Return from the Natives: How Margaret Mead Fought the Second World War and the Cold War

通常我们认为人类学是对“原始”文化的研究，但即使是一个世纪前在“原始”文化中进行田野调查的第一批人类学家，也已经一直在思考他们自己和他们自己的文化。本研究着眼于玛格丽特·米德的事业——在她的峰值在二战后世界上最著名的公共知识分子之一,特别是在她返回从当地人的1930年代末和1950年代初当她故意着手试图应用知识的“文化”在萨摩亚和新几内亚大国解决的问题在第二次世界大战和冷战早期。米德认为，在复杂的现代世界中，只有各国学会将彼此视为不同的文化，以各自值得尊重和承认的方式对待自己和他人的行为和交谈方式，国际关系才能安全愉快地进行，但这需要对民间习俗、心理和语言有更深入的了解，而不是传统外交所需要的。她已经在考虑如何利用这一见解来化解20世纪30年代末火药桶气氛中的国际危机。在第二次世界大战期间，她和她的同事们突然有了几十个应用这种方法的实际机会——“白人宣传”（用于巩固盟友之间的联系，例如向英国人解释美国人，反之亦然），“黑人宣传”（用于破坏敌人的士气，如德国和日本），通过在美国境内建立爱国主义和民族团结来直接促进战争努力，并规划一个由“多种文化”组成的“一个世界”的未来，这可能会防止第三次世界大战。实际上，美国和英国的每个政府和军事机构都利用米德的团队和她的方法来达到这些目的——从在缅甸海滩为日本军队设置“心理炸弹”的地方，到在欧洲中心地带投下数百万张宣传传单的地方，到美国政府的最内部圈子，在那里流传着对盟友和敌人的“国民性”研究，以教育那些以前对更广阔的世界几乎没有经验的美国行政人员。米德本人成为美国对英国的主要文化大使之一，1943年，在诺曼底登陆之前，她在英国呆了六个月，通过旨在向英国人介绍美国人的表面特征和内在心理的宣传，软化了英国人。最臭名昭著的是，她试图通过将美国大兵与女儿的“约会”描述为调情而不是诱惑，来缓解英国父母潜在的焦虑。这种方法在战争期间的成功，鼓励了美国政府在冷战期间尝试使用它，以了解苏联、东欧和中国的共产主义敌人的思想和策略。然而，这一努力因两个原因而失败。首先，它把米德拉进了她个人一直试图避免的“黑人宣传”舞台，这与她对多元民族文化和平共处的世界的看法相冲突。其次，它与美国公众（以及许多美国政治家）对共产主义的看法相冲突，他们认为共产主义不是一种另类文化，而是一种狭隘的暴政。大多数美国人似乎不愿意把俄国人或中国人看作与他们不同的人，而愿意把他们看作和美国人很像的人，只不过是被奴役了而已。因此，米德的计划在冷战中的失败给我们上了严峻的一课，告诉我们美国人在冷战期间及其之后的文化宽容是有限度的。随着美国人在伊拉克和阿富汗与陌生的文化作斗争，米德在20世纪40年代面临的许多问题和伦理挑战重新浮出水面。

Normally we think of anthropology as a study of 'primitive' cultures, but even the first anthropologists undertaking fieldwork amongst 'primitive' cultures a century ago were already always thinking about themselves and their own cultures. This research looks at the career of Margaret Mead - at her peak after the Second World War one of the best-known public intellectuals in the world - and in particular at her 'return from the natives' between the late 1930s and the early 1950s when she deliberately set about trying to apply her knowledge of how 'culture' worked in places like Samoa and New Guinea to address the problems of the Great Powers in the Second World War and the early Cold War. Mead argued that international relations could only be safely and happily carried on in the complex modern world if nations learned to relate to each other as distinct cultures, with ways of behaving and talking to themselves and to others as if each were deserving of respect and acknowledgement - but that that required a much deeper insight into folkways, psychology and language than traditional diplomacy entailed. She was already considering ways in which this insight could be used to defuse international crises in the powderkeg atmosphere of the late 1930s. During the Second World War she and her co-workers were suddenly presented with dozens of practical opportunities to apply this approach - to 'white propaganda' (used to cement the bonds between allies, for example to explain the Americans to the English and vice-versa), to 'black propaganda' (used to undermine the morale of enemies such as Germany and Japan), to the direct promotion of the war effort by building patriotism and national solidarity within the United States, and to planning for a future of 'one world' comprising 'many cultures' that might prevent a Third World War. Practically every government and military agency in America and Britain made use of Mead's team and her approaches to these ends - from the beaches of Burma where 'psychological bombs' were set for Japanese troops, to the heartlands of Europe where propaganda leaflets were dropped in their millions, to the innermost circles of the U.S. government where 'national character' studies of allies and enemies circulated to educate American administrators with little previous experience of the wider world. Mead herself became one of the principal cultural ambassadors from America to Britain, spending six months in Britain in 1943 in advance of the D-Day preparations, softening up the British with propaganda designed to introduce them not just to the superficial traits but to the inner psyches of Americans. Most notoriously she tried to allay the potential anxieties of British parents by portraying the American GI's idea of a 'date' with their daughters as a flirtation rather than a seduction. The success of this approach during the war then encouraged the American government to try to employ it in the Cold War to fathom the minds and maneuvers of Communist enemies in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. This effort, however, foundered on two grounds. First, it drew Mead into the 'black propaganda' arena which she had personally always tried to avoid, conflicting with her vision of a world of multiple peacefully co-existing national cultures. But second, it conflicted with the American public's (and many American politicians') view of Communism not as an alternative culture but as a narrowly-based tyranny. Most Americans, it seemed, didn't want to think of the Russians or the Chinese as different from them, but rather as people much like Americans who had simply been enslaved. The failure of Mead's project in the Cold War thus teaches us stark lessons about the limits to Americans' cultural tolerance in the Cold War - and afterwards. Many of the issues and ethical challenges that Mead faced in the 1940s have resurfaced as Americans have grappled with unfamiliar cultures in Iraq and Afghanistan.