Nature/nurture and the Anthropology of Franz Boas and Margaret Mead as an Agenda for Revolutionary Politics1

There is much more involved in the nature/nurture debate than an abstract theoretical disagreement among dispassionate scientists. Each side of thetheoretical disagreement among dispassionate scientists. Each side of the debate leads logically to significantly different views of the social order and holds different implications for social policy. In this paper I shall argue that Boas’ Anthropology with its emphasis on cultural relativism was as much a social and political agenda as it was a scientific theory. The positions on public policy issues he opposed were informed (and rationalized) by what its advocates claimed to be science. To be able to counter the discriminatory policy proposals that followed from this science, it was necessary for Boas both to challenge its validity and then replace it with an alternative that would support a more liberal political agenda. This chapter of anthropology’s history gains relevance in today’s context as neoevolutionary, reductionist theories once more provide “scientific” support for conservative, separatist and often discriminatory social policies.