Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture by Marvin Harris (review)

Books 67 Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. Marvin Harris. Random House, New York, 1981. 381 pp. Paper. ISBN:0-39474426 -8. Reviewed by Waldo Haisley* This book, written by a professional anthropologist as a frankly polemical tract on the broader aspects, and aims of his subject, is noteworthy for the light it casts on what remains a perennialissuein the assessment of the social sciences-whether their subject matter is truly amenable to the kind of understanding and progressive confident consensus which has characterized the physical and biological sciences during the modern era. Anthropology, the most recent of these disciplines,formally postdates Darwin, and developments within it have a particularly strategic aspect. Closely allied to this question is that of whether it is possible to grasp fully the modes and evolutionary mechanisms of the various human cultures from a viewpoint which is scientific, universal and free from the limitations imposed by the personal acculturation of the investigator. Harris comesdown unequivocallyon the positiveside,elaboratinghis answer and finding his hope in an approach and theoretical network known to the profession as ‘cultural materialism’. He presents his ideas as a’research strategy’,but the book isreplete with ‘researchfindings’he cites to support his contention that this particular strategy leads to a more sensible, economic, coherent and dependable picture than any alternative presently proposed. The idea of arguing in terms of strategic effectiveness rather than cognitive veracity is attuned to recent developments in the philosophy of science, notably those clustering around Kuhn’s paradigms and the ‘research programs’ of Lakatos. Harris has studied modern writings on science with some care-thus he sees scientificknowledge in terms of probab es rather than in terms of 19th-century certainties. Basic to Harris’s analysis is a distinction between ‘emic’ and ‘etic’, factors in cultural evolution and organization, a concept growingout of modern linguistics and bearing some resemblance to, though more sophisticated than, the older distinction betweenthe‘subjective’and the ‘objective’ and the newer distinction between ‘mentalistic’ and ‘behavioristic’phenomena. Harris pins his scientificcommitment to the behavioristic aspects of culture and their relation to environmental and technological causes, but his attack is based not on the epistemological purism of a J. B.Watson or a B.F. Skinner but on the beliefthat cultural evolution and human behavior are much more profoundlyand strongly determined by the ‘etic’factors than by the ‘emic’, though he admits the latter exist and carry some potency. Also important to the Harris analysis is his emphasis on ‘infrastructure’, which he distinguishes from ‘structure’ and ‘superstructure ’ and which refers to economic means and relations of production and to the dynamics of population reproduction. To these he gives primacy in his account of how causal factors have operated to produce the various social arrangements making up the diversity of human cultures. On this he agrees wholeheartedly with the so-called economic determinism of Marx, though he both softens and expands it and is at some pains to reject other important aspects of Marx’s theoretical structure-notably dialectic materialism, which he sees ashaving detracted seriouslyfrom the direct scientificusefulnessof Marx’s work. The book is noteworthy for the author’s conscientiousdetermination to translate a general approach into specific answers to hard concrete questions, such as those to be found in explaining kinship systems,incest prohibitions and food taboos in the various cultures of world civilizations. Also deserving commendation are his attempts to face squarely the counter-arguments of adherents to seven alternative research strategies he sees contending today withcultural materialism in the struggle for dominance. Much of the concrete exposition of issues may be found in the arguments against rival approaches rather than in the initial presentation, which takes up only one-third of the book. The general reader will be left with a slight feeling of helplessnessin deciding how to make up his mind about the controversy. Though Harris’s arguments are always plausible and often convincing, his judgments are apt to sound summary and dogmatic, and, whilemuch of the research cited he has participated directly in and speaks knowledgeably about, it is necessarily inaccessible to the reader who doesn’t follow the professional journals. Equally disturbing, the very existence of so...