16 September 2017--
If the Era of McCarthyism is a fabulous one for those interested in the Cold War for research and writing, the topic most considered is the film industry and Hollywood. However, of late, an even more fascinating study is that of anthropology and the Red Scare, and for good reason. Ground Zero of the Witch Hunt appeared to be Columbia University and the Jewish grip on the anthropology department there.
Diverging for a paragraph or two from the main topic, what drew me to become interested in all of this was the rather dismal "no-life" profiles of the anthropologists themselves. What began as an inquiry on a very superficial level, just to get a passing grade in 101, was a background primer on the cast of characters.
It began by finding an old book review in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1988 written by Carlin Romano of the Clifford Geertz book, "Works and Lives, The Anthropologist as Author." Geertz seemed to touch on the personal lives as hinted by Romano, but only vaguely. It didn't take a whole lot of internet archeology to discover, most incredibly, the complicated, intertwined and rather jaded lives that fall into the category of ethnopolitics.
In one of my first discussion classes with the Teaching Assistant Solana Kline, I fielded the question as to why certain names in anthropology were bigger than others. It came to my attention that having listened to the lecture the day previous by Professor Erin Stiles, that a notion of fluid culture is at the forefront of theory. I then remembered the film "Lost Horizon" I had watched several times recently due to lack of anything better on On Demand. Looking further into the film and from which it was drawn, the novel by James Hilton, it dawned on me though the film diverged from the book, one thing was constant. That was the far away tranquil place up in the Himalayas or some inaccessible Chinese nowhere where nothing ever changed. I posed the question to TA Kline to rationalize the concept of constant cultural change to the old saying, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Following that was the question as to why some names were emphasized and others hardly worth a mention. Her answer was brief,
"Politics."
Going back to Hilton, he wrote the novel having read the exploits of early anthropologists as Joseph F. Rock, looking for the Mountains of Mystery in Tibet and published in the late 20's and early 30's in National Geographic. That's where the question came from, why is Rock overlooked and the others set in stone? The answer comes with one name, Franz Boas. He was, and still is, ethnopolitics; that's where the Red Scare begins.
Boas rejected the Tylor-Morgan hypothesis of "Savagery-Barbarism-Civilization." Boas rejected Darwinism, evolution and scoffed at genetics. Boas entertained, possibly only slightly, inheritance of acquired characteristics, known as Lamarckian Theory.
But Boas greatest achievement was laughing at the establishment, taking the white man and putting him in his place, equal to everyone else. He debunked the Nazis, trashed Nordic superiority propaganda, and when he was done with that, at his prime in his early 80's, he died suddenly of a heart attack, in 1942. His legacy remained firmly entrenched at Columbia University where a Jewish anti-racist rebellion had begun. It wasn't until the early 50's that it all caught up with his lieutenants and foot soldiers.
Having defeated the Nazis and the Japanese, the United States soon found itself surrounded by the Chinese Red Army that had come to the aid of the North Koreans, who were losing ground to the veteran American military forces under the command of Douglas MacArthur.
Somewhere in the back pages of the fight, an almost obscure preacher, the Reverend Dr. James Endicott, straight out of the propaganda leaflets dropped from the sky, floated an affidavit that the US Army was engaged in germ warfare. He alleged that insects had been infected with disease and scattered across the countryside, possibly by bombing.
In the span between the signing of the cease fire at Panmunjom and the Hearings on Congressional Operations, one of Boas' most gifted protégés, Gene Weltfish, released Endicott's allegation to various media outlets, several of which were known Communist publications. Dr. Weltfish was already on the FBI radar along with another Boasista, Ruth Benedict for the pamphlet "The Races of Mankind". They asserted that Northern Negroes had higher IQ's than Southern Whites. Naturally the good-ol' boy network went ballistic and the pamphlet was banned by the US Army for circulation and reading.
Between the Endicott allegation, which was refuted by his own Canadian colleagues, and the pamphlet, Weltfish found herself on the witness stand at the Senate hearings on April 1, 1953.
No, the Senators didn't go after Boas directly and personally, he'd been dead for over ten years. It was the Jewish school of anthropology at Columbia that came under direct attack with Weltfish defending it using the method employed by every blacklisted Hollywood actor, writer and film-maker, the Fifth Amendment.
The testimony opened with the Fifth and ended with the Fifth. Curiously, there was no way to indict or blacklist the cult of Boasistas. There was no way to punish Weltfish, she had just been canned from her position at Columbia. But a new word had re-emerged in the vocabulary although it had been around for decades-ethnopolitics.
So if the theme of this essay is why the anthropologists appear to have no life, look closer; look beyond their seemingly dull and routine gathering of data in a dusty library or out living with some lost tribe on a distant Pacific island. Look at their background, ethnic and political. See how quickly what appeared to be just regular people doing their jobs, doing their passion, found them accused of conspiracy, tailed by the FBI, and charged with being communists.
NOTES: Material for this writing was found in several places;
BOOK REVIEW--Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author, Clifford Geertz, Stanford U Press (1988)
Review by Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer, 10 July 1988
Dr. Franz Boas. Dr. Boas, Debunker Of Nazi Germany, Dies ; St. Louis Star Times Dec 22, 1942
BOOK REVIEW--Ruth Benedict. By Margaret Mead. Columbia University Press:
By LEE SCHNEIDER
Text from the actual McCarthy Committee hearings.
The Shreveport Times, June 26, 1955: Ref to Ruth Benedict "communist".
Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance; David H Price.
JC LANGELLE (C) 2017
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