Patterns of Culture

Benedict begins Chapter 2 with a narrative of a Native American chief named Ramon. He describes aspects of his culture, such as their domestic rituals. He explains that in the past, every person was given a life-sustaining cup to use for water and acorn soup, but now their “cup is broken” (22). Benedict interprets Ramon’s statement as an example of cultural loss due to the forces of Western civilization and domination: “He had in mind the loss of something that had value equal to that of life itself, the whole fabric of his people’s standards and beliefs” (22).

The story of the cup leads Benedict to consider how cultural traits are selected and modified or, in Ramon’s case, suppressed and rejected. Her interest in linguistics facilitates comparisons between culture and language. Benedict explains that the number of sounds a person can make is unlimited; however, phonetic systems are shaped by culturally determined understandings of what constitutes sound. Within any given society, certain sounds are selected that are deemed “intelligible,” while others are rejected. Cultural traits are like the units of language—some are deemed logical and acceptable, while others are not.

From here, Benedict speaks of “the great arc” of human potential. Societies select cultural traits from this arc and elaborate on them, creating distinct institutions like kinship, marriage, and religion. Because the potential of human invention and selection of traits is limitless, “the possible combinations of culture” are, according to Benedict, “endless” (44), thus accounting for the immense diversity of cultures around the world.

Benedict reiterating that cultures are highly diverse. She then adds that cultures are integrated: “A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action” (46). It therefore is necessary to study cultures as a whole and “not merely the sum of all its parts” (47). Benedict uses the example of “styles in art” to explain that as cultural traits are selected, they gain a certain clarity or kind of “style” that later is recognized as a type of cultural form, such as Gothic art (47). The integration of cultural traits creates a consistent pattern from which multiple configurations of culture are possible. Thus, while it is important to study cultural traits, these traits must be situated within the “articulated whole” or within a wider context of “motives and emotions and values that are institutionalized in that culture” (49).

Benedict elaborates on her discussion of the “whole configuration” by referring to the gestalt of cultures, a term she adopts from the field of psychology. In psychological studies of sense-perception, “no analysis of the separate percepts can account for the total experience” (51). As Benedict explains, “It is not enough to divide perceptions up into objective fragments. The subjective framework, the forms provided by past experience, are crucial and cannot be omitted” (51). Taking this idea a step further, Benedict writes, “the whole determines its parts, not only their relation but their very nature” (52). She then applies the concept of gestalt to cultures and refers to “cultural configurations,” or “coherent organizations of behavior” (56), which “pattern existence and condition the thoughts and emotions of the individuals who participate in those cultures” (55). Benedict concludes Chapter 3 by stating that it is instructive to study cultural configurations in “primitive” societies, for they are “less complicated.” She then briefly introduces three case studies that she plans to elaborate on in Chapters 4, 5, and 6.