Anthropology and the Abnormal

(Summary)

Ruth Benedict wrote an article about the importance of cultural anthropology, on what is
considered to be “normal” or “abnormal” varies from one culture to another. Modern social
anthropology has become a study of varieties and common elements of cultural environment and
the consequences of the in human behavior.

Modern civilization is important for humanity because it became an entry in a long series
of possible adjustments. One problem regarding modern society is the normal and abnormal
categories that separates cultures. Differences between cultures can often be compared with
abnormal activities. For example, catalepsy is considered in some cultures as aberrant and in some
is accepted and part of the respective culture. Another good example that it still manifests as a
problem for many cultures is the idea of homosexuality, which has been debated by comparing it
with the different time periods in which it was manifesting.

The idea of normality illustrated in a culture is a different subject that is discussed in many
studies. For example, an island of northwest Melanesia is described as a society of “prime
manipulators of black magic”. Secrecy, night feasts and ceremonials describe this culture that in
our eyes is considered abnormal. The writer Fortune describes this society as “crazy” because the
individuals don’t work with each other and don’t share nothing with themselves. The traditions
from Sebaa, where the idea of killing a person is considered a normal thing, for us it is abnormal.
If a person from a civilized society visits a type of society like the one from Sebaa, that person will
find it abnormal and completely barbaric.

Culture is built upon human behavior, language, education and willpower. Every society,
beginning with some slight inclination in one direction or another, carries it is preference farther
and farther, integrating itself more and more completely upon its chosen basis and discarding those
types of behavior that are deemed abnormal.

Both the concept of normal and abnormal are viewed differently in every culture. Each
culture is a more or less elaborate system that choses what should be included in an individuals
life and what not. Ruth Benedict mentions that individuals have certain types of behavior, shaped
by the culture they are influenced by.

To understand normal and abnormal human behavior in any absolute sense independent of
cultural factors is still a difficult task to accomplish, because each culture views life and traditions
differently and no common ground can be achieved for all of the cultures in the world, because the
human race is continuously changing each day.