Anthropology 404: The Self in Culture
Lecture 3: U.S. Culture: Its Historical Origins
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]
Slide # 1
ANTH 404 The Self in Culture
 U.S. Culture: Its Historical Origins
 Lecture 3
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “Today we’re going to develop some basic perspectives on
U.S. culture and its historical origins that will help you understand your readings in lesson
three.”
Slide # 2
Objectives
 1. To help you understand the readings in Lesson #3
 2. To enable you later in the course to gain a comparative view of being a person in your
own culture and in other cultures and to learn about alternative styles of selfhood in other
cultures
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “Understanding the historical origins of the self in U.S. culture
will also help you develop a comparative view of the person, of being a person, across cultures.”
Slide # 3
Journey across Many Cultures
 It’s hard for us to be aware of our own culture; we tend to mistake it for nature or “just
the way things are.”
 Acquiring a perspective on your own culture is the first step to combining critical and
creative thinking abilities to think about the self across different cultures.
 [Image of a suitcase]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “Indeed, we are packing our bags for a trip across many
cultures. But to do so we must learn about our own culture because just as the proverbial fish
that doesn’t see the water, it’s hard for us to be aware of our own culture. We tend to mistake it
for nature, for just the way things are. Acquiring a perspective on your own culture is the first
step to combining critical and creative thinking abilities, to think about the self across cultures.”
Slide # 4
Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe and U.S.
 Migration from farming villages to cities
 Loss of community/values
 [Painting of farm]
 [Painting of old city building]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “The history of the self in the U.S. begins with the Industrial
Revolution in 18th and 19th century Europe and the U.S. Before this time people lived mainly in
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face to face village cultures and their values resided in these many generational face to face
relations. You know what a small town is like; everybody talks about everybody else and
everybody knows everyone else’s business. The private sphere is much smaller than it is in an
urban environment in which you may never meet your neighbor.
In the Industrial Revolution many people began to move from rural villages to cities in order to
find new opportunities. Industries were opening; there were jobs to be had. And many people
who had lived in a village on a farm wanted these opportunities. The problem was that their
values had been invested in those communities and in those face to face relations. This migration
to the cities, therefore, precipitated a loss of values that one can sometimes see in contemporary
movies like The God Father. In The God Father the family comes from Sicily, a farming culture
where everyone knew everyone else. It was a family culture; that’s why the mob is called the
family. But when they move to the city in America they are outside of these old face to face
relations and anything goes.”
Slide # 5
Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe and U.S.
 Rise of evangelical religion
o John Wesley (England, 1703-1791) popularizes monastic practices to increase
inner awareness: confession, sexual abstinence, damnation
 [Image of John Wesley]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “At the same time as this migration to the cities was
happening, a remedy to this loss of values was also beginning to develop, evangelical religion.
Evangelical religion in England began with John Wesley who lived between 1703 and 1791.
Evangelical religion involved a lot of preaching about hell fires; but actually popularized
monastic practices to increase inner awareness that had developed in Catholic monasteries during
the middle ages. Central to these monastic practices were confession, sexual abstinence, and the
idea of eternal damnation. This combination turned out to be very good for developing an inner
awareness of self. The idea is that if you are young and healthy and think you are going to be
damned if you think about sex, this is likely to increase watching your own thoughts so as to
avoid being damned. As Social Theorist called Foucault calls this a technology of self. And an
Anthropologist named Robert Levy, who you learned about last week, thought this technology
was very good for creating a space within the self to hold ones moral values.”
Slide # 6
Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe and U.S.
 The “Suitcase Self”
 [Image of human body with suitcase inside]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “Evangelical practices created what I call, the “Suitcase Self.”
People had to move from place to place in search of work; but they could port their values,
which before had before resided in their communities, around inside them. This socioeconomic
change and the correlative change in the self-had many important implications for society. And
was paralleled by changes in thought about the nature of society that today we call the
enlightenment.”
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Slide # 7
Enlightenment in 18th century Europe and U.S.
 Before:
o The Divine Right of Kings
o St. Augustine’s Great Chain of Being
 [Image of the “Ladder of intellect”]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “Before this time people had believed in the divine right of
kings. The Catholic, St. Augustine, had written that creation was organized in a Great Chain of
Being. With everyone’s place being assigned by God. Kings ruled by divine right; and everyone
was supposed to accept their place.”
Slide # 8
Enlightenment in 18th century Europe and U.S.
 After:
o Society as social contract between individuals (not ordained by God) conducted
on the basis of reason
o Sir John Locke (1632-1704)
 [Image of Sir John Locke]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “Enlightenment thinkers came to redefine society as a social
contract between individuals, not ordained by God, but based on people’s ability to reason
which, of course, is one thing that goes on within the self. Without society, the enlightenment
thinker Thomas Hobbs believed life was nasty, brutish, and short.”
Slide # 9
Enlightenment’s Social Contract Theory and Its Implications
 Undermines social hierarchies
o Kings dethroned
o U.S. revolution (1775-83)
o French revolution (1789-99)
o Napoleon (1769-1821), as emperor (1804-15) spreads concept through Europe
 Individual has no fixed place in society
o Social status depends on merit
o A person can rise from bottom to top (theoretically)
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “Enlightenment thinking helped to undermine existing social
hierarchies, and really represented the beginning of our move to democracy. Kings were rejected
and even dethroned. It all began in a sense with the U.S. revolution in the late 18th century.
Next was the French revolution, which Napoleon spread all over Europe. The idea was that
individuals had no fixed place in society. One’s place depended on merit and so a person could
in theory rise from the bottom to the top.”
Slide # 10
America: Child of the European Enlightenment
 Leaders of American Revolution and the authors of the American Constitution as popular
and famous in Europe as in America.
o Ben Franklin
o Thomas Jefferson
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 [Image of Ben Franklin]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “America is really a child of enlightenment thinking; but more
than that, our country was really an enlightenment social experiment. The leaders of the
American Revolution and the authors of the Constitution were also often considered leading
figures in the enlightenment, and were as popular and famous in Europe as in America. Ben
Franklin, for example, lived for long periods in London and Paris; he was the toast of the town,
and a true eccentric. For example, he was said to walk about naked in his own apartments. Did
you know he invented bifocals? He also invented the lightening rod; which proved to him and
others that lightening was a natural phenomenon, not a punishment sent by God, as it had been
previously thought. Thomas Jefferson, too, often spent time in Paris; and was an important
figure in the enlightenment. Most other enlightenment philosophers were only thinking these
new thoughts; Franklin and Jefferson were putting them to the test.”
Slide # 11
America: Enlightenment Manifestos
 Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)
 Constitution (1787)
 Bill of Rights
 [Image of quote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…that all men are created
equal…”]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “The Declaration of Independence and also our Constitution
are really enlightenment manifestos: “We hold these truths to be self-evident… That all men are
created equal…” This was a revolutionary new enlightenment idea. The Bill of Rights made
enlightenment ideas the fundamental principles of our society.”
Slide # 12
America: Enlightenment Social Ideas
 Rights of individual over rights of group
 Protestantism: “by their work you shall know them.”
o Success: proof of virtue
o Money: proof of merit
 Puritanism
o The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne)
o Sublimation: work vs. play/desire
 [Image of family in Puritan times]
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “The key here are the rights of the individual over the rights of
the group, before it was the group: your family, your village, your community that was most
important. Enlightenment ideas went hand and glove with Protestantism. Protestants preached,
“By your work you shall know them.” Success, therefore, was proof of virtue; and for
Americans money was proof of merit, as in the phrase, “What are you worth.” In their American
incarnation these ideas also articulated well with Puritanism. Many of you may have read
Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, and know, therefore, what a dangerous subject sex was among
Puritans. The idea was that one was supposed to sublimate play and desire into work.
Sublimation is an important idea that we will learn about later in the course. But for now let’s
just say it means to channel.”
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Slide # 13
America: Enlightenment Social Ideas
 American myth: Poor boy makes good
 Pre-Industrial Revolution: class and status justified by religion
 Industrial Revolution (mid-18th century): liberty, equality, fraternity as ideals
 Post-industrial revolution: inequality persists
o Justified by biology
o Racism/sexism: putative biological differences
 [Painting of Rockefeller during the industrial revolution
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “You can see how these ideas work well with the American
myth, “Poor boy makes good,” which we learned about in the last lesson. And with early
American millionaires starting out as poor, ruthlessly progressing and becoming rich; going from
labor to management and from Main Street to Wall Street. The enlightenment preached liberty,
equality, paternity; but inequality persisted. Before it could be justified by God assigning people
different stations in life, but after the enlightenment this explanation didn’t work. The new
explanation that was enlisted was biology. Some people, namely women and people of color,
were said to be inherently—meaning biologically—less reasonable; therefore, rather than giving
their consent in a fully democratic process they were supposed to be looked after by their more
reasonable betters.”
Slide # 14
Readings:
 Hsu: Chinese anthropologist
 Visited America in 1950’s
 From a more socio-centric society
 Offers his perceptions of 20th century U.S.
 For an outsider’s view of us
Audio:
[Professor Dr. Jeannette Mageo]: “Your next reading will be of a Chinese Anthropologist saying
what he sees in a U.S. culture. I think you’ll find it interesting; although, unfortunately racism
and bigotry are on his list. He was writing in the mid-twentieth century, however, and things, at
least to a degree have changed since then.”
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