lectures from which theywere excerpted.RuthBenedict's literary executrix, Margaret Mead,reportsthat unfortunately he originaltypescriptof the lectures has disappeared;perhaps RuthBenedicteven destroyedit. Hence we may neversee the lectures in their entirety.We believe thatthe following excerpts, incomplete though theymay be, contain not only the gist of the seriesbut her original words taken from the manu-script she prepared. All bracketed material inthe following notes has been inserted by theeditors, usually in order to supply context thatmissing passages would have provided. A veryfew grammatical changes have also been sup-plied by the editors.

REFERENCES CITEDBATESON,GREGORY1934 The segmentation of society. (Sum-

mary.) In The first international congressof anthropological and ethnological science,London: Compte rendu. p. 187.1936 Naven. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press. [2nd ed. 1958; Stanford: Stan-

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MASLOW & HONIGMANN] Synergy: Ruth Benedict 333ford University Press. Reprinted 1966,paperback SP21, Stanford: Stanford Uni-versity Press.]1949 Bali: the value systemof a steadystate.In Social structure, studies presented toA. R. Radcliffe-Brown.Meyer Fortes, ed.,Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 35-53.BENEDICT,RUTH1946 The chrysanthemum and the sword.Boston: HoughtonMifflin.[Reprinted1967,Meridian M 242, Cleveland & New York;World Publishing Company.]BUNZEL,RUrH1938 The economic organization of primi-tive peoples. In General anthropology.Franz Boas, ed. Boston: Heath. pp. 327-408.

LINTON, ALPH1940 Acculturation in seven American In-diantribes.New York &London: Appleton-Century.MEAD,MARGARET1937 (ed.) Cooperation and competitionamong primitive peoples. New York: Mc-Graw-Hill. [Reprinted enlarged edition1961, paperback BP123, Boston: BeaconPress.]1959 An anthropologistat work: writingsofRuth Benedict. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.[Reprinted1966, Atheling paperback,NewYork: Atherton Press.]MEAD,MARGARET,nd RHODA ETRAUX,ds.1953 The study of culture at a distance.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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