The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy (Studies in American Thought and Culture)

I knew Mead personally and professionally. She never deserved the trashing she received by individuals who gave much less to society and the world than she did. This book moves toward some redress.

As a suburban, middle-class Samoan born in Hawai'i, educated in CA, I'm always curious how others see us just to help me figure out my own island identity. Being Samoan is confusing to me too, but I like the idea of being a "free-loving orgiast" as UN Samoa rep, Lelei Lelaulu, prefers (p. 145) than "sex-starved & suicidal..." Samoans do have a biting humor, I know that much!

Paul has written a great book : scholarly, fair, complete. He puts the debate in proper perspective and provides a context to assess Mead's greatness.

Several times, Derek Freeman (and his lapdog Hiram Caton) declared the “Freeman/Mead controversy” over with Freeman victorious on every count and Margaret Mead “hoaxed” back in the 1920s by two Samoan girls joking that she took seriously. The title of Freeman’s last book labeled this the “fateful hoaxing.”It would only have been fateful if Freeman’s long-running misrepresentation of the centrality of a popular book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which, according to him was central to establishing the importance of culture for American anthropologists (Freeman refused to recognize lots of evidence either that culturalism was dominant in American anthropologist before Margaret Mead went to Samoa, that her popular book was criticized by American cultural anthropologists, and not used, let alone central, in the training of American anthropologist graduate students). Paul Shankman goes over some of the evidence for the peripheralness within anthropology (quite different from her prominence in periodicals like Redbook) of Mead and of her first book.He also demonstrates that Mead’s book did not rely on those two women, but on informants younger than they were, that she had gathered data and was not in the panic to come up with something that Freeman claims, that (as usual) Freeman cherry-picked snippets from interviews with one of the two supposed hoaxers (Fa’apua’a Fa’amû), made insupportable claims for the perfectness of her memory, and ignored statements in the interview that undercut his claims even though the interview he commissioned was filled with very leading questions he supplied. She said that Mead did not ask her questions about her own sexual conduct or about Samoan girls’ sexual conduct. (Shankman elaborated on the evidence afainst “hoaxing” in a Feb. 2013 article in Current Anthropology.)Shankman also patiently works through evidence that Freeman was wrong about what Freeman claimed was the central issue (ceremonial virgins), ignored data contrary to his theses, and that his portrayal of Samoans is not beloved by contemporary Samoans.In Shankman’s account of Freeman before he made sensational claims to have refuted Mead’s ethnography (though Freeman largely ignored the report of her ethnography aimed at professionals, Social Organization of Manu’a) there is mention of two Freeman psychotic breaks (breakdowns with considerable evidence of erotophobia), one in Sarawak, one in Samoa, and the invective (which strikes me as psychotic) Freeman deployed against anyone providing evidence against his sensationalized claims. Actually, Shankman could have drawn on more evidence of Freeman’s overkill and attempts to intimidate any criticism, not only in regards to Samoa but in regards to his earlier sweeping claims about the utter uniqueness of the group he studied on Sarawak, the Iban. Freeman’s m.o. was totally contrary to what he preached as subjecting one’s claims to evidence contradicting them. I cannot think of any alleged scientist who made such vicious and personal (ad hominem, and with even greater glee, ad feminem) attacks in the course of disputes.Though Mead was guilty of overgeneralizing, not least about American culture, Freeman made rasher overgeneralizations about Iban, Samoan, and American anthropological cultures, and his interpretation of Samoan culture has not been accepted as valid or adequate either by Samoans or by Polynesianists. For me, Shankman’s restrained book really concludes the mostly unedifying attack Freeman launched in 1983 and the preposterous claims that Mead was hoaxed that Freeman spun in his 1999 book.Shankman does not consider the role of the neo-con vision that was particularly dominant when Freeman’s book appeared (in the Reagan-Thatcher era) in publicizing Freeman’s claims. I don’t know what Freeman’s political views were, but those who welcomed his anti-feminism and dark view of human nature in mass (masser than anthropology) media were distinctly neo-con.

Paul Shankman is a cultural anthropologist who teaches at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He wrote in the Introduction to this 2008 book, “Freeman’s [first] book was in part about how Samoa was puritanical and sexually restrictive rather than sexually permissive, as Mead described it. According to Freeman, Samoa… was a repressive culture riddled with conflict, aggression, and rape. In contrast to Mead’s portrayal of a relatively conflict-free adolescence, Freeman contended that Samoan adolescence was a time of storm and stress. Freeman’s book was also about the nature-nurture debate and whether Mead’s emphasis on culture, as opposed to biology, was warranted…“If Mead was fundamentally wrong about Samoa, then her reputation would suffer. Freeman’s critique had the potential to tarnish if not severely damage Mead, and not merely as an anthropologist but as a public figure, a feminist, and a liberal… Mead had died five years earlier… There would be no debate between Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman. However, [Freeman’s book] … was an attempt to unmake one of anthropology’s almost mythical figures---Mead herself… [This was] the opening salvo in the longest and most acrimonious controversy in the history of cultural anthropology.” (Pg. 5-8)He notes, “Perhaps the most significant flaw in Freeman’s critique was his caricature of Mead and the influence of ‘Coming of Age.’ While her book did have great popular appeal, it was not considered an important ethnographic or theoretical contribution within anthropology. There was, in fact, no ‘Mead paradigm’ that anthropologists worshiped and against which Freeman could tilt… Freeman was able to advance his argument only by very selective use of information… and the strategic omission of relevant data at crucial junctures in his argument… Freeman constructed a ‘just so’ story about Mead and a parallel story about himself… Freeman could not see his critique of Mead as a modest contribution to our knowledge of another culture. In his eyes his work was both revelatory and revolutionary… [But by Freeman’s death in 2001], Freeman’s own assessment of his contribution wearing thin with his colleagues. His attempt to tarnish Mead’s reputation no longer enhanced his own.” (Pg. 12)He explains, “This book is the story of the controversy as it was conducted publicly and as it developed privately---the story of the assault on Mead’s reputation… My argument is certainly more sympathetic to Mead than to Freeman. Yet one of the misconceptions about the controversy is that there are only two sides to it… There are shades of gray. There are unanswered questions… Margaret Mead was a highly visible and easily recognizable target. At first glance, Freeman’s critique seemed formidable and authoritative… a number of intelligent individuals… were readily persuaded of the validity of Freeman’s critique of Mead and did not look further… Many academics and most American anthropologists remained skeptical of Freeman’s critique… both the media and professional anthropologists have been … reluctant to consider Freeman’s motives and personality. Nevertheless, they are important to the controversy… Ultimately, this book tries to extricate Mead’s reputation from the quicksand of controversy… Freeman, although intellectually gifted… was no hero… he seriously compromised this effort by attempting to trash Mead’s reputation.” (Pg. 17-19)He recounts, “Freeman’s most important network television appearance came on March 18, 1983, on NBC’s ‘Donahue’ show… Freeman’s appearance gave a broad American audience a look at the person at the center of the controversy… Freeman’s voice and his use of body language … provided a dimension to understanding the man that had been missing in the print media…” (Pg. 32) He continues, “While the show did not teach the audience very much about Mead, Samoa, anthropology, or the nature-nurture debate, it did showcase Freeman’s personality. By the end of the hour Freeman’s self-admitted difficult manner was apparent not only to Donahue but to millions of others… including his sponsors at Harvard University Press.” (Pg. 38)He suggests, “Freeman’s involvement with Mad and Samoa was partially academic, but it also included a complex interaction of his personal history, intellectual development, and proclivity for controversy. While the substance of his two books on Mead appeared to be academic, the background that contributed to their writing, exposition, and style was personal.” (Pg. 69)He notes, “Although he originally questioned Mead’s language ability in his first book on Mead, to his credit Freeman continued his research on her fieldwork … In ‘The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead,’ he gave her solid marks for her language competency and provided a detailed record of how she learned Samoan.” (Pg. 97-98)He states, “Historically, Samoa was less restrictive then Freeman allowed, and there were more variability and permissiveness in some areas of Samoan sexual conduct than he discerned… Could there be a problem with the sources Freeman used?... he neglected passages in source after source that did not conform to his argument. These problems were noted in an article I published in 1996… Freeman was outraged by the article… Yet Freeman did not refute any of the article’s major arguments … Why not?” (Pg. 187-188)Of Freeman’s 1987, 1988 and 1993 interviews with one of Mead’s original interviewees, “IN his second book on Mead, Freman cited these two additional interviews as support for the hoaxing hypothesis… However, these interviews … were not published and did not become available until after Freeman’s death in 2001. What they demonstrate is that her testimony was sometimes contradictory or unclear and that it is inconsistent with Freeman’s argument on key issues. [Her] memory may not have been as reliable as Freeman believed…” (Pg. 197-198)He summarizes, “The ‘hoaxing’ argument is implausible because the evidence that Freeman used did not support his hypothesis. It is also unnecessary, for Mead’s portrayal of Samoa as a sexually permissive society was not based on her conversations … but rather on the data that she collected from Samoan adolescent girls and from Samoan men and women… the hoaxing hypothesis was constructed retrospectively by Freeman to answer the question of how he believed Mead got Samoa wrong…. It was an ingenious argument. It was also an intellectual house of cards.” (Pg. 204-205)He concludes, “Anthropologists concerned about the diminishing influence of their professional scholarship in the public sphere have been revisiting the legacy of Mead and other intellectual ancestors who did so much to bridge the chasm. Earlier doubts about Mead and her ethnographic work are now tempered by recognition of what she accomplished in the public arena…. The desire for a greater presence by anthropologists in the public arena is understandable, and this is why Margaret Mead is missed.” (Pg. 236)This book (along with Freeman’s two books) will be “must reading” for anyone interested in this controversy.

It is about time that someone finally comprehensively addressed the issues raised by Derek Freeman. The evolutionary psychologists can no longer cite his nonsense uncritically.

Paul Shankman, professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has just published a book destined to make its mark in academia and hit the trade best-seller lists as well. The title is THE TRASHING OF MARGARET MEAD: ANATOMY OF AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY. We have already purchased copies for friends and family who relish the chance to get a backstage look at the controversy that swirled around the venerated Margaret Mead and darkened her legacy. THE TRASHING OF MARGARET MEAD combines thorough research and superb writing with the ever-popular topic of sex.Kathy & Tom Jones

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