I. Leslie A. White and the Socio-Politics of War

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

—Benjamin Franklin

Leslie A. White was a pivotal figure in the development of American anthropological theory in the mid-twentieth century. White is well known for reviving evolutionary theory in the post-Boasian era and for his highly polemical exchanges with scholars such as Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Morris Opler, and others. White's reputation as an "ill tempered polemicist" was well deserved and partly responsible for the fact White's clandestine career as a committed socialist throughout the 1930s and 1940s is not well known (Peace 1993, 2004:69–98; Price and Peace 2003). White was a member of the Socialist Labor Party, wrote under the pseudonym John Steel, recruited people into the SLP, gave stump speeches to various groups, and was in every sense of the term a political activist in a radical socialist organization. For his efforts, White feared discovery, used aliases, and was hounded by administrators at the University of Michigan who were appalled by his political views.

Given White's background, one would suspect that the social upheaval and revival of radical political activism on college campuses during the 1960s would have excited him. One would also think that White, a World War I veteran and staunch opponent of all war, would have embraced 1960s political activism that was centered on ending the Vietnam War. This was not the case. White expressed little interest in the Vietnamera anti-war protests and had a total lack of respect for the largest and most influential group of the era (Students for a Democratic Society). He pointedly refused to get involved in anti-war demonstrations and, much to the consternation of his peers, declined every invitation to participate in teach-ins that were in vogue and highly influential. Why did White reject the political activism of the 1960s, especially since it was grounded in opposition to war? This paradox and its antecedents are the subject of my analysis. To this end, I will discuss three facets of war and how they figured in White's thoughts, beginning with the impact White's World War I naval experience had on him and how it changed the direction of his career. Next, I will discuss how White's anti-war views led him to the Socialist Labor Party and why he came to the conclusion that all war was an abomination—a reflection of the capitalist system doomed to extinction. Finally, I will compare White's early anti-war works with those he produced at the end of his career that expressed a deeply pessimistic, if not apocalyptic, view of the future. In so doing, I will detail the reasons why a scholar who came of age during the Depression not only failed to embrace a new generation of anti-war political activists but purposely distanced himself from them.

World War I and Its Impact on White's Thought

The U.S. Navy has little information about White's experiences aside from his enlistment and discharge records. These papers record the basic facts about his naval career: he enlisted in Denver, Colorado, on March 22, 1918, and was discharged in New York on August 25, 1919. He "performed honorable active service on board the following ships and stations: Naval Training Station San Francisco; Receiving Ship Mare Island; U.S.S. Ringgold; Naval Hospital New York; Receiving Ship At New York; U.S.S. Minnesotan." On a scale of one to four, four being the highest, he earned the following proficiency ratings: seamanship, 3. 5; ordnance, 3. 16; signaling, 3. 17; ability as a leader of men, 3. 4; sobriety, 4; obedience, 4. His overall standing and proficiency was 3. 63.

White's decision to join the Navy was an odd one. His formative childhood experiences were on the plains of Kansas, and before he enlisted he sought out the advice of his mother rather than his father.¹ Although White's tenure in the Navy was relatively short, it had a profound impact on his thought. White never articulated exactly why he joined the...