Leslie White
Encyclopedia
Leslie Alvin White was an American anthropologist known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution, sociocultural evolution
, and especially neoevolutionism
, and for his role in creating the department of anthropology
at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. He was president of the American Anthropological Association (1964).
and then Louisiana
. He volunteered to fight in World War I
, but saw only the tail end of it, spending a year in the US Navy before matriculating at Louisiana State University
in 1919.
In 1921, he transferred to Columbia University
, where he studied psychology
, taking a BA
in 1923 and an MA
in 1924. Although White studied at the same university where Franz Boas
had lectured, White's understanding of anthropology was decidedly anti-Boasian. However, his interests even at this stage of his career were diverse, and he took classes in several other disciplines and institutions, including philosophy
at UCLA, and clinical psychiatry, before discovering anthropology via Alexander Goldenweiser's courses at the New School for Social Research. In 1925, White began studies for a Ph.D.
in sociology
/anthropology
at the University of Chicago
and had the opportunity of spending a few weeks with the Menominee
and Winnebago
in Wisconsin
. After his initial thesis proposal—a library thesis, which foreshadowed his later theoretical work—he conducted fieldwork at Acoma Pueblo
, New Mexico. Ph.D. in hand, he began teaching at the University at Buffalo
in 1927, where he began to rethink the antievolutionary views that his Boasian education had instilled in him. In 1930, he moved to Ann Arbor, where he remained for the rest of his active career.
The period at Buffalo marked a turning point in White's biography. It was then that he developed a worldview—anthropological, political, ethical—that he would hold to and advocate until his death. The student response to the then-controversial Boasian antievolutionary and antiracist doctrines that White espoused helped him formulate his own views regarding sociocultural evolution. In 1929, he visited the Soviet Union
and on his return joined the Socialist Labor Party, writing articles under the pseudonym "John Steel" for their newspaper.
White went to Michigan when he was hired to replace Julian Steward
, who departed Ann Arbor in 1930. Although the university was home to a museum with a long history of involvement in matters anthropological, White was the only professor in the anthropology department itself. In 1932, he headed a fieldschool in the southwest which was attended by Fred Eggan
, Mischa Titiev, and others.
It was Titiev that White brought to Michigan as a second professor in 1936. As a student of White—perhaps his status as a Russian immigrant was also salient—Titiev suited White perfectly. However, during the Second World War, Titiev took part in the war effort by studying Japan
. Perhaps this upset the socialist White—in any case by war's end White had broken with Titiev and the two were hardly even on speaking terms. More faculty were not hired until after the war, when the two-man department was expanded. This, compounded by the foundation by Titiev of the East Asian Studies Program and the import of scholars like Richard Beardsley into the department, created a split on which most professors fell one way or another.
As a professor in Ann Arbor, White trained a generation of influential students. While authors such as Robert Carneiro, Beth Dillingham, and Gertrude Dole carried on White's program in its orthodox form, other scholars such as Eric Wolf
, Arthur Jelinek, Elman Service
, and Marshall Sahlins
drew on their time with White to elaborate their own forms of anthropology.
, while Robert Lowie
referred to White's work as "a farrago of immature metaphysical notions," shaped by "the obsessive power of fanaticism [which] unconsciously warps one's vision."
One of the strongest deviations from Boasian orthodoxy was White's view of the nature of anthropology and its relation to other sciences present. White understood the world to be divided into cultural, biological, and physical levels of phenomenon. Such a division is a reflection of the composition of the universe and was not a heuristic
device. Thus, contrary to Alfred L. Kroeber
, Kluckhohn
, and Edward Sapir
, White saw the delineation of the object of study not as a cognitive accomplishment of the anthropologist, but as a recognition of the actually existing and delineated phenomena which comprise the world. The distinction between 'natural' and 'social' sciences was thus based not on method, but on the nature of the object of study: physicists study physical phenomena, biologists biological phenomena, and culturologists (White's term) cultural phenomena.
The object of study was not delineated by the researcher's viewpoint or interest, but the method by which he approached them could be. White believed that phenomena could be explored from three different points of view: the historical, the formal-functional, and the evolutionist (or formal-temporal). The historical view was essentially Boasian, dedicated to examining the particular diachronic cultural processes, "lovingly trying to penetrate into its secrets until every feature is plain and clear." The formal-functional is essentially the synchronic approach advocated by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown
and Bronisław Malinowski, attempting to discern the formal structure of a society and the functional interrelations of its components. The evolutionist approach is, like the formal approach, generalizing; but it is also diachronic, seeing particular events as general instances of larger trends.
Boas claimed his science promised complex and interdependent visions of culture, but White thought that it would delegitimize anthropology if it became the dominant position, removing it from broader discourses on science. White viewed his own approach as a synthesis of historical and functional approach because it combined the diachronic scope of one with the generalizing eye for formal interrelations provided by the other. As such, it could point out "the course of cultural development in the past and its probable course in the future" a task that was anthropology's "most valuable function."
As a result, White frequently championed nineteenth century evolutionists in a search for intellectual predecessors unclaimed or denounced by Boasians. This stance can be clearly seen in his views of evolution, which are firmly rooted in the writings of Herbert Spencer
, Charles Darwin
, and Lewis H. Morgan
. While it can be argued that White's exposition of Morgan and Spencer's was tendentious, it can be safely said that White's concepts of science and evolution were firmly rooted in their work. Advances in population biology and evolutionary theory passed White by and, unlike Steward, his conception of evolution and progress remained firmly rooted in the nineteenth century.
For White, culture was a superorganic entity that was sui generis
and could be explained only in terms of itself. It was composed of three levels: the technological, the social organizational, and the ideological. Each level rested on the previous one, and although they all interacted, ultimately the technological level was the determining one, what White calls "The hero of our piece" and "the leading character of our play." The most important factor in his theory is technology
: "Social systems are determined by technological systems", wrote White in his book, echoing the earlier theory of Lewis Henry Morgan.
White spoke of culture
as a general human phenomenon, and claimed not to speak of ‘cultures' in the plural. His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome, rekindled the interest in social evolutionism and is counted prominently among the neoevolutionists
. He believed that culture–meaning the total of all human cultural activity on the planet–was evolving. White differentiated three components of culture: technological, sociological, and ideological. He argued that it was the technological component which plays a primary role or is the primary determining factor responsible for the cultural evolution. His materialist approach is evident in the following quote: "man as an animal species, and consequently culture as a whole, is dependent upon the material, mechanical means of adjustment to the natural environment". This technological component can be described as material, mechanical, physical, and chemical instruments, as well as the way people use these techniques. White's argument on the importance of technology goes as follows:
For White "the primary function of culture" and the one that determines its level of advancement is its ability to "harness and control energy." White's law
states that the measure by which to judge the relative degree of evolvedness of culture was the amount of energy it could capture (energy consumption
).
White differentiates between five stages of human development. At first, people use the energy of their own muscles. Second, they use the energy of domesticated animals. Third, they use the energy of plants (so White refers to agricultural revolution
here). Fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. Fifth, they harness nuclear energy
. White introduced a formula,
where E is a measure of energy consumed per capita
per year, T is the measure of efficiency in utilising energy harnessed, and P represents the degree of cultural development in terms of product produced. In his own words: "the basic law of cultural evolution" was "culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased". Therefore "we find that progress and development are effected by the improvement of the mechanical means with which energy is harnessed and put to work as well as by increasing the amounts of energy employed". Although White stops short of promising that technology is the panacea for all the problems that affect mankind, like technological utopians do, his theory treats the technological factor as the most important factor in the evolution of society and is similar to ideas in the later works of Gerhard Lenski
, the theory of the Kardashev scale
of Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev
, and some notions of technological singularity
.
Sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time...
, and especially neoevolutionism
Neoevolutionism
Neoevolutionism is a social theory that tries to explain the evolution of societies by drawing on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and discarding some dogmas of the previous social evolutionism...
, and for his role in creating the department of anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. He was president of the American Anthropological Association (1964).
Biography
White's father was a peripatetic civil engineer. White lived first in KansasKansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
and then Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. He volunteered to fight in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, but saw only the tail end of it, spending a year in the US Navy before matriculating at Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
in 1919.
In 1921, he transferred to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he studied psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, taking a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1923 and an MA
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in 1924. Although White studied at the same university where Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
had lectured, White's understanding of anthropology was decidedly anti-Boasian. However, his interests even at this stage of his career were diverse, and he took classes in several other disciplines and institutions, including philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at UCLA, and clinical psychiatry, before discovering anthropology via Alexander Goldenweiser's courses at the New School for Social Research. In 1925, White began studies for a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
/anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
and had the opportunity of spending a few weeks with the Menominee
Menominee
Some placenames use other spellings, see also Menomonee and Menomonie.The Menominee are a nation of Native Americans living in Wisconsin. The Menominee, along with the Ho-Chunk, are the only tribes that are indigenous to what is now Wisconsin...
and Winnebago
Ho-Chunk
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....
in Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
. After his initial thesis proposal—a library thesis, which foreshadowed his later theoretical work—he conducted fieldwork at Acoma Pueblo
Acoma Pueblo
Acoma Pueblo is a Native American pueblo approximately 60 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico in the United States. Three reservations make up Acoma Pueblo: Sky City , Acomita, and McCartys. The Acoma Pueblo tribe is a federally recognized tribal entity...
, New Mexico. Ph.D. in hand, he began teaching at the University at Buffalo
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...
in 1927, where he began to rethink the antievolutionary views that his Boasian education had instilled in him. In 1930, he moved to Ann Arbor, where he remained for the rest of his active career.
The period at Buffalo marked a turning point in White's biography. It was then that he developed a worldview—anthropological, political, ethical—that he would hold to and advocate until his death. The student response to the then-controversial Boasian antievolutionary and antiracist doctrines that White espoused helped him formulate his own views regarding sociocultural evolution. In 1929, he visited the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and on his return joined the Socialist Labor Party, writing articles under the pseudonym "John Steel" for their newspaper.
White went to Michigan when he was hired to replace Julian Steward
Julian Steward
Julian Haynes Steward was an American anthropologist best known for his role in developing "the concept and method" of cultural ecology, as well as a scientific theory of culture change.-Early life and education:...
, who departed Ann Arbor in 1930. Although the university was home to a museum with a long history of involvement in matters anthropological, White was the only professor in the anthropology department itself. In 1932, he headed a fieldschool in the southwest which was attended by Fred Eggan
Fred Eggan
Frederick Russell Eggan was an American anthropologist best known for his innovative application of the principles of British social anthropology to the study of Native American tribes. He was the favorite student of the British social anthropologist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown during Radcliffe-Brown's...
, Mischa Titiev, and others.
It was Titiev that White brought to Michigan as a second professor in 1936. As a student of White—perhaps his status as a Russian immigrant was also salient—Titiev suited White perfectly. However, during the Second World War, Titiev took part in the war effort by studying Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Perhaps this upset the socialist White—in any case by war's end White had broken with Titiev and the two were hardly even on speaking terms. More faculty were not hired until after the war, when the two-man department was expanded. This, compounded by the foundation by Titiev of the East Asian Studies Program and the import of scholars like Richard Beardsley into the department, created a split on which most professors fell one way or another.
As a professor in Ann Arbor, White trained a generation of influential students. While authors such as Robert Carneiro, Beth Dillingham, and Gertrude Dole carried on White's program in its orthodox form, other scholars such as Eric Wolf
Eric Wolf
Eric Robert Wolf was an anthropologist, best known for his studies of peasants, Latin America, and his advocacy of Marxian perspectives within anthropology.-Early life:...
, Arthur Jelinek, Elman Service
Elman Service
Elman Rogers Service was an American cultural anthropologist.- Biography :He was born on May 18, 1915 in Tecumseh, Michigan and died on November 14, 1996 in Santa Barbara, California. He earned a Bachelors Degree in 1941 from the University of Michigan. He earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from...
, and Marshall Sahlins
Marshall Sahlins
Marshall David Sahlins is a prominent American anthropologist. He received both a Bachelors and Masters degree at the University of Michigan where he studied with Leslie White, and earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1954 where his main intellectual influences included Karl Polanyi and...
drew on their time with White to elaborate their own forms of anthropology.
White's anthropology
White's views were formulated specifically against the Boasians, with whom he was institutionally and intellectually at odds. This antagonism often took on an extremely personal form: White referred to Franz Boas's prose style as "corny" in no less a place than the American Journal of SociologyAmerican Journal of Sociology
The American Journal of Sociology was established in 1895 by Albion Small and is the oldest academic journal of sociology in the United States. The journal is attached to the University of Chicago's sociology department and it is published bimonthly by The University of Chicago Press. Its...
, while Robert Lowie
Robert Lowie
Robert Harry Lowie was an Austrian-born American anthropologist. An expert on North American Indians, he was instrumental in the development of modern anthropology.-Biography:...
referred to White's work as "a farrago of immature metaphysical notions," shaped by "the obsessive power of fanaticism [which] unconsciously warps one's vision."
One of the strongest deviations from Boasian orthodoxy was White's view of the nature of anthropology and its relation to other sciences present. White understood the world to be divided into cultural, biological, and physical levels of phenomenon. Such a division is a reflection of the composition of the universe and was not a heuristic
Heuristic
Heuristic refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution, where an exhaustive search is impractical...
device. Thus, contrary to Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber was an American anthropologist. He was the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and played an integral role in the early days of its Museum of Anthropology, where he served as director from 1909 through...
, Kluckhohn
Kluckhohn
Kluckhohn is the surname of:* August Kluckhohn , German historian* Clyde Kluckhohn , American anthropologist...
, and Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
, White saw the delineation of the object of study not as a cognitive accomplishment of the anthropologist, but as a recognition of the actually existing and delineated phenomena which comprise the world. The distinction between 'natural' and 'social' sciences was thus based not on method, but on the nature of the object of study: physicists study physical phenomena, biologists biological phenomena, and culturologists (White's term) cultural phenomena.
The object of study was not delineated by the researcher's viewpoint or interest, but the method by which he approached them could be. White believed that phenomena could be explored from three different points of view: the historical, the formal-functional, and the evolutionist (or formal-temporal). The historical view was essentially Boasian, dedicated to examining the particular diachronic cultural processes, "lovingly trying to penetrate into its secrets until every feature is plain and clear." The formal-functional is essentially the synchronic approach advocated by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown
Alfred Radcliffe-Brown
Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown was an English social anthropologist who developed the theory of Structural Functionalism.- Biography :...
and Bronisław Malinowski, attempting to discern the formal structure of a society and the functional interrelations of its components. The evolutionist approach is, like the formal approach, generalizing; but it is also diachronic, seeing particular events as general instances of larger trends.
Boas claimed his science promised complex and interdependent visions of culture, but White thought that it would delegitimize anthropology if it became the dominant position, removing it from broader discourses on science. White viewed his own approach as a synthesis of historical and functional approach because it combined the diachronic scope of one with the generalizing eye for formal interrelations provided by the other. As such, it could point out "the course of cultural development in the past and its probable course in the future" a task that was anthropology's "most valuable function."
As a result, White frequently championed nineteenth century evolutionists in a search for intellectual predecessors unclaimed or denounced by Boasians. This stance can be clearly seen in his views of evolution, which are firmly rooted in the writings of Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....
, Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, and Lewis H. Morgan
Lewis H. Morgan
Lewis Henry Morgan was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist, a railroad lawyer and capitalist. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois...
. While it can be argued that White's exposition of Morgan and Spencer's was tendentious, it can be safely said that White's concepts of science and evolution were firmly rooted in their work. Advances in population biology and evolutionary theory passed White by and, unlike Steward, his conception of evolution and progress remained firmly rooted in the nineteenth century.
For White, culture was a superorganic entity that was sui generis
Sui generis
Sui generis is a Latin expression, literally meaning of its own kind/genus or unique in its characteristics. The expression is often used in analytic philosophy to indicate an idea, an entity, or a reality which cannot be included in a wider concept....
and could be explained only in terms of itself. It was composed of three levels: the technological, the social organizational, and the ideological. Each level rested on the previous one, and although they all interacted, ultimately the technological level was the determining one, what White calls "The hero of our piece" and "the leading character of our play." The most important factor in his theory is technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
: "Social systems are determined by technological systems", wrote White in his book, echoing the earlier theory of Lewis Henry Morgan.
White spoke of culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
as a general human phenomenon, and claimed not to speak of ‘cultures' in the plural. His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome, rekindled the interest in social evolutionism and is counted prominently among the neoevolutionists
Neoevolutionism
Neoevolutionism is a social theory that tries to explain the evolution of societies by drawing on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and discarding some dogmas of the previous social evolutionism...
. He believed that culture–meaning the total of all human cultural activity on the planet–was evolving. White differentiated three components of culture: technological, sociological, and ideological. He argued that it was the technological component which plays a primary role or is the primary determining factor responsible for the cultural evolution. His materialist approach is evident in the following quote: "man as an animal species, and consequently culture as a whole, is dependent upon the material, mechanical means of adjustment to the natural environment". This technological component can be described as material, mechanical, physical, and chemical instruments, as well as the way people use these techniques. White's argument on the importance of technology goes as follows:
- Technology is an attempt to solve the problems of survival.
- This attempt ultimately means capturing enough energy and diverting it for human needs.
- Societies that capture more energy and use it more efficiently have an advantage over other societies.
- Therefore, these different societies are more advanced in an evolutionary sense.
White's law
White's law, named after Leslie White and published in 1943, states that, other factors remaining constant, "culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased".White spoke of...
states that the measure by which to judge the relative degree of evolvedness of culture was the amount of energy it could capture (energy consumption
World energy resources and consumption
]World energy consumption in 2010: over 5% growthEnergy markets have combined crisis recovery and strong industry dynamism. Energy consumption in the G20 soared by more than 5% in 2010, after the slight decrease of 2009. This strong increase is the result of two converging trends...
).
White differentiates between five stages of human development. At first, people use the energy of their own muscles. Second, they use the energy of domesticated animals. Third, they use the energy of plants (so White refers to agricultural revolution
Agricultural revolution
Agricultural Revolution or Agrarian Revolution may refer to:*The Neolithic Revolution , the initial transition from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture in prehistory...
here). Fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. Fifth, they harness nuclear energy
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
. White introduced a formula,
- P= ET,
where E is a measure of energy consumed per capita
Per capita
Per capita is a Latin prepositional phrase: per and capita . The phrase thus means "by heads" or "for each head", i.e. per individual or per person...
per year, T is the measure of efficiency in utilising energy harnessed, and P represents the degree of cultural development in terms of product produced. In his own words: "the basic law of cultural evolution" was "culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased". Therefore "we find that progress and development are effected by the improvement of the mechanical means with which energy is harnessed and put to work as well as by increasing the amounts of energy employed". Although White stops short of promising that technology is the panacea for all the problems that affect mankind, like technological utopians do, his theory treats the technological factor as the most important factor in the evolution of society and is similar to ideas in the later works of Gerhard Lenski
Gerhard Lenski
Gerhard Emmanuel Lenski is an American sociologist known for contributions to the sociology of religion, social inequality, and ecological-evolutionary social theory...
, the theory of the Kardashev scale
Kardashev scale
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring an advanced civilization's level of technological advancement. The scale is only theoretical and in terms of an actual civilization highly speculative; however, it puts energy consumption of an entire civilization in a cosmic perspective. It was first...
of Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev
Nikolai Kardashev
Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev is a Russian astrophysicist, and is the deputy director of the Russian Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.Kardashev graduated from Moscow State University in 1955, following up at...
, and some notions of technological singularity
Technological singularity
Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as...
.
Further reading
- Leslie A. White: Evolution and Revolution in Anthropology by William Peace. University of Nebraska Press, 2004 (the definitive biography of White).
- Richard Beardsley. An appraisal of Leslie A. White's scholarly influence. American Anthropologist 78:617-620, 1976.
- Jerry D. Moore. Leslie White: Evolution Emergent. Chapter 13 of Visions of Culture. pp. 169–180. AltaMira, 1997.
- Elman Service. Leslie Alvin White, 1900-1975. American Anthropologist 78:612-617, 1976.
- The Leslie White Papers - Finding guide and information about Leslie White's papers at the Bentley Historical library.
Selected publications
- Ethnological Essays: Selected Essays of Leslie A. White. University of New Mexico Press. 1987.
- The Science of Culture: A study of man and civilization. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1949.
- The Pueblo of Santa Ana, New Mexico. American Anthropological Association Memoir 60, 1942.
- The Pueblo of Santo Domingo. American Anthropological Association Memoir 60, 1935.
- The Pueblo of San Felipe. American Anthropological Association Memoir No. 38, 1932.
- The Acoma Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology, 47th annual report, pp. 1–192. Smithsonian Institution, 1932.