Counterpunch February 26, 2013
An Interview With Marshall Sahlins
The Destruction of Conscience in the National Academy of Sciences
by DAVID H. PRICE
Last Friday, esteemed University of Chicago anthropologist Marshall
Sahlins formally resigned from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS),
the United States’ most prestigious scientific society.
Sahlins states that he resigned because of his “objections to the
election of [Napoleon] Chagnon, and to the military research projects of
the Academy.” Sahlins was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in
1991. He issued the below statement explaining his resignation:
“By the evidence of his own writings as well as the testimony of
others, including Amazonian peoples and professional scholars of the
region, Chagnon has done serious harm to the indigenous communities
among whom he did research. At the same time, his “scientific” claims
about human evolution and the genetic selection for male violence–as in
the notorious study he published in 1988 in Science–have proven to be
shallow and baseless, much to the discredit of the anthropological
disciple. At best, his election to the NAS was a large moral and
intellectual blunder on the part of members of the Academy. So much so
that my own participation in the Academy has become an embarrassment.
Nor do I wish to be a party to the aid, comfort, and support the
NAS is giving to social science research on improving the combat
performance of the US military, given the toll that military has taken
on the blood, treasure, and happiness of American people, and the
suffering it has imposed on other peoples in the unnecessary wars of
this century. I believe that the NAS, if it involves itself at all in
related research, should be studying how to promote peace, not how to
make war.”
Napoleon Chagnon rose to fame after his fieldwork among the Yanomami
(also known as Yanomamo) in the rainforests of northeastern South
America’s Orinoco Basin in the 1960s and 70s. He wrote a bestselling
ethnography used in introductory anthropology classes around the world,
describing the Yanomami as “the fierce people” because of the high
levels of intra- and inter-group warfare observed during his fieldwork,
warfare that he would describe as innate and as representing humankind
in some sort of imagined natural state.
Chagnon, is currently basking in the limelight of a national book tour,
pitching a memoir (Nobel Savages) in which he castes the bulk of
American anthropologists as soft-skulled anti-science postmodern cretins
embroiled in a war against science.
The truth is that outside of the distortion field of the New York Times
and a few other media vortexes, there is no “science war” raging in
anthropology. Instead the widespread rejection of Chagnon’s work among
many anthropologists has everything to do with the low quality of his
research. On his blog, Anthropomics, anthropologist Jon Marks recently
described Chagnon as an “incompetent anthropologist,” adding:
“Let me be clear about my use of the word “incompetent”. His
methods for collecting, analyzing and interpreting his data are outside
the range of acceptable anthropological practices. Yes, he saw the
Yanomamo doing nasty things. But when he concluded from his
observations that the Yanomamo are innately and primordially “fierce”
he lost his anthropological credibility, because he had not demonstrated
any such thing. He has a right to his views, as creationists and
racists have a right to theirs, but the evidence does not support the
conclusion, which makes it scientifically incompetent.”
The widely shared rejection of Chagnon’s interpretations among
anthropologists comes from the shoddy quality of his work and the
sociobiological nature of his analysis, not with an opposition to science.
Among Chagnon’s most dogged critics was my dissertation chair,
anthropologist Marvin Harris, himself an arch positivist and a staunch
advocate of the scientific method, yet Harris rejected Chagnon and his
sociobiological findings in fierce academic debates that lasted for
decades, not because Harris was anti-science, but because Chagnon was a
bad scientist (I should note that Harris and Sahlins also famously
feuded over fundamental theoretical differences; yet both shared common
ground objecting to the militarization of the discipline, and rejecting
Chagnon’s sociobiological work).
I suppose if there really were battles within anthropology between
imagined camps embracing and rejecting science, I would be about as
firmly in the camp of science as anyone; but if such divisions actually
existed, I would be no closer to accepting the validity and reliability
(the hallmarks of good science) of Chagnon’s findings than those
imagined to reject the foundations of science.
In 2000, there was of course a huge painful crisis within the American
Anthropological Association following the publication of Patrick
Tierney’s book Darkness in El Dorado, in which numerous accusations of
exploitation (and worse) were leveled against Chagnon and other
anthropologists working with the Yanomami (see Barbara Rose Johnston’s
essay on the José Padilha’s film, Secrets of the Tribe). weaponprice
Without detailing all the twists and turns involved in establishing the
wreckage of Chagnon and the paucity of his claims, suffice it to say
that the choice of offering one of the select seats in the National
Academy of Sciences’ Section 51 to Dr. Chagnon is an affront to a broad
range of anthropologists, be they self-identified as scientists or not.
Marshall Sahlins’ resignation is an heroic stand against the subversion
of science to those claiming an innate nature of human violence, and a
stand opposing the increasing militarization of science. While Sahlins’
credentials as an activist opposing the militarization of knowledge are
well established—he is widely recognized as the creator of the
“teach-in,” organizing the February 1965 University of Michigan
teach-in—it still must have been difficult for him to resign this
prestigious position.
In late 1965 Sahlins traveled to Vietnam to learn firsthand about the
war and the Americans fighting it, work that resulted in his seminal
essay “The Destruction of Conscience in Vietnam.” He became one of the
clearest and most forceful anthropological voices speaking out against
efforts (in the 1960s and 70s, and in again in post-9/11 America) to
militarize anthropology.
In 2009 I was part of a conference at the University of Chicago
critically examining renewed efforts by U.S. military and intelligence
agencies to use anthropological data for counterinsurgency projects.
Sahlins’ paper at the conference argued that, “in Vietnam, the famous
anti-insurgency strategy was search and destroy; here it is research and
destroy. One might think it good news that the military’s appropriation
of anthropological theory is incoherent, simplistic and outmoded – not
to mention tedious – even as its ethnographic protocols for learning the
local society and culture amount to unworkable fantasies. ”
Yesterday, Sahlins sent me an email that had been circulated to NAS
Section 51 (Anthropology) members, announcing two new “consensus
projects” under sponsorship of the Army Research Institute. The first
project examined “The Context of Military Environments: Social and
Organizational Factors,” the second, “Measuring Human Capabilities:
Performance Potential of Individuals and Collectives.” Reading the
announcement of these projects forwarded by Sahlins, it is apparent that
the military wants the help of social scientists who can streamline
military operations, using social science and social engineering to
enable interchangeable units of people working on military projects to
smoothly interface. This seems to be increasingly becoming the role
Americans see for anthropologists and other social scientists: that of
military facilitator.
Below is the exchange, I had with Sahlins yesterday discussing his
resignation, Chagnon’s election to the National Academy of Sciences, and
the Academy’s links to military projects.
Price: How has Chagnon so successfully turned numerous attacks on his
ethically troubling research and scientifically questionable methods and
findings into what is widely seen as an attack on science itself?
Sahlins: There has been no address of the issues on Chagnon’s part,
notably of the criticism of his supposed empirical results, as in the
1988 Science article, and the numerous criticisms from Amazonian
anthropologists of his shallow ethnography and villainously distorted
portrayal of Yanomami. These Cro-Chagnon scientists simply refuse to
discuss the facts of the ethnographic case. Instead they issue ad
hominem attacks–before it was against the Marxists, now it is the
‘fuzzy-headed humanists.’ Meanwhile they try to make it an ideological
anti-science persecution–again ironically as a diversion from discussing
the empirical findings. Meanwhile the serious harm, bodily and
emotionally, inflicted on the Yanomami, plus the reckless instigation of
war by his field methods, are completely ignored in the name of science.
Research and destroy, as I called the method. A total moral copout.
Price: Most of the publicity surrounding your resignation from the
National Academy of Sciences focuses either exclusively on Napoleon
Chagnon’s election to the Association, or on the supposed “science wars”
in anthropology, while little media attention has focused on your
statements opposing the NAS’s increasing links to military projects.
What were the reactions within NAS Section 51 to the October 2012 call
to members of the Academy to conduct research aimed at improving the
military’s mission effectiveness?
Sahlins: The National Association of Science would not itself do the war
research. It would rather enlist recruits from its sections–as in the
section 51 memos–and probably thus participate in the vetting of reports
before publication. The National Research Council organizes the actual
research, obviously in collaboration with the NAS. Here is another
tentacle of the militarization of anthropology and other social
sciences, of which the Human Terrain Systems is a familiar example. This
one as insidious as it is perfidious.
Price: Was there any internal dialogue between members of NAS Section 51
when these calls for these new Army Research Institute funded projects
were issued?
Sahlins: I was not privy to any correspondence, whether to the Section
officers or between the fellows, if there was any–which I don’t know.
Price: What, if any reaction have you had from other NAS members?
Sahlins: Virtually none. One said I was always opposed to sociobiology
Price: To combine themes embedded in Chagnon’s claims of human nature,
and the National Academy of Sciences supporting to social science for
American military projects; can you comment on the role of science and
scientific societies in a culture as centrally dominated by military
culture as ours?
Sahlins: There is a paragraph or two in my pamphlet on The Western
Illusion of Human Nature, of which I have no copy on hand, which cites
Rumsfeld to the effect (paraphrasing Full Metal Jacket) that inside
every Middle eastern Muslim there’s an American ready to come out, a
self-interested freedom loving American, and we just have to force it
out or force out the demons who are perpetrating other ideas [see page
42 of Sahlins; The Western Illusions of Human Nature]. Isn’t American
global policy, especially neo-con policy, based on the confusion of
capitalist greed and human nature? Just got to liberate them from their
mistaken, externally imposed ideologies. For the alternative see the
above mentioned pamphlet on the one true universal, kinship, and the
little book I published last month: What Kinship Is–And Is Not.
Price: You mention a desire to shift funding streams from those offering
military support, to those supporting peace. Do you have any insight on
how we can work to achieve this shift?
Sahlins: I have not thought about it, probably because the idea that
the National Academy of Sciences would so such a thing is essentially
unthinkable today.
There is a rising international response supporting Sahlins’ stance.
Marshall shared with me a message he received form Professor, Eduardo
Viveiros de Castro, of the National Museum, Rio de Janeiro, in which de
Castro wrote,
“Chagnon’s writings on the Yanomami of Amazonia have contributed
powerfully to reinforce the worst prejudices against this indigenous
people, who certainly do not need the kind of stereotyping
pseudo-scientific anthropology Chagnon has chosen to pursue at their
cost. The Yanomami are anything but the nasty, callous sociobiological
robots Chagnon makes them look – projecting, in all likelihood, his
perception of his own society (or personality) onto the Yanomami. They
are an indigenous people who have managed, against all odds, to survive
in their traditional ways in an Amazonia increasingly threatened by
social and environmental destruction. Their culture is original, robust
and inventive; their society is infinitely less “violent” than Brazilian
or American societies.
Virtually all anthropologists who have worked with the Yanomami,
many of them with far larger field experience with this people than
Chagnon, find his research methods objectionable (to put it mildly) and
his ethnographic characterizations fantastic. Chagnon’s election to the
NAS does not do honor to American science nor to anthropology as a
discipline, and it also bodes ill to the Yanomami. As far as I am
concerned, I deem Chagnon an enemy of Amazonian Indians. I can only
thank Prof. Sahlins for his courageous and firm position in support of
the Yanomami and of anthropological science.”
We are left to wonder what is to become of science, whether practiced
with a capital (at times blind) “S” or a lower case inquisitive variety,
when those questioning some its practices, misapplications and outcomes
are increasingly marginalized, while those whose findings align with our
broader cultural values of warfare are embraced. The NAS’s rallying
around such a divisive figure as Chagnon, demonizing his critics,
claiming they are attacking not his practices and theories, but science
itself damages the credibility of these scientists. It is unfortunate
that the National Academy of Sciences has backed itself into this corner.
The dynamics of such divisiveness are not unique to this small segment
of the scientific community. In his 1966 essay on, “The Destruction of
Conscience in Vietnam,” Sahlins argued that to continue wage the war,
America had to destroy its own conscience—that facing those destroyed by
our actions was too much for the nation to otherwise bare, writing:
“Conscience must be destroyed: it has to end at the barrel of a gun, it
cannot extend to the bullet. So all peripheral rationales fade into the
background. It becomes a war of transcendent purpose, and in such a war
all efforts on the side of Good are virtuous, and all deaths unfortunate
necessary. The end justifies the means.”
It is a tragic state of affairs when good people of conscience see the
only acceptable act before them to be that of resignation; but sometimes
the choice of disassociation is the strongest statement one can
courageously make.
David Price a professor of anthropology at Saint Martin’s University in
Lacey, Washington. He is the author of Weaponizing Anthropology: Social
Science in Service of the Militarized State published by CounterPunch Books.
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