Theoretical Framework and Genesis of Cultural Materialism in Political Studies

УДК 32.001

L. Bidochko

The article deals with the main methodological and theoretical background of cultural materialism as an anthropological approach and a research strategy. Synthesizing Marxists’ historical materialism, cultural ecology, and neo-evolutionism, first cultural materialist Marvin Harris elaborates a tripartite scheme of the cultural system (infrastructure, structure, and superstructure), extending and extolling the infrastructure as something that includes demography and ecosystems, in addition to the productive forces and mode of production. Cultural materialism rejects dialectical materialism and class struggle, giving priority to infrastructural variables in the causal arrow of determination.

Keywords: cultural anthropology, cultural materialism, determinism, emic and etic, historic materialism, Marxism, neo-evolutionism, reductionism, structure and superstructure.

With the development of the humanities, there not just drown from the natural sciences (as in the was a problem of their scientification, development case of mechanicism), but converted in accordance of uniform and universally accepted theoretical and with the object of study, the human society, which methodological foundations, principles of obtaining was seen as an enormously complex, but objective and structuring of knowledge about the man and so- and cognizable system. Historical materialism, de- ciety. In this respect, natural sciences seemed to be veloped by Karl Marx, became the blueprint for the the obvious model for the humanities, as they were modernhistorical and sociological science. On the much more developed. The principles of causality one hand, scientific schools, positioning themselves and nomology that allowed the natural sciences to as Marxist and neo-Marxist, continue to play a sig- create an adequate model of the material world and nificant role in the academic environment currently. to promote technical progress, could provide for de- On the other hand, criticism of Marxism not only velopment of social knowledge as well, freeing it contributes to the renewal of historical materialism from the descriptiveness, subjectivity, and teleolo- (as in the case of moving the research focus of the gy, and enable the social progress. culture and ideology by GyörgyLukácsand Antonio Immanuel Kant stated that the doctrine of the na- Gramsci), but borrows many of Marx’s postulates ture would contain science in its proper sense only (like Max Weber in sociology, AnnalesSchool in to the extent that Mathematics can be applied to it; history); it also became a mechanism for de-politi- in XIX–XX centuries, physics rules the roost in the zation and legitimizing Marxism. philosophy of science. A “bridge,” which managed If at the level of concrete scientific methodology to connect the natural sciences and humanities, was historical materialism successfully seeped in the hu- embedded in biology. Evolutionism quickly ad- manities, in the field of general scientific philosophy hered to the social sciences. The success of biology came under attacks held in various directions. The and psychology in explaining the nature of the high- actual purpose of these attacks was forcing Marx- er nervous activity contributed to finding the mate- ism out of the scientific horizon. Historical material- rial basis of the “spiritual world” and considering ism was accused of politicizing science, reduction- the external stimuli as causes of human behavior. ism, and metaphysics. Of course, Marxist scholars Seeking to adopt the unity of science, which could were in sympathy with leftist political movements not be provided by the so-called “first positivism,” or even directly participated in them. However, this Friedrich Engels interpreted social development as politicization could not be necessarily explained by the highest form of motion of the matter (mechani- the ill will of scientists towards making scientific cal, physical, chemical, and organic), which emerge objectivity turbid. They rather came out of the pos- on the basis of the lower elements; it includes but is tulate of post-non-classic philosophy of science not reducible to them. about social determinism of the science. In addition, As a result, the humanities have been scientified studying the dynamics of social development, social by taking materialist methodology. The latter was science will inevitably integrate predictive and

© Bidochko L., 2016 L. Bidochko. Theoretical Framework and Genesis of Cultural Materialism in Political Studies 19 prescriptive functions, which leads to the increas- of Finnish philosopher G. H. von Wright) or to the ap- ingly important interest in the scientific community proval of the postmodern “ignoramus et ignorabimus,” to political regulation of the social development. defamatory social knowledge. Reductionism has never been a Marxist method- Construed as being of secondary importance, ological principle; on the contrary, the classics of Mar sometimes secondary constraints needs to be placed at xism rejected it, stressing the autonomy of spheres of the heart of interpreting the paradigm.All the scientific public life, such as politics or culture (although history knowledge is instrumentalized and socially construct- critics have tried to put the materialist conception as ed. Any scientific approach and scientific knowledge “economic reductionism»). Yet reductionism and the as such is still massively dependent on political, eco- concomitant use of implicit deduction became a bug of nomic, financial, ideological, moral, and other “non- the theoretical considerations and case studies of many academic” elements; political stimulus often deter- orthodox Marxists. Nevertheless, this trend has been mines the formation and assessment of the knowledge. observed among the other, non-Marxist schools in the Let us outline the academic and ideological “cra- social sciences. This can be explained by the fact that dle” of cultural materialism. It was in the Columbia society is a chaotic system, the complexity of which University; then some of these people moved to the increases against the background of progress in differ- University of Michigan. By and large, different peo- ent spheres of social life (the economy, social struc- ple there came from Brooklyn; they have returned ture, and culture). Social sciences, seeking to fulfill from the Second World War and had left-wing lean- their practical function, tend to simplify their own the- ings, hence the materialism. “It was the time of Mc- oretical constructs and methodological approaches for Carthyism, – Stephen Reyna, one of the students of to give the desired result (the formation of ideologies Marvin Harris notes. – If you were known as a left- and social engineering). ist, you would not get a job. So they tended to create In short, the social sciences have not kept pace left positions, but they left out the explicitly left lan- with the social development, which ultimately leads guage. I was part of them. I was a student of Marvin to an increase in the irrelevance of models they offer. Harris... We were for the most part “progressives” in The response to this in the scientific community is ei- the US, not explicit Marxists.” ther creation of new theories, or update of the con- “There was the counterculture, the War, Black ceptual and methodological arsenal of existing ones Power, Women’s Lib, Stonewall, SDS and Weather- (development of “protective belt” of the research pro- man. Revolution. They all played out in front of gram, to use the terminology of ImreLakatos), return your eyes, from the later 1960s through the early to the starting point of epistemology, “blessed” by the 1970s. You could not escape the power of events to founding fathers. One of the most vivid examples of shape ideas,” notes Brian Ferguson, another student such a return in the history of science is a famous slogan of Harris [2, p. 2]. of Otto Liebmann “Back to Kant!” that lay the foun- Although McCarthyism, heightened political re- dation of philosophical schools of neo-Kantianism. pression against supposed leftists, became thing of Thus, the Western neo-Marxists criticized the the past, and cultural materialism was born in late “mechanistic reductionism” and “economic reduc- 1960s, opened declaring of leftism at that time was tionism” of Second International theorists (Kautsky- not preferable. Left intellectuals, in fact, have also Bernstein-Plekhanov), referring to Marx’s “The mimicked. It cannot be said though that cultural ma- Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon” and En- terialism was a veiled version of Marxism. Cultural gels’s “Letter to Joseph Bloch.” Post-positivists materialism was rather a revision of Marxism; and aimed their criticism at the real inherent versatility of the nature of roots of revisionism seem to be more the explanatory paradigm inherent to the historical woven than just camouflaging historical materialism materialism (“metaphysical” in Popper’s terminolo- by calling it an anthropological research strategy. gy). However, according to the criteria of falsifiabili- Scientific research strategy is an unequivocal set ty, virtually the entire humanitarian science falls be- of guidelines referring to some epistemological sta- yond the understanding of science in Popper’s tus of the studied variables, the kinds of lawful rela- sense. This approach has resonated in the part of the tions between them, and connected theories, created humanitarian response of the scientific community. by the strategy [3, p. 26]. Before defining the fea- But the construction of humanitarian epistemology tures of cultural materialism as a research strategy, (“alloscience”*) thatradically differs from epistemolo- Harris criticizes Marx and Engels for alligation of gy of the natural sciences leads either to a veiled return philosophical ontological notions and sociostructur- to the natural science approach (e.g., quasi-causality al issues. The aim of their strategy was to demystify the social life through unveiling socially construct- * «Инонаучный» – term of Russian semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin. ed illusions that distort people’s consciousness. 20 НАУКОВІ ЗАПИСКИ Наукма. 2016. Том 186. Політичні науки

The people must identify themselves “not as they Unlike politicized British historians, members of may appear in their own or their people’s imagina- the French Annales School have never identified tion, but as they really are” [5, p. 36–37]. Harris be- themselves as Marxists and actively challenged the lieves that the notion of “real” (real living individu- latters. However, they can also be included to the als, real active men) isquite blurred therefore prob- materialist approach to history. Assigning primacy lematic, arguing that defining reality is the matter of of material factors (not just economic ones, but de- epistemologists, not of the scientific materialists: mographic and climate as well), like true Marxist “thoughts about things and events are separable historical materialism, Annales School highlighted from things and events” [3, p. 30]. Materialists the lack of attention to the effects of consciousness therefore must get scientific knowledge not by set- on the historical process. ting “real” against “unreal,” but by dividing social However, in other social sciences, besides histor- life into mental and behavioral events, in other ical ones, researchers who were under the influence words. In order to explain people’s thoughts and be- of Marxism and its historical-materialist paradigm, havior in scientific Adapting linguistic theory of largely avoided identification of “historical material- Kenneth Pike, Harris calls participant’s perspective ism,” using instead a different terminology that “emic,” and observer’s perspective “etic” [3, p. 31– tagged their link to the Marxist tradition and critical 32]. Harris premonishes from confusing emic/etic theory, like “radical geography” by David Harvey. distinction with subjective/objective meaning. Both In international relations theory and historical view of insider and observer are needed to give sociology, in addition to well-known world-system more precise knowledge about the subject of study; theory (Immanuel Wallerstein, Samir Amin, Giovan- however, the etic explanation is more preferable by ni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank), which draws upon the strategy of cultural materialism. The anthropolo- the writings of Karl Marx andFernandBraudel of gist claims that divergence between these two stand- Annales School, when interpreting capitalism, there points shows the degree to which the members of so- is a school of “political Marxism” (Robert Brenner, cial group are mystified by their common views. Ellen Meiksins Wood, BennoTeschke), whose rep- The aim of cultural materialism is “a statement resentatives put emphasis on class conflict in the about the nature of cultural systems, which can in- center of their analysis. The impact of historical ma- clude emic human responses to perceived environ- terialism could be also seen in postcolonial studies ments that have some measurable etic physical attri- in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Typical exam- butes” [1, p. 183]. ples of this could be the work of a historian from Next, stating the strategic principles of cultural Guiana, Walter Rodney, “How Europe Underdevel- materialism is in order. oped Africa,” and the Subaltern Studies in South Marvin Harris managed to synthesize three sci- Asia and Latin America. entific approaches: Marxists’ historical materialism, «Cultural materialism» can also be counted as cultural ecology, and neo-evolutionism. Neverthe- the original tradition of historical materialism, tak- less, strategy of cultural materialism is separated ing into account the specific conditions of American from dialectical materialism and from philosophical anthropology influencing the formation of this di- materialism in order to avoid metaphysical disputa- rection. First of all, this was the discussion between tions concerning the “question of ontological prior- diffusionistschool of Franz Boas and his opponent, ity of matter over mind. the founder of cultural studies Leslie White and his Contrary to its defamation due to the vulgarized theory of “universal evolution.” The latter had bor- Soviet interpretation, historical materialism has rowed many of the Marxist approach and achieve- found very important application in Western histori- ments of Lewis H. Morgan, to whom Friedrich En- ans. An example of this might be British historical gels referred in his work “The Origin of Family, Pri- materialism, represented by the Communist Party vate Property and the State.” Influenced by White, Historians Group (most of them at different times had who paid much attention to the material and techno- left it, expressing their disagreement with the Soviet logical factors, Julian Steward formulated the theo- interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia), and ry of “multilinear cultural evolution” and the meth- the New Left around the magazines «Past and Pres- odology of “cultural ecology,” which examines peo- ent» and «New Left Review». Armed with an appeal ple’s adaptation to social and natural environment. of the French Marxist historians Georges Lefebvre Founder of the “cultural materialism” Marivn Har- and Albert Mathiez to explore the history of masses, ris belonged to a group of White and Steward’s ap- representatives of British historical materialism dem- prentices, students of “Mundial Upheaval Society” onstrated the breadth of its non-dogmatic application who were interested in applying materialist ap- to the study of history. In such a way, they launched a proach to the anthropological theory. Other mem- line of “history from below,” or “people’s history”. bers of this circle (Sidney Mintz, Eric Wolf, Stanley L. Bidochko. Theoretical Framework and Genesis of Cultural Materialism in Political Studies 21

Diamond, Robert Manners, Robert Murphy, and In other words, infrastructure deals with human Morton Fried, a teacher of Marshall Sahlins) also beings as biological population, compounding of used historical materialism. This primarily relates to variables of relations with the environment, forms Eric R. Wolf and his “Europe and the People With- of labor, technology, and demography. Structure out History,” which is based on Marxist methodolo- considers humans as social creatures, which are in a gy and considers capitalism as a world system. web of economy, politics, and kinship. Superstruc- Cultural materialism of Marvin Harris has inher- ture relates to people as thinking creatures that share ited Marxist division of base and structure. Marvin some ideology, beliefs, and cultural peculiarities. Harris proceeds from four key premises, based on Marvin Harris merges under a single causal um- biological and psychological constants of human brella three fundamental pillars of cultural material- nature. First, each society deals with problems of ism: infrastructure, structure, and superstructure. production – “behaviorally satisfying minimal re- But this causal web is embraced with a principle of quirements for subsistence,” [3,p.50] whichis de- infrastructural determinism, which means that the fined asetic behavioral mode of production.Second, modes of production and modes of reproduction de- the society copes with the reproduction issue, which termine domestic and political economies, as well includes balancing between sharp increase and de- as superstructural units (ideologies, religion, stan- crease of the population; behavioral mode of repro- dards and philosophies). Research strategy of cul- duction. Third, human collective entity deals with tural materialism in its strict understanding pre- establishing “secure and orderly behavioral rela- scribes investigating social and cultural phenomena tionships among its constituent groups and with oth- with the direct nod to infrastructure. In a broad er societies,” [3, p.50] or etic behavioral domestic meaning, infrastructural determinism gives the pri- economies and etic behavioral political economies. ority to the infrastructure as a basic mover of cultur- Finally, the speech acts and symbolic dimension al and social phenomena and its precedence in the (which plays a significant role in people’s- con causal arrow of determination. sciousness) lead to productive behavior in terms of Any modern approach, sustained in Marxian ethics, art, sports, etc. – behavioral superstructure. interpretations of culture, deals with considering What belongs to infrastructure is mode of pro- Marx’s tenet about determining superstructure and duction and mode of reproduction. The first means determining base. The very notion ’determining’ mechanisms that expands or limits the basic subsis- has a dual nature (let us call it dialectic) in a sense of tence production (different forms of energy, includ- setting margins and limits, from the one hand, and ing food) by reference to peculiarities provided by a external causation, from the other. Infrastructural specific technology interacting with specific- sur determinism roots in some bio-psychological con- roundings. With regard to production, these are stants [6, p. 31]. technology of subsistence, techno-environmental Actually, Harris is far from being the first scien- relationships, work patterns and ecosystems. With tist that underlines the determining role of the infra- respect to reproduction, these are demography, structure in explaining sociocultural phenomena. mating patterns, fertility, natality, mortality, nurtur- It was Marx who stated that “the mode of produc- ance of infants, medical control of demographic pat- tion in material life determines the general character terns, contraception, abortion, infanticide [3, p. 52]. of the social, political, and spiritual processes of Structure in terms of cultural materialism means life. It is not the consciousness of men that deter- domestic economy, organization of reproduction and mines their existence, but on the contrary, their so- basic production within the domestic structural units, cial existence determines their consciousness.” [4, and political economy, organization of reproduction, p. 21]. However, Harris criticizes Marx’s approach production, exchange, and consumption within larger for ambiguity of mode of production, absence of political entities (states, chiefdoms, bands). Domestic discussion of the mode of reproduction, lack of dis- economies include family structure, domestic divi- tinction between emic and etic, and his reliance on sion of labor, age and sex roles, domestic discipline Hegelian dialectic, calling it “the Hegelian mon- and hierarchies, socialization, education, and encul- key” on Marx and Engel’s back [3, p. 56]. turation. Political economies embrace division of Adopting ecology and evolution as the causal labor, taxation, tribute, political organization, asso- explanation of sociocultural phenomena, Harris dis- ciations and corporations, political socialization and cards dialectics, rejecting the idea that it is “nega- enculturation, police/military control, urban/rural tion of negation” which enables the progress. In ad- hierarchies, class, caste, and war [3, p. 52–53]. dition to dialectical Marxism, he also rejected his- Behavioral superstructure includes art, music, torical materialism. Cultural materialism that has dance, literature, advertising, rituals, sports, games, been oriented to “long term adaptive processes and science [3, p. 53] functional systems, was weal in understanding the 22 НАУКОВІ ЗАПИСКИ Наукма. 2016. Том 186. Політичні науки myriad changes observed among non-state peo- First, this is commitment to science. Secondly, ples – and everyone – in historical time frames, emic-etic division should be perceived as a conse- which often seemed highly conflicted, anything but quence of eliminating the unfalsifiable notions and adaptive, and impossible to characterize as func- scientific categories (such as real active men of tional,” Ferguson claims [2, p. 7]. Marx and Engels). Third, idea about pivotal role of As we might see, Harris reconsidered Marxist environment and demography in explaining the so- base-structure division into a triple scheme, extend- ciocultural phenomena. Harris combines Marx’s ing and extoling the infrastructure as something that idea of forces and relations of production with Mal- includes demography and ecosystems, in addition to thusian idea of population dynamics in order to ma- the productive forces and mode of production. Marx ke the scientific explanation more comprehensive. has lambasted Thomas Malthus and his principle of Forth, improving traditional Marxian “base and su- population, referring to the population growth and perstructure” scheme completing it with emic-etic di- the well-being of the populace. Malthus argued that vision. Harris proposes tripartite system of human overpopulation was the main cause of the people’s life instead – infrastructure, superstructure (Marxist misery. Of course, Harris did not directly inherit this theory), and structure. Finally, cultural materialism is idea; Malthus rather inspired him to use the demo- also suggesting infrastructural determinism, but not graphic figures into the basis-structure model, giving in a strict sense of orthodox Marxism, when the base it an equal primary role. determines the superstructure in a one-way connec- Summing up the key novelties of cultural ma tion. Harris does not exclude the reverse relation be- terialism in the environment of sociocultural anthro- tween the three dimensions; he argue that superstruc- pology, the brave attempt to differentiate the true ture can influence structure and infrastructure, that is, gist of reality beyond imagination should be noted. his determinism has a probabilistic nature.

References

1. Dow J. W. Cultural-Biological Materialism / J. W. Dow // Stu 4. Marx K. Selected Works, Volume Three / K. Marx, F. Engels. – dying societies and cultures: Marvin Harris’s cultural material- Moscow : Progress Publishers, 1970 [1859]. ism and its legacy. Paradigm Publishers. – 2006. – P. 180–193. 5. Marx K. The German Ideology / K. Marx, F. Engels. – Collected 2. Ferguson R. B. Marvin of Schermerhorn (Marvin Harris at Co- Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 5. – New York : International lumbia in the 1970s) / R. B. Ferguson. Faculty House, Colum- Publishers, 1976 [1846]. – P. 19–92. bia University, 2010. 6. Williams Raymond. Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultur- 3. Harris M. Cultural materialism: The Struggle for a Science of al Theory / Raymond Williams // Problems in Materialism and Culture / M. Harris. – New York : Random House, 1979. – 383 p. Culture. – London : Verso, 1980. – P. 31–49.

Бідочко Л. Я.

ТЕОРЕТИЧНІ ЗАСАДИ ТА ВИТОКИ КУЛЬТУРНОГО МАТЕРІАЛІЗМУ В ПОЛІТИЧНІЙ НАУЦІ

У статті розглянуто основні методологічні та теоретичні основи культурного матеріалізму як антропологічного підходу та дослідницької стратегії. Культурний матеріалізм – це теоретична парадигма, яка базується на ідеї, що соціальне життя, політична культура є відповіддю на прак- тичні проблеми земного існування. Він постав у американській антропологічній науці наприкінці 1960-х років, на перетині історичного матеріалізму, неоеволюціонізму і культурної екології. Це нео- позитивістська спроба привнесення в соціальні та гуманітарні науки методології природничих. У центрі уваги Марвіна Гарріса та інших прибічників культурного матеріалізму стоять такі кате- горії, які підлягають верифікації. Тож цей підхід продовжує аналіз економічних чинників за Марк- сом, демографічних за Мальтусом та екологічних за Вайтом та Стюардом. Бувши критиком інона- уковості, М. Гарріс розвиває Марксову ідею базису й надбудови, послуговуючись категоріями три- рівневої моделі. Кожна культурна система містить три компоненти: інфраструктуру як спосіб виробництва і відтворення, структуру як суспільні відносини та надструктуру як ідеологічні відно- сини. Принцип інфраструктурного детермінізму вказує, що культурні явища мають матеріаліс- тичне пояснення, проте сам М. Гарріс не виключає зворотного каузального зв’язку.

Ключові слова: культурна антропологія, культурний матеріалізм, детермінізм, емічне і етичне, історичний матеріалізм, марксизм, неоеволюціонізм, редукціонізм, базис і надбудова.

Матеріал надійшов 24.09.2016