Franz Boas Argument Against Cultural Evolution

535 Words2 Pages

The first anthropologist who argue against the cultural evolution is Franz Boas. Although Boas was born in Germany he did most of his work in the United States. He was the first person to identify the four field approach. He believed that anthropology can fall under cultural, linguistic, archeology and biology. This is important because it gives people who going to be in the field something to focus on instead of it being broad. Besides that another important contribution he did was the historical particularism theory. This theory discusses that each society has its own historical progress creating cultural uniqueness. These unique cultures should be understood in its own cultural and environmental context (book2. p.106). I was ecstatic when …show more content…

This was a different approach but it allows anthropologist to use raw data for more of an accurate evidence to argue their argument. For example. Boas did a craniometry study where he looks at the reason why head shapes changes in one generation. He wanted to prove that it’s not a race matter or the level of someone’s intelligence but rather within each generation of immigrant their lives changes to better access to nutrition and health care (book1, p.67). This was very important because at that time there were many racist idea around and to have proven that race is not biological was mind blowing. Even today after many years of fighting and protesting we still face racism. For example, the Black Lives Matter movement which started because of many black young men were being killed and having police brutality. Many people do not argue with them saying that they should focus on all lives matter which I think can be offensive. The reason it obviously every person lives matter, I mean no one lives is more important than the other but when you have a society were some people are more equal than others than something have to be said. Before saying all lives matter I think we should focus on the lives of the people that were oppressed for a long period of time. Also, all lives matter sending the message that our history does not exist and all the same level (lectures, 02/23/16).

Open Document