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研究“原始”文化的，但即使是世纪前第一批在“原始”文化中进行田野调查的人类学家，也一直在思考他们自己和他们自己的文化。这项研究着眼于玛格丽特·米德的职业生涯--她在二战后的巅峰时期是世界上最著名的公共知识分子之一--特别是在20世纪30年代末和50年代初，她“从土著人那里回来”，当时她故意着手试图运用她对萨摩亚和新几内亚等地“文化”如何运作的知识来解决大不列颠的问题。第二次世界大战和冷战初期的大国。米德认为，国际关系只有在复杂的现代世界中才能安全而愉快地进行，如果各国学会以不同的文化相互联系，用行为方式和与自己和他人交谈的方式，好像每个人都值得尊重和承认-但这需要比传统外交更深入地了解民俗，心理和语言。在20世纪30年代末火药桶般的气氛中，她已经在考虑如何利用这种洞察力来化解国际危机。在第二次世界大战期间，她和她的同事们突然有了几十个实际的机会来应用这种方法--“白色宣传”（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），“黑色宣传”（用于打击德国和日本等敌人的士气），到通过在美国内部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，以防止第三次世界大战。事实上，美国和英国的每一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--从缅甸的海滩上为日本军队设置“心理炸弹”，到欧洲的心脏地带，数百万张宣传传单被投下，在美国政府的最核心圈子里，对盟友和敌人的“国民性格”研究流传开来，教育美国的管理者，体验更广阔的世界。米德本人成为美国驻英国的主要文化大使之一。1943年，在诺曼底登陆日准备工作之前，她在英国呆了六个月，通过宣传软化英国人，不仅向他们介绍美国人的表面特征，还介绍他们的内心世界。最臭名昭著的是，她试图减轻英国父母潜在的焦虑，把美国大兵与女儿的“约会”描绘成一种调情，而不是诱惑。这种方法在战争期间的成功鼓励美国政府试图在冷战中使用它来了解苏联，东欧和中国的共产主义敌人的思想和策略。然而，这一努力在两个方面失败了。首先，它把米德拉进了她个人一直试图避免的“黑色宣传”竞技场，这与她对多民族文化和平共处的世界的看法相冲突。但第二，它与美国公众（以及许多美国政治家）的观点相冲突，即共产主义不是一种替代文化，而是一种狭隘的暴政。大多数美国人似乎并不想把俄国人或中国人看作与他们不同的人，而是认为他们和美国人很像，只是被奴役了。因此，米德项目在冷战中的失败给我们上了一堂关于美国人在冷战中--以及之后--文化宽容的局限性的深刻教训。米德在20世纪40年代面临的许多问题和道德挑战，随着美国人在伊拉克和阿富汗与陌生文化的斗争而重新浮出水面。

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.