WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.339 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:06.839 up a file that is absolutely massive. It's part 00:00:06.839 --> 00:00:09.019 adventure story, part intellectual revolution, 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:12.619 and honestly, it's got enough drama to fill a 00:00:12.619 --> 00:00:15.380 dozen tabloids. Oh, at least. We are looking 00:00:15.380 --> 00:00:19.460 at a figure who didn't just study culture. She, 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:22.719 uh... She became a culture unto herself. We were 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:25.460 talking about the one and only Margaret Mead. 00:00:25.460 --> 00:00:28.500 It is genuinely impossible to overstate her footprint. 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:30.460 Right. I mean, when most people hear the word 00:00:30.460 --> 00:00:33.100 anthropologist. the image that pops into their 00:00:33.100 --> 00:00:35.719 head is Margaret Mead. Yeah, the cape, the stick. 00:00:36.020 --> 00:00:38.200 Exactly, and she wasn't just an academic writing 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:41.119 for other academics and, you know, dusty journals. 00:00:41.500 --> 00:00:44.659 She was a celebrity. She was a cultural icon 00:00:44.659 --> 00:00:47.179 who fundamentally changed how the Western world 00:00:47.179 --> 00:00:49.679 thinks about things as personal as adolescence, 00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:52.000 sex, and gender. She really was an icon. I mean, 00:00:52.020 --> 00:00:54.179 that look she had later in life, the cape, the 00:00:54.179 --> 00:00:56.000 big walking stick, she looked like a wizard or 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:58.340 something. She cultivated that image. Oh, for 00:00:58.340 --> 00:01:00.439 sure. But the reason we're doing this deep dive 00:01:00.439 --> 00:01:03.420 today is... just because she was famous. It's 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:05.500 because the questions she asked, what, almost 00:01:05.500 --> 00:01:09.219 100 years ago now? They are the exact same questions 00:01:09.219 --> 00:01:11.719 we are screaming at each other about on the internet 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:14.780 today. That's it. That is the mission of this 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:17.319 deep dive. We want to unpack the life of the 00:01:17.319 --> 00:01:20.120 woman who was, you know, arguably the most significant 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:22.900 public voice in anthropology in the entire 20th 00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:26.079 century. Okay. And for that, we have sources. 00:01:26.810 --> 00:01:28.730 What are we working with? We have pulled together 00:01:28.730 --> 00:01:31.650 a serious stack. We've got her biographical records. 00:01:31.790 --> 00:01:34.250 We've got her own ethnographies, which are surprisingly 00:01:34.250 --> 00:01:35.890 readable, by the way. She was a great writer. 00:01:36.049 --> 00:01:38.450 That's rare for an academic. Very. And we also 00:01:38.450 --> 00:01:41.650 have the academic critiques that tried to, well, 00:01:41.769 --> 00:01:44.489 destroy her reputation. And her private letters, 00:01:44.629 --> 00:01:47.209 which reveal a very different side of her than 00:01:47.209 --> 00:01:49.409 the public knew. And I have to say, just reading 00:01:49.409 --> 00:01:53.010 through the biographical stuff. The sheer adventurousness 00:01:53.010 --> 00:01:55.209 of this woman is staggering. It's incredible. 00:01:55.549 --> 00:01:58.170 I mean, picture it. It's the 1920s. She's in 00:01:58.170 --> 00:02:00.689 her early 20s. And she decides, you know what? 00:02:00.790 --> 00:02:03.909 I'm going to go to American Samoa. Alone. Alone. 00:02:04.030 --> 00:02:07.530 That is not a casual trip today. In 1925, that 00:02:07.530 --> 00:02:09.599 is like going to the moon. It was incredibly 00:02:09.599 --> 00:02:11.979 bold, but she wasn't just going for the thrill 00:02:11.979 --> 00:02:13.680 of it. You know, she was going on a scientific 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:16.900 mission. Right. And to understand why she went 00:02:16.900 --> 00:02:19.319 and why her work just exploded the way it did. 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:21.900 We have to frame this around the heavyweight 00:02:21.900 --> 00:02:24.539 title fight of the 20th century. Nature versus 00:02:24.539 --> 00:02:27.280 nurture. The classic battle. Is it our DNA or 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:29.919 is it our upbringing, our biology or our culture? 00:02:30.219 --> 00:02:33.379 Exactly. And Mead walked right into the center 00:02:33.379 --> 00:02:36.080 of that battlefield. Her work became the primary 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:38.199 ammunition for the argument that culture and 00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:40.939 nurture plays a much, much bigger role than biology. 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:43.599 So she's team nurture. She is the captain of 00:02:43.599 --> 00:02:46.599 team nurture. And this concept of cultural relativism, 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:49.560 that there isn't one right way to be human, that 00:02:49.560 --> 00:02:52.199 was the hill she planted her flag on. Okay. I 00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:55.000 love that framing. And for you listening, the 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:57.280 learner, as we like to call you, stick with us. 00:02:57.789 --> 00:03:00.710 We're going to move beyond the dry academic dates 00:03:00.710 --> 00:03:03.689 and facts. We want to get to those specific aha 00:03:03.689 --> 00:03:06.530 moments about human behavior that Mead uncovered. 00:03:06.729 --> 00:03:08.930 And we are absolutely going to get into the messy 00:03:08.930 --> 00:03:11.590 stuff, the controversies, and the secrets. Because 00:03:11.590 --> 00:03:13.949 science is rarely a straight line, and Margaret 00:03:13.949 --> 00:03:16.750 Mead's life certainly wasn't. Okay, so let's 00:03:16.750 --> 00:03:20.710 jump in. Section one, the Samoan bombshell. The 00:03:20.710 --> 00:03:22.780 big one. We have to start with the book that 00:03:22.780 --> 00:03:25.939 made her famous coming of age in Samoa. So set 00:03:25.939 --> 00:03:28.599 the scene for us. It's 1925. Where exactly is 00:03:28.599 --> 00:03:30.990 she? Okay, so she arrives in American Samoa, 00:03:31.110 --> 00:03:33.930 specifically on the island of Tau in the Manoa 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:36.770 archipelago. So remote. Very remote. And you 00:03:36.770 --> 00:03:39.009 have to remember the context of the Western world 00:03:39.009 --> 00:03:41.909 at this time. In the U .S. and Europe, educators, 00:03:42.270 --> 00:03:44.789 psychologists, philosophers, they all held a 00:03:44.789 --> 00:03:47.349 very, very specific view about teenagers. Which 00:03:47.349 --> 00:03:49.669 was what? That teenagers are universally nightmares? 00:03:49.949 --> 00:03:51.629 Essentially, yes. That's a good way to put it. 00:03:51.689 --> 00:03:53.650 The prevailing wisdom was that the emotional 00:03:53.650 --> 00:03:55.949 turbulence of adolescence, you know, the angst, 00:03:55.949 --> 00:03:59.150 the rebellion, the mood swings, was biologically 00:03:59.150 --> 00:04:02.289 inevitable. Hardwired. Exactly. They believed 00:04:02.289 --> 00:04:04.750 that because the body is changing during puberty, 00:04:04.930 --> 00:04:08.169 the spirit must inevitably be stormy. It was 00:04:08.169 --> 00:04:10.849 treated as a fact of nature, like losing your 00:04:10.849 --> 00:04:13.810 baby teeth. So if you were a parent in 1925, 00:04:14.210 --> 00:04:16.670 the experts were telling you, look, your kid 00:04:16.670 --> 00:04:18.629 is going to be miserable and difficult and there 00:04:18.629 --> 00:04:20.730 is nothing you can do about it because it's part 00:04:20.730 --> 00:04:22.790 of the human blueprint. That was the hypothesis. 00:04:22.970 --> 00:04:25.810 That was the accepted truth. And Mead, who was 00:04:25.810 --> 00:04:28.500 a student of the great Franz Boa. The father 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:30.300 of American anthropology. The father of American 00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:33.439 anthropology. Yes. She went to Samoa specifically 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:36.800 to test that. She had a very simple but profound 00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:40.720 question. Is this emotional turbulence biologically 00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:43.420 inevitable or is it a product of society? Nature 00:04:43.420 --> 00:04:46.139 or nurture. Exactly. Because if she could find 00:04:46.139 --> 00:04:49.319 just one place anywhere in the world where teenagers 00:04:49.319 --> 00:04:51.220 weren't miserable. Then the whole biological 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:53.060 theory falls apart. The whole thing collapses. 00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:56.560 So she embeds herself in Samoan life. She's living. 00:04:56.620 --> 00:04:58.379 there she's learning the language watching the 00:04:58.379 --> 00:05:00.540 girls taking notes what did she actually find 00:05:00.540 --> 00:05:04.920 she found a world that was um radically different 00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:08.120 from 1920s america just fundamentally different 00:05:08.519 --> 00:05:11.300 In what ways? Well, first, she observed that 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:14.139 children in Samoan society were largely ignored 00:05:14.139 --> 00:05:17.019 until they were about 15 or 16. Ignored. Yeah. 00:05:17.079 --> 00:05:18.759 I mean, they were cared for, but they weren't 00:05:18.759 --> 00:05:21.019 the center of the universe, like, say, an American 00:05:21.019 --> 00:05:23.839 child might be. They had very little social standing. 00:05:24.220 --> 00:05:27.500 But paradoxically, that lack of standing gave 00:05:27.500 --> 00:05:30.439 them effectively greater freedom. That's interesting. 00:05:30.540 --> 00:05:33.000 So because they weren't important. Nobody was 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:34.879 breathing down their necks all the time. Exactly 00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:37.259 right. There wasn't this intense pressure to 00:05:37.259 --> 00:05:40.800 succeed, to conform, to decide your entire future 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:43.500 at age 14. They just they existed. They did their 00:05:43.500 --> 00:05:45.740 shores. They played. And that lack of pressure 00:05:45.740 --> 00:05:47.560 made a difference. A huge difference. But the 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:48.980 biggest difference, and this is the one that 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:51.639 made the book a sensation, was the attitude towards 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:54.800 sex. I feel like we can't talk about mead without 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:57.720 talking about this. She described a society that 00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:01.560 was. Let's say much more relaxed than the U .S. 00:06:01.560 --> 00:06:03.740 at the time. Relaxed is a good word. She described 00:06:03.740 --> 00:06:06.199 a society with what we would call casual, non 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:08.680 -monogamous relations. So sleeping around was 00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:11.660 just normal. For young, unmarried people, yes. 00:06:11.740 --> 00:06:15.399 It wasn't seen as a moral crisis. She also noted 00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:17.459 that the Samoans were much more comfortable with 00:06:17.459 --> 00:06:20.329 biological realities. things like menstruation 00:06:20.329 --> 00:06:22.129 which were you know totally hush -hush and shameful 00:06:22.129 --> 00:06:25.509 in america were just facts of life there no stigma 00:06:25.509 --> 00:06:29.430 a distinct lack of what she called sexual neuroses 00:06:29.430 --> 00:06:32.389 there wasn't all this guilt and anxiety and fear 00:06:32.389 --> 00:06:35.389 wrapped up in it and she explicitly writes about 00:06:35.389 --> 00:06:38.810 love affairs among unmarried young people she 00:06:38.810 --> 00:06:41.149 does she paints this picture of you know love 00:06:41.149 --> 00:06:44.139 under the palm trees She detailed how adolescents 00:06:44.139 --> 00:06:46.399 had the freedom to experiment with different 00:06:46.399 --> 00:06:49.199 partners. It was seen as a normal part of growing 00:06:49.199 --> 00:06:51.680 up, of learning about relationships. So it wasn't 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:54.459 about finding the one right away? Not at all. 00:06:54.500 --> 00:06:56.579 It was about exploration. She even noted that 00:06:56.579 --> 00:06:58.879 homosexual relationships were present and were 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:00.959 not stigmatized in the way they were in the West. 00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:03.220 Really? Yeah, it was viewed as part of that playful, 00:07:03.379 --> 00:07:05.879 experimental phase of life. It wasn't about identity. 00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:08.860 It was just an experience. Now, was it a total 00:07:08.860 --> 00:07:11.800 free -for -all or were there some rules? Oh, 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:13.579 there were definitely rules. It wasn't anarchy. 00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:16.839 She specifically mentions the topo. The what? 00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:19.360 The topo. She was the ceremonial princess of 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:22.639 the village. And the topo absolutely had to be 00:07:22.639 --> 00:07:25.360 a virgin. The honor of the entire village depended 00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:27.759 on it. Okay, so there was a double standard there, 00:07:27.819 --> 00:07:30.699 in a way. A very specific one, tied to rank and 00:07:30.699 --> 00:07:33.540 ceremony. But for the average girl, the restrictions 00:07:33.540 --> 00:07:36.660 were minimal. The main concern was avoiding pregnancy 00:07:36.660 --> 00:07:39.279 outside of a stable relationship. But the act 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:42.259 itself wasn't seen as sinful. And so the aha 00:07:42.259 --> 00:07:46.279 moment she reaches is massive. She's looking 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:47.839 at these girls who are going through puberty, 00:07:47.899 --> 00:07:50.500 same hormones, same bodily changes, American 00:07:50.500 --> 00:07:53.360 girls. But they aren't having breakdowns. Exactly. 00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:55.100 They aren't fighting with their parents. They 00:07:55.100 --> 00:07:56.600 aren't miserable and angsty. They're growing 00:07:56.600 --> 00:07:59.360 up. Mead concluded that adolescence in Samoa 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:02.480 was not stormy. It was perhaps the most peaceful 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:04.980 and easy time of a person's life. Therefore. 00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:07.959 Therefore, teenage angst is cultural, not biological. 00:08:08.220 --> 00:08:10.519 It is a product of our specific civilization, 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:12.800 our specific pressures, our monogamous traditions, 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.139 and our specific hangups about sex. That is a 00:08:16.139 --> 00:08:19.459 huge mic drop for 1928. It's an earthquake. It 00:08:19.459 --> 00:08:21.459 basically told American parents and the whole 00:08:21.459 --> 00:08:23.579 establishment, your kids aren't miserable because 00:08:23.579 --> 00:08:25.040 they're teenagers. They're miserable because 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.420 of how we live. It was revolutionary. It shifted 00:08:27.420 --> 00:08:30.980 the blame from biology to society and it made 00:08:30.980 --> 00:08:34.240 her famous. I mean, overnight famous. But we 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:36.419 have to address the elephant in the room because 00:08:36.419 --> 00:08:39.379 decades later, this entire body of work came 00:08:39.379 --> 00:08:42.340 under very, very heavy fire. Enter Derek Freeman. 00:08:42.539 --> 00:08:45.259 Derek Freeman. a New Zealand anthropologist, 00:08:45.419 --> 00:08:47.519 and when I say he was her critic, I mean he made 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:50.500 it his life's work to dismantle her legacy. Wow. 00:08:50.700 --> 00:08:54.299 He published two big books, one in 1983 and another 00:08:54.299 --> 00:08:58.539 in 1998 after Mead had died, notably just attacking 00:08:58.539 --> 00:09:01.059 her findings from every possible angle. Okay, 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.139 so what was his core argument? Did he just think 00:09:03.139 --> 00:09:05.320 she misinterpreted some things? He went much, 00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:07.679 much further than that. He argued that Mead was 00:09:07.679 --> 00:09:10.240 either deliberately lying, which is a huge charge, 00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:13.360 or... And this is the more famous claim that 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:17.039 she was hoaxed. Yes, he famously claimed that 00:09:17.039 --> 00:09:19.240 the young Samoan girl she interviewed had been 00:09:19.240 --> 00:09:21.519 pulling her leg. It's called the hoaxing theory. 00:09:22.039 --> 00:09:24.039 So the idea is they were just telling her these 00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:27.480 wild tall tales about their sex lives because 00:09:27.480 --> 00:09:29.700 they thought it was funny. That's the theory. 00:09:29.799 --> 00:09:32.620 That she was this naive young American woman 00:09:32.620 --> 00:09:34.759 and they were just having a laugh at her expense. 00:09:34.899 --> 00:09:37.620 And what was his version of Samoa? He painted 00:09:37.620 --> 00:09:40.080 a picture of a society that was the polar opposite 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:43.639 of Meads. He claimed Samoa was actually characterized 00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:48.139 by extreme sexual repression, a rigid puritanical 00:09:48.139 --> 00:09:50.940 Christian morality. The opposite of casual. The 00:09:50.940 --> 00:09:53.330 total. opposite. He also pointed to high rates 00:09:53.330 --> 00:09:55.850 of violence, of assault, and adolescent delinquency. 00:09:56.129 --> 00:09:58.750 He described a society that was strict, competitive, 00:09:59.049 --> 00:10:01.649 and punitive. Okay, so we have two completely 00:10:01.649 --> 00:10:04.990 contradictory accounts. Who was right? Did the 00:10:04.990 --> 00:10:07.009 academic world just turn on her after she died? 00:10:07.129 --> 00:10:09.070 It was a massive controversy. I mean, this was 00:10:09.070 --> 00:10:11.049 on the cover of Time magazine. It was a huge 00:10:11.049 --> 00:10:13.429 public debate. But within the anthropological 00:10:13.429 --> 00:10:16.769 community, the dust has settled somewhere in 00:10:16.769 --> 00:10:19.070 the middle, though leaning pretty far away from 00:10:19.070 --> 00:10:22.120 Freeman's most extreme claims. How so? Well, 00:10:22.220 --> 00:10:25.240 most experts rejected his harshest criticisms. 00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:28.519 They pointed out a few key things. First, Freeman 00:10:28.519 --> 00:10:30.899 did his fieldwork decades later. He was there 00:10:30.899 --> 00:10:33.980 in the 1940s and again in the 60s. That's a long 00:10:33.980 --> 00:10:37.620 time after 1925. A very long time. And in that 00:10:37.620 --> 00:10:39.799 period, the islands had been heavily, heavily 00:10:39.799 --> 00:10:42.360 influenced by Western missionaries and, just 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:45.539 as importantly, by World War II. So he was looking 00:10:45.539 --> 00:10:48.440 at a different Samoa than she was. The culture 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:52.019 had changed. Precisely. Also, he was a man. An 00:10:52.019 --> 00:10:54.860 older man asking questions about sex. She was 00:10:54.860 --> 00:10:57.220 a young woman asking other young women. The kind 00:10:57.220 --> 00:10:59.000 of access and information they would each get 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:00.740 would be totally different. That makes sense. 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:03.279 So the consensus now is that, look, maybe Mead 00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:05.220 idealized things a bit. Maybe she simplified 00:11:05.220 --> 00:11:07.440 the picture to make her point more powerfully. 00:11:07.559 --> 00:11:09.580 She was making an argument, not just taking notes. 00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:12.100 Exactly. She had a thesis to prove. But was she 00:11:12.100 --> 00:11:15.480 fundamentally wrong? Was Samoa a violent, repressed 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:18.580 society in the 1920s? Most anthropologists today 00:11:18.580 --> 00:11:20.620 would say no. Freeman's portrayal was the one 00:11:20.620 --> 00:11:23.059 that was more skewed. Her central thesis that 00:11:23.059 --> 00:11:25.799 culture shapes personality remains valid. So 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:28.080 she survives the scandal, at least in the academic 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:30.919 world. But she didn't just stop there in Samoa. 00:11:30.980 --> 00:11:33.639 She kept moving. Oh, she was just getting started. 00:11:33.980 --> 00:11:36.679 And that brings us to section two, redefining 00:11:36.679 --> 00:11:39.080 gender. Because if you think her take on teenagers 00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:41.700 was radical, her take on men and women in the 00:11:41.700 --> 00:11:44.639 1930s was absolutely wild. This is my favorite 00:11:44.639 --> 00:11:47.240 part of her work because it's so incredibly structured 00:11:47.240 --> 00:11:50.120 and elegant in its argument. Okay, so where does 00:11:50.120 --> 00:11:52.590 she go after Samoa? She goes to the Sepik River 00:11:52.590 --> 00:11:55.090 watershed in Papua New Guinea. This is between 00:11:55.090 --> 00:11:59.090 1931 and 1933. And this time she is there with 00:11:59.090 --> 00:12:01.370 her then husband, Rio Fortune. We'll get back 00:12:01.370 --> 00:12:04.169 to it later. We will. But together they produce 00:12:04.169 --> 00:12:07.149 a book called Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive 00:12:07.149 --> 00:12:09.909 Societies. And the key here is the three. Right. 00:12:09.950 --> 00:12:11.730 She studies three different tribes in the same 00:12:11.730 --> 00:12:14.230 geographic region to compare and contrast them. 00:12:14.330 --> 00:12:16.549 Yes. She treats it almost like a natural laboratory 00:12:16.549 --> 00:12:19.610 experiment. She wants to know, is being a man 00:12:19.610 --> 00:12:22.779 or being a woman? woman a universal thing? Do 00:12:22.779 --> 00:12:25.779 these roles look the same everywhere? Spoilers, 00:12:25.779 --> 00:12:28.179 they do not. They absolutely do not. So let's 00:12:28.179 --> 00:12:30.299 break down the three cultures she found because 00:12:30.299 --> 00:12:33.759 they are just wildly different. First up, the 00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:38.120 mountain Arapesh. The Arapesh. OK, so Meade described 00:12:38.120 --> 00:12:41.120 them as a society where both men and women displayed 00:12:41.120 --> 00:12:43.000 traits that Westerners at the time would have 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:46.220 considered exclusively feminine. Meaning what 00:12:46.220 --> 00:12:48.539 exactly? What does a feminine society look like? 00:12:48.830 --> 00:12:51.250 They were gentle. They were responsive to the 00:12:51.250 --> 00:12:54.190 needs of others. They were cooperative. Aggression 00:12:54.190 --> 00:12:57.269 was deeply frowned upon for everyone. So no tough 00:12:57.269 --> 00:13:00.350 guys. No. In fact, an aggressive man was seen 00:13:00.350 --> 00:13:03.370 as abnormal, as a social deviant. And crucially, 00:13:03.549 --> 00:13:06.110 both the fathers and the mothers were deeply 00:13:06.110 --> 00:13:08.809 involved in child rearing in a very nurturing 00:13:08.809 --> 00:13:11.830 way. Both parents were maternal. Exactly. So 00:13:11.830 --> 00:13:14.549 in Arapesh society, being a good man meant being 00:13:14.549 --> 00:13:17.309 gentle, cooperative, and maternal. Okay, so that's 00:13:17.309 --> 00:13:19.429 tribe number one. And she goes, what, down the 00:13:19.429 --> 00:13:21.490 river? Literally down the river. And she finds 00:13:21.490 --> 00:13:23.889 the Mundugamor, who are also known as the Biwat. 00:13:24.090 --> 00:13:26.070 And they were different. They were the complete 00:13:26.070 --> 00:13:29.129 polar opposite of the Arapesh. She found that 00:13:29.129 --> 00:13:31.629 in this society, both men and women displayed 00:13:31.629 --> 00:13:33.809 traits that Westerners would call masculine. 00:13:34.149 --> 00:13:36.769 So everyone was a tough guy here. Everyone. She 00:13:36.769 --> 00:13:40.750 described them as aggressive, violent, non -nurturing. 00:13:40.830 --> 00:13:43.870 They were ruthless in their interactions. Hostility 00:13:43.870 --> 00:13:46.600 and suspicion were the norm. Wow. What about 00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:48.740 child rearing? It was almost an afterthought. 00:13:49.159 --> 00:13:51.600 Babies were seen as a nuisance. There was very 00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:53.759 little warmth or affection from either parent. 00:13:54.019 --> 00:13:56.320 Both the men and the women were expected to be 00:13:56.320 --> 00:13:59.820 tough, combative and individualistic. So in the 00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:02.080 first group, everyone acts like a stereotypical 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:05.679 1930s good mother. And in the second group. Just 00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:08.120 a few miles away, everyone acts like a stereotypical 00:14:08.120 --> 00:14:11.039 warrior. Exactly. A fascinating contrast. But 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:12.759 the third group is the one that really flips 00:14:12.759 --> 00:14:15.299 the script. The Chambuli. Now called the Chambri. 00:14:15.399 --> 00:14:17.700 Yes. This is the famous role reversal one. It 00:14:17.700 --> 00:14:21.360 is. In Chambuli society, Meade observed a near 00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:24.179 perfect reversal of Western gender roles of the 00:14:24.179 --> 00:14:27.899 time. The women were the dominant partners. Dominant. 00:14:27.940 --> 00:14:30.080 They were the ones with the shaved heads, which 00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:32.519 was a sign of their status. She described them 00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:36.360 as brisk, efficient. practical, business -minded 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:38.840 managers. They controlled the fishing and the 00:14:38.840 --> 00:14:42.220 marketplace. They provided the food. They ran 00:14:42.220 --> 00:14:44.500 the show. So they were the breadwinners, the 00:14:44.500 --> 00:14:47.919 bosses. The bosses. They were impersonal and 00:14:47.919 --> 00:14:50.000 in charge. And the men, what were they doing? 00:14:50.379 --> 00:14:53.000 The men were the artists. They were the ones 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:56.240 concerned with aesthetics and ceremony. She described 00:14:56.240 --> 00:14:58.639 them as being emotionally dependent on the women. 00:14:58.779 --> 00:15:01.120 And catty. I saw that in the sources. That was 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:03.679 her word. She said they spent their time gossiping, 00:15:03.679 --> 00:15:06.299 engaging in petty rivalries, and worrying about 00:15:06.299 --> 00:15:08.379 their appearance wearing elaborate curls and 00:15:08.379 --> 00:15:10.820 ornaments. They were focused on whether the women 00:15:10.820 --> 00:15:13.559 approved of their art and their looks. That is, 00:15:13.559 --> 00:15:15.799 I mean, for 1935, that must have been absolutely 00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:18.220 mind -blowing to read. It was a bombshell. And 00:15:18.220 --> 00:15:21.220 here is the aha. Moment. The genius of the book. 00:15:21.399 --> 00:15:24.759 Mead synthesized this perfectly. She argued that 00:15:24.759 --> 00:15:27.139 temperament, what we might call personality or 00:15:27.139 --> 00:15:29.419 gender expression, is not linked to biological 00:15:29.419 --> 00:15:32.279 sex. Because if it were biological, men would 00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:35.299 be aggressive everywhere. Precisely. If biology 00:15:35.299 --> 00:15:37.879 dictated that men are leaders and women are followers, 00:15:38.200 --> 00:15:41.159 then the Chambuli wouldn't exist. Right. If biology 00:15:41.159 --> 00:15:43.440 dictated that women are naturally nurturing and 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:46.259 men are not, the Arapesh wouldn't exist. So she 00:15:46.259 --> 00:15:48.240 comes to this really revolutionary conclusion. 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:52.019 If one tribe can make everyone gentle and another 00:15:52.019 --> 00:15:54.419 can make everyone aggressive and a third can 00:15:54.419 --> 00:15:57.980 make men feminine and women masculine, then we 00:15:57.980 --> 00:16:00.399 can't say that passivity is naturally female 00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:03.570 or aggression is naturally male. Right. She basically 00:16:03.570 --> 00:16:05.490 laid the groundwork for the modern distinction 00:16:05.490 --> 00:16:08.789 we make between sex, the biological parts you're 00:16:08.789 --> 00:16:11.269 born with, and gender, the social role you learn 00:16:11.269 --> 00:16:13.549 to play. The costume you wear. The costume your 00:16:13.549 --> 00:16:15.950 culture hands you. She showed that a society 00:16:15.950 --> 00:16:18.269 can take a biological male and mold him into 00:16:18.269 --> 00:16:20.649 a gentle nurturer or take a biological female 00:16:20.649 --> 00:16:23.029 and mold her into a dominant, aggressive leader. 00:16:23.649 --> 00:16:27.549 The possibilities are, as she put it, It connects 00:16:27.549 --> 00:16:30.389 so directly to modern thought. I mean, the conversations 00:16:30.389 --> 00:16:32.429 we are having right now about gender fluidity, 00:16:32.429 --> 00:16:35.450 about non -binary identities, Mead was providing 00:16:35.450 --> 00:16:37.649 the cross -cultural data for that 80, 90 years 00:16:37.649 --> 00:16:40.669 ago. She was. She was doing it by physically 00:16:40.669 --> 00:16:43.289 stepping outside her own culture to see that 00:16:43.289 --> 00:16:45.730 the rules we live by aren't laws of nature. They're 00:16:45.730 --> 00:16:48.110 just stories we tell ourselves. Which is a powerful 00:16:48.110 --> 00:16:51.350 idea. Now, speaking of how she gathered this 00:16:51.350 --> 00:16:54.330 data. She was also innovating the actual tools 00:16:54.330 --> 00:16:56.929 of the trade. She was. And that takes us to section 00:16:56.929 --> 00:17:00.850 three, visual anthropology and the ethics of 00:17:00.850 --> 00:17:04.150 observation. Because she realized at some point 00:17:04.150 --> 00:17:06.369 that writing things down in a notebook wasn't 00:17:06.369 --> 00:17:08.730 enough. No, especially when you're studying things 00:17:08.730 --> 00:17:12.529 that are nonverbal, like dance or religious trances 00:17:12.529 --> 00:17:15.650 or the subtle ways a mother holds a baby. You 00:17:15.650 --> 00:17:17.549 need to see it. So where does this innovation 00:17:17.549 --> 00:17:20.890 happen? This happens in Bali from 1936 to 1938. 00:17:21.250 --> 00:17:23.509 And this time she was with her third husband, 00:17:23.730 --> 00:17:26.220 Gregory Bateson. Bateson. Okay, so he's on the 00:17:26.220 --> 00:17:28.920 scene now. And in Bali, they went heavy on the 00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:31.359 tech. Massively heavy. For the time it was cutting 00:17:31.359 --> 00:17:34.599 edge, they took 25 ,000 photographs. And they 00:17:34.599 --> 00:17:37.059 shot 22 ,000 feet of film. This was just, it 00:17:37.059 --> 00:17:39.319 was unprecedented in anthropology. How did they 00:17:39.319 --> 00:17:41.140 even process all that in the field? That's an 00:17:41.140 --> 00:17:43.539 incredible amount of material. It was a monumental 00:17:43.539 --> 00:17:46.759 effort. But the goal was to capture what they 00:17:46.759 --> 00:17:50.400 called culture at a distance. To create a truly 00:17:50.400 --> 00:17:53.289 objective record. What was the methodology like? 00:17:53.349 --> 00:17:55.569 Were they just pointing a camera at things? It 00:17:55.569 --> 00:17:57.769 was much more systematic than that. The method 00:17:57.769 --> 00:18:00.450 was fascinating. Mead would be sitting there 00:18:00.450 --> 00:18:03.109 with her notepad, scribbling these rapid -fire, 00:18:03.190 --> 00:18:05.529 moment -by -moment notes about the social interactions. 00:18:05.650 --> 00:18:08.349 Okay. While Bateson, who was a brilliant photographer, 00:18:08.710 --> 00:18:11.250 operated the camera, capturing the same moments 00:18:11.250 --> 00:18:14.049 on film, so later they could sync the visual 00:18:14.049 --> 00:18:16.029 record with the written observation. That's a 00:18:16.029 --> 00:18:18.470 whole new level of data collection. It was, and 00:18:18.470 --> 00:18:21.660 works like their film, Trance and Dance, Bali 00:18:21.660 --> 00:18:24.460 come from this period. It really birthed the 00:18:24.460 --> 00:18:27.599 entire field of visual anthropology. But Mead 00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:30.000 didn't just take snapshots of cultures. She was 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:32.279 also one of the first to commit to long -term 00:18:32.279 --> 00:18:34.940 study, right? Yes, and this is another one of 00:18:34.940 --> 00:18:37.640 her major contributions. We have to talk about 00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:39.940 her work with the Manus people in the Admiralty 00:18:39.940 --> 00:18:42.359 Islands. This is the longitudinal study, the 00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:45.039 one where she kept going back. She did. She first 00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:48.019 went in 1928, and then she returned over and 00:18:48.019 --> 00:18:51.460 over again for five decades. She wrote the book 00:18:51.460 --> 00:18:55.240 New Lives for Old in 1956, and it was a stunning 00:18:55.240 --> 00:18:58.519 document. Why? What did she see? She watched 00:18:58.519 --> 00:19:00.619 a society move from what we'd call the Stone 00:19:00.619 --> 00:19:03.319 Age to the Atomic Age in a single generation. 00:19:03.700 --> 00:19:06.099 That's an incredible amount of change to witness 00:19:06.099 --> 00:19:08.420 firsthand. It was, and she was there for some 00:19:08.420 --> 00:19:10.319 of the most dramatic parts of it. This is where 00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:12.359 we get the story of the noise. The noise, what 00:19:12.359 --> 00:19:14.720 was that? It sounds ominous. It was a cargo cult 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:17.079 phenomenon. I've heard that term. What does it 00:19:17.079 --> 00:19:19.619 mean? It was a kind of millenarian religious 00:19:19.619 --> 00:19:23.279 event. After World War II, the villagers had 00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:25.059 seen all this incredible Western technology, 00:19:25.400 --> 00:19:29.000 the cargo from the military bases, and a movement 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:31.740 arose believing that a new age was coming instantly. 00:19:31.799 --> 00:19:34.140 And how would this new age arrive? Supernaturally. 00:19:34.140 --> 00:19:36.539 They believed their ancestors would return on 00:19:36.539 --> 00:19:38.880 ships or planes, bringing the cargo with them. 00:19:39.180 --> 00:19:41.880 And to prepare for it, they had to destroy their 00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:44.880 old world. Destroy it. They destroyed their traditional 00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:47.579 possessions, their tools, their masks, their 00:19:47.579 --> 00:19:49.480 ritual objects. They threw them into the sea. 00:19:50.380 --> 00:19:52.940 Meade describes them shaking like leaves, caught 00:19:52.940 --> 00:19:55.420 up in this religious fervor, believing that the 00:19:55.420 --> 00:19:58.039 Western goods and way of life would just appear. 00:19:58.319 --> 00:20:00.759 That is terrifying and fascinating. They destroyed 00:20:00.759 --> 00:20:03.519 their own history, hoping for a new future. It 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:07.160 was a radical, desperate act. But what's so interesting 00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:09.859 is how it evolved. It didn't just fizzle out. 00:20:09.940 --> 00:20:12.079 It turned into something called the Paleo movement. 00:20:12.500 --> 00:20:15.880 It was Paleo. Paleo was a local leader, a visionary, 00:20:16.119 --> 00:20:18.700 and he channeled that desire for change into 00:20:18.700 --> 00:20:20.819 a political movement. movement. He pushed for 00:20:20.819 --> 00:20:23.960 a new way in the local TikTok Pisin language, 00:20:24.200 --> 00:20:26.799 Nufalahasin. And this wasn't about magic anymore. 00:20:27.019 --> 00:20:29.019 No, it was practical. It was about embracing 00:20:29.019 --> 00:20:31.740 Western style governance, building schools, opening 00:20:31.740 --> 00:20:34.420 clinics. It was a push for modernization from 00:20:34.420 --> 00:20:37.400 within on their own terms. And Mead documented 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:40.059 the entire arc from magical thinking to political 00:20:40.059 --> 00:20:42.819 action. She showed how a culture can completely 00:20:42.819 --> 00:20:45.079 rewrite its own operating system when it decides 00:20:45.079 --> 00:20:49.740 to. That's an incredible story. However. We can't 00:20:49.740 --> 00:20:52.599 look at this era of her research without seeing 00:20:52.599 --> 00:20:54.319 some of the cracks in the ethical foundation. 00:20:54.579 --> 00:20:57.140 No, we can't. We need to talk about the somatotyping 00:20:57.140 --> 00:21:00.579 studies. Yes. This is the darker side of the 00:21:00.579 --> 00:21:02.240 research, and it's important to confront it. 00:21:02.619 --> 00:21:07.140 In 1953 and 1954, Mead and her team were interested 00:21:07.140 --> 00:21:11.180 in... body types you know the idea of endomorph 00:21:11.180 --> 00:21:13.539 mesomorph ectomorph right the different body 00:21:13.539 --> 00:21:15.900 shapes they wanted to see how body type might 00:21:15.900 --> 00:21:18.160 relate to personality and cultural adaptation 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:21.740 and to study body types you need to see the body 00:21:21.740 --> 00:21:23.720 you need to see the body they took nude photographs 00:21:23.720 --> 00:21:26.099 of the villagers hundreds of them okay this is 00:21:26.099 --> 00:21:28.480 where the modern listener goes Whoa, did they 00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:31.059 consent to this? And that is the absolute core 00:21:31.059 --> 00:21:33.920 of the controversy. Critics like the anthropologist 00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:36.619 Leonora Forstall have pointed out that consent 00:21:36.619 --> 00:21:38.599 was often sought from the Australian colonial 00:21:38.599 --> 00:21:40.880 authorities. The government. The colonial government, 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.380 yes. Not necessarily from the villagers themselves 00:21:43.380 --> 00:21:46.119 in a way we would consider informed consent today. 00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:48.559 So the government said go ahead and the subjects 00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:51.200 just had to deal with it. Essentially. There's 00:21:51.200 --> 00:21:54.359 a huge power imbalance. Now, Mead defended it 00:21:54.359 --> 00:21:57.440 later in her life. She viewed it as United Nations 00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:00.799 business, which is a strange phrase. She argued 00:22:00.799 --> 00:22:03.539 it was medically useful and necessary for science. 00:22:04.099 --> 00:22:06.910 But that doesn't really hold up now. Not at all. 00:22:07.190 --> 00:22:10.049 Looking back, it highlights the extractive nature 00:22:10.049 --> 00:22:12.789 of some of that early anthropology. It's the 00:22:12.789 --> 00:22:14.869 Western scientists treating indigenous people 00:22:14.869 --> 00:22:18.349 as data points, as specimens. It's a part of 00:22:18.349 --> 00:22:20.130 the history we absolutely have to acknowledge. 00:22:20.470 --> 00:22:24.049 And that wasn't the only instance of questionable 00:22:24.049 --> 00:22:26.109 methods, right? There was an issue with the Omaha 00:22:26.109 --> 00:22:29.549 fieldwork. Yes. This was earlier, in 1930, in 00:22:29.549 --> 00:22:32.609 Nebraska. She was studying the Omaha tribe. Her 00:22:32.609 --> 00:22:34.410 husband at the time, Rio Fortune, was working 00:22:34.410 --> 00:22:36.880 openly as an anthropologist. But Meade decided 00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:39.480 to go undercover. Undercover. She posed merely 00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:42.039 as his wife. She felt that if she was seen as 00:22:42.039 --> 00:22:44.140 another researcher, the Omaha women would clam 00:22:44.140 --> 00:22:46.200 up and wouldn't give her the real story. But 00:22:46.200 --> 00:22:48.579 as just a wife, she could sit with him, gossip. 00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:50.880 And get the information nobody else could. Exactly. 00:22:50.920 --> 00:22:52.740 She used that accent. And what did she learn? 00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:56.359 She described the Omaha as a broken culture. 00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:59.920 She was heartbroken by what she saw, the devastating 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:03.099 impact of the Dawes Act, the loss of their land, 00:23:03.259 --> 00:23:06.440 the economic ruin, the social collapse. She saw 00:23:06.440 --> 00:23:09.220 people whose culture had been shattered by government 00:23:09.220 --> 00:23:13.259 policy. So it's complex. She was exposing this 00:23:13.259 --> 00:23:16.019 horrible injustice that was done to them, but 00:23:16.019 --> 00:23:18.619 she used a level of deception to do it. Precisely. 00:23:19.079 --> 00:23:21.519 The ethics are murky. The slogan, the personal 00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:24.339 is political, was a thing in the 70s, but it 00:23:24.339 --> 00:23:27.400 applied to Mead's work and her life decades earlier. 00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:29.640 That's a perfect transition because that brings 00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:33.140 us to section four. We cannot understand her 00:23:33.140 --> 00:23:35.640 work without understanding her private life. 00:23:36.039 --> 00:23:38.400 It was complicated. That's an understatement. 00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:40.380 For someone who made a living studying marriage, 00:23:40.440 --> 00:23:42.779 kinship, and family structures, her own kinship 00:23:42.779 --> 00:23:45.299 chart was, let's call it a spiderweb. It was. 00:23:45.380 --> 00:23:47.619 Okay, so she had three husbands. Let's run through 00:23:47.619 --> 00:23:49.700 the roster. First was Luther Cressman. She married 00:23:49.700 --> 00:23:52.460 him in 1923. He was a theology student who later 00:23:52.460 --> 00:23:54.660 became an archaeologist. She later referred to 00:23:54.660 --> 00:23:56.779 it as her student marriage. That feels a little 00:23:56.779 --> 00:23:59.349 dismissive. He certainly thought so. But they 00:23:59.349 --> 00:24:01.809 were very young. It was a marriage of its time 00:24:01.809 --> 00:24:04.329 and it ended when her career took off and he 00:24:04.329 --> 00:24:06.390 wasn't part of that vision. Then came husband 00:24:06.390 --> 00:24:10.720 number two. Rio Fortune. Rio Fortune, the New 00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:13.259 Zealand psychologist and anthropologist, the 00:24:13.259 --> 00:24:15.220 collaborator we mentioned in New Guinea. The 00:24:15.220 --> 00:24:16.779 one she was with for the big gender studies. 00:24:16.980 --> 00:24:19.640 Yes. And by all accounts, that was a volatile, 00:24:19.819 --> 00:24:22.099 brilliant, and incredibly difficult marriage. 00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:25.099 Oh, so. Sources describe him as possessing a 00:24:25.099 --> 00:24:28.279 puritanical jealousy. He was intensely competitive 00:24:28.279 --> 00:24:31.079 with her. He was brilliant, a great intellectual 00:24:31.079 --> 00:24:34.559 partner, but reportedly also physically violent. 00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:37.839 Wow. It was a partnership of work. but a nightmare 00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:40.339 of a relationship. It burned very hot and then 00:24:40.339 --> 00:24:42.619 burned out completely. And then number three, 00:24:42.819 --> 00:24:46.380 Gregory Bateson. The Englishman. Gregory Bateson, 00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:48.700 he was the soulmate. And how did they meet? This 00:24:48.700 --> 00:24:51.480 is where the drama really kicks in. It is. They 00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:54.380 met while she was still married to fortune. In 00:24:54.380 --> 00:24:56.259 fact, while all three of them were doing field 00:24:56.259 --> 00:24:58.880 work together on the Sepik River. Wait, all three 00:24:58.880 --> 00:25:01.690 of them? All three of them. In the field. In 00:25:01.690 --> 00:25:03.730 New Guinea. Imagine the tension in that tent. 00:25:03.950 --> 00:25:06.470 That is a reality show waiting to happen. It 00:25:06.470 --> 00:25:10.150 truly is. She and Bateson fell in love. She divorced 00:25:10.150 --> 00:25:12.609 Fortune and married Bateson. And that was the 00:25:12.609 --> 00:25:16.529 longest marriage. It was from 1936 to 1950. They 00:25:16.529 --> 00:25:19.069 had her only child, a daughter, Mary Catherine 00:25:19.069 --> 00:25:21.869 Bateson, who also became an anthropologist. And 00:25:21.869 --> 00:25:24.390 when that marriage ended. When Bateson left her 00:25:24.390 --> 00:25:27.630 for another woman, Mead was absolutely devastated. 00:25:28.029 --> 00:25:31.009 Really? Completely. The sources say she never 00:25:31.009 --> 00:25:33.490 really got over it. She kept his photograph by 00:25:33.490 --> 00:25:35.970 her bedside for the rest of her life. So the 00:25:35.970 --> 00:25:38.549 husbands are a huge part of her story. Yeah. 00:25:38.789 --> 00:25:41.369 But they're only half of it. Not even half, really. 00:25:41.589 --> 00:25:43.190 We have to talk about the women in her life. 00:25:43.309 --> 00:25:45.930 Yes, we do. And this is where the sources, particularly 00:25:45.930 --> 00:25:48.049 her letters and biographies written after her 00:25:48.049 --> 00:25:50.769 death, are very clear, even if he wasn't always 00:25:50.769 --> 00:25:52.490 public about it at the time. Let's start with 00:25:52.490 --> 00:25:54.960 the big one. ruth benedict ruth benedict another 00:25:54.960 --> 00:25:57.960 giant of anthropology she was meade's instructor 00:25:57.960 --> 00:26:01.019 at bernard college her mentor her lover and her 00:26:01.019 --> 00:26:05.220 lover yes they were partners it was an intense 00:26:05.220 --> 00:26:08.160 lifelong intellectual and romantic relationship 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:11.279 benedict was probably the most important single 00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:13.680 person in her life And later in life, she had 00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:16.420 another long -term female partner. She did. After 00:26:16.420 --> 00:26:19.299 Bateson, she lived with the anthropologist Rhoda 00:26:19.299 --> 00:26:23.839 Mitro from 1955 until her death in 1978. Their 00:26:23.839 --> 00:26:26.799 published letters concern a deep, loving, romantic 00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:30.380 relationship. They were life partners. It's amazing 00:26:30.380 --> 00:26:32.519 how much of her life was about challenging norms, 00:26:32.740 --> 00:26:35.079 both in her work and in her home. They were one 00:26:35.079 --> 00:26:37.299 and the same for her. There's that one anecdote 00:26:37.299 --> 00:26:39.140 that I think sums up her attitude perfectly. 00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:42.119 The story about burning the letters. Oh, the 00:26:42.119 --> 00:26:45.099 beach scene. Yes. Before she went to Samoa, she 00:26:45.099 --> 00:26:47.220 had a... pretty intense relationship with the 00:26:47.220 --> 00:26:49.839 famous linguist edward sapir okay but he was 00:26:49.839 --> 00:26:51.980 very traditional he wanted a wife who would stay 00:26:51.980 --> 00:26:55.640 home support his career he was completely unsupportive 00:26:55.640 --> 00:26:57.619 of her ambitions to go into the field you want 00:26:57.619 --> 00:26:59.920 to put her in a box very conventional box so 00:26:59.920 --> 00:27:02.359 when she finally got to samoa this moment of 00:27:02.359 --> 00:27:04.900 liberation for her she took all his letters went 00:27:04.900 --> 00:27:07.259 down to the beach and burned them she literally 00:27:07.259 --> 00:27:10.500 set fire to the past to clear the way for her 00:27:10.500 --> 00:27:13.319 future it's so cinematic it's a declaration of 00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:15.910 independence Now, with all this complexity, did 00:27:15.910 --> 00:27:18.430 she ever label herself? Did she call herself 00:27:18.430 --> 00:27:21.910 bisexual or lesbian? She actively refused labels. 00:27:22.089 --> 00:27:25.349 She never openly identified as lesbian or bisexual 00:27:25.349 --> 00:27:28.150 in the way we might use those terms today. When 00:27:28.150 --> 00:27:30.930 pressed, she called herself a mixed type. A mixed 00:27:30.930 --> 00:27:33.289 type. What did she mean by that? It was her way 00:27:33.289 --> 00:27:35.289 of saying she wasn't one thing or the other. 00:27:35.509 --> 00:27:37.670 There's a famous quote from a friend of hers 00:27:37.670 --> 00:27:40.890 who observed that Meade loved women's souls and 00:27:40.890 --> 00:27:44.859 men's bodies. Wow. Spiritually homosexual? That's 00:27:44.859 --> 00:27:47.099 how the friend put it. It's a fascinating distinction 00:27:47.099 --> 00:27:50.359 suggesting an intellectual and emotional intimacy 00:27:50.359 --> 00:27:52.779 with women and a different kind of connection 00:27:52.779 --> 00:27:54.920 with men. And she had a whole theory about this, 00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:57.200 about life stages. She did. This is so ahead 00:27:57.200 --> 00:27:59.759 of its time. She suggested that a perfect balance 00:27:59.759 --> 00:28:02.299 for a human life might be to have homosexual 00:28:02.299 --> 00:28:05.440 relationships in your youth for exploration and 00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:08.160 intimacy. Okay. Then heterosexual relationships 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:11.039 in midlife for the purpose of procreation and 00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:14.190 raising a family. Right. And then returning to 00:28:14.190 --> 00:28:17.809 homosexual relationships in old age for companionship. 00:28:17.809 --> 00:28:20.750 Wow. Talk about fluidity. She's not just talking 00:28:20.750 --> 00:28:23.029 about being one thing for your whole life. She's 00:28:23.029 --> 00:28:25.349 proposing that your orientation can and should 00:28:25.349 --> 00:28:28.750 evolve as you age. It's a radical idea even today. 00:28:28.789 --> 00:28:30.529 And she was writing about this in her Redbook 00:28:30.529 --> 00:28:32.829 column. Wait, hold on. She's writing about this 00:28:32.829 --> 00:28:35.029 in Redbook, the magazine at the grocery store 00:28:35.029 --> 00:28:38.769 checkout. Yes. In the 60s and 70s, she had a 00:28:38.769 --> 00:28:41.319 column where she... brought these anthropological 00:28:41.319 --> 00:28:44.579 ideas to a massive mainstream American audience. 00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:47.720 She wrote a column where she said, and I'm paraphrasing, 00:28:47.880 --> 00:28:50.579 bisexuality isn't something new, but the acceptance 00:28:50.579 --> 00:28:53.099 of the human capacity to love members of both 00:28:53.099 --> 00:28:55.980 sexes is. Bringing it to the masses. She believed 00:28:55.980 --> 00:28:58.380 that the capacity to love wasn't limited by gender, 00:28:58.500 --> 00:29:01.039 and she wasn't afraid to say so. That leads us 00:29:01.039 --> 00:29:03.079 perfectly into our final section, section five. 00:29:03.420 --> 00:29:05.619 The public intellectual. Because she wasn't just 00:29:05.619 --> 00:29:08.079 a researcher hiding in an ivory tower. She was 00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:11.059 a brand. She was a public voice. She was. And 00:29:11.059 --> 00:29:13.380 World War II played a huge part in cementing 00:29:13.380 --> 00:29:15.660 that role. How so? What did she do during the 00:29:15.660 --> 00:29:18.140 war? She served as the executive secretary of 00:29:18.140 --> 00:29:19.880 the Committee on Food Habits for the National 00:29:19.880 --> 00:29:22.799 Research Council. Food habits. That sounds a 00:29:22.799 --> 00:29:25.259 little... boring for Margaret Mead. It sounds 00:29:25.259 --> 00:29:28.000 boring, but it was crucial. It was about understanding 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:30.779 American dietary patterns to improve nutrition 00:29:30.779 --> 00:29:33.140 and morale for the war effort. How do you convince 00:29:33.140 --> 00:29:35.460 Americans to eat organ meats, for example? It's 00:29:35.460 --> 00:29:37.579 a cultural problem. An anthropological problem. 00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:41.240 Exactly. But she also did more direct work. She 00:29:41.240 --> 00:29:43.559 wrote manuals on how American troops stationed 00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:45.940 in the UK should interact with the British. Oh, 00:29:45.980 --> 00:29:48.480 I love this. A field guide to the British. Essentially. 00:29:48.579 --> 00:29:51.640 She had to explain American courtship rituals, 00:29:51.980 --> 00:29:55.079 you know, casual dating to the perplexed Brits 00:29:55.079 --> 00:29:58.400 who had a much more formal system. She was using 00:29:58.400 --> 00:30:01.619 anthropology as a tool for allied diplomacy to 00:30:01.619 --> 00:30:03.799 prevent cultural misunderstandings between the 00:30:03.799 --> 00:30:06.460 troops. And after the war, her influence just 00:30:06.460 --> 00:30:09.660 kept expanding. She got involved in cybernetics. 00:30:09.700 --> 00:30:12.259 She was a true polymath. She was a core participant 00:30:12.259 --> 00:30:14.799 in the famous Macy conferences, which brought 00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:16.859 together thinkers from all different fields, 00:30:17.099 --> 00:30:20.339 math, biology, engineering, sociology. And what 00:30:20.339 --> 00:30:22.309 was the goal there? They were trying to develop 00:30:22.309 --> 00:30:24.849 a universal science of systems, of communication 00:30:24.849 --> 00:30:27.829 and control. Mead was instrumental in developing 00:30:27.829 --> 00:30:30.690 what's called second -order cybernetics, the 00:30:30.690 --> 00:30:32.890 idea that the observer is part of the system 00:30:32.890 --> 00:30:34.970 they're observing. Which is what an anthropologist 00:30:34.970 --> 00:30:37.130 does. It's the definition of an anthropologist. 00:30:37.349 --> 00:30:41.130 She saw the whole world, culture, biology, machines 00:30:41.130 --> 00:30:44.549 as interconnected feedback systems. She really 00:30:44.549 --> 00:30:47.490 was everywhere. And her influence reached right 00:30:47.490 --> 00:30:49.960 into the American home. Specifically through 00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:53.480 Dr. Spock. A huge, huge influence. Dr. Benjamin 00:30:53.480 --> 00:30:55.920 Spock was actually her pediatrician. Her daughter's 00:30:55.920 --> 00:30:58.700 doctor. Yes. And her observations in the field 00:30:58.700 --> 00:31:01.440 that babies in so -called primitive societies 00:31:01.440 --> 00:31:04.940 were fed on demand, not on a strict by -the -clock 00:31:04.940 --> 00:31:08.279 schedule, directly influenced him. So the idea 00:31:08.279 --> 00:31:10.380 of feeding your baby when it's hungry? Instead 00:31:10.380 --> 00:31:12.359 of letting it cry for hours because it's not 00:31:12.359 --> 00:31:14.960 time yet, that came in large part from Mead's 00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:17.730 cross -cultural work. Spock promoted breastfeeding 00:31:17.730 --> 00:31:20.289 on demand based on her research. So if you weren't 00:31:20.289 --> 00:31:22.069 left to cry it out in a crib, you might have 00:31:22.069 --> 00:31:25.190 Margaret Mead to thank. You might. Exactly. And 00:31:25.190 --> 00:31:28.390 there's one more kind of strange cultural trope 00:31:28.390 --> 00:31:31.130 she is allegedly responsible for creating. The 00:31:31.130 --> 00:31:34.569 Jewish mother stereotype. Really? How did that 00:31:34.569 --> 00:31:37.509 happen? Allegedly. It's debated, but the story 00:31:37.509 --> 00:31:40.009 is she was involved in a research project studying 00:31:40.009 --> 00:31:43.269 shtetls, the old Eastern European Jewish villages. 00:31:43.650 --> 00:31:45.990 It was funded by the American Jewish Committee. 00:31:46.250 --> 00:31:48.369 Okay. The study, which was part of her national 00:31:48.369 --> 00:31:50.910 character research, described a mother figure 00:31:50.910 --> 00:31:53.670 in that culture who was intensely loving, but 00:31:53.670 --> 00:31:57.089 also controlling, smothering, and guilt -inducing 00:31:57.089 --> 00:32:00.059 through her use of food and affection. That sounds 00:32:00.059 --> 00:32:02.960 familiar. It does. And that academic description 00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:06.140 allegedly seeped out into the popular culture 00:32:06.140 --> 00:32:08.940 and became the comedic and sometimes problematic 00:32:08.940 --> 00:32:11.720 trope that we know today. It is wild how many 00:32:11.720 --> 00:32:14.119 different threads of modern culture you can trace 00:32:14.119 --> 00:32:16.200 back to her work. She was recognized for it, 00:32:16.220 --> 00:32:18.740 too. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, 00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:21.660 the nation's highest civilian honor. It was awarded 00:32:21.660 --> 00:32:25.140 by President Carter posthumously in 1979. A fitting 00:32:25.140 --> 00:32:30.289 honor. So let's wrap this up. We have unpacked 00:32:30.289 --> 00:32:33.250 the Samoan bombshell, the gender revolution of 00:32:33.250 --> 00:32:35.710 the Sepik River, the visual innovation in Bali, 00:32:35.890 --> 00:32:38.349 the controversies, the ethical questions, and 00:32:38.349 --> 00:32:41.509 her incredibly complex personal life. It's a 00:32:41.509 --> 00:32:44.309 lot to cover. It is. If we look at the big picture, 00:32:44.430 --> 00:32:47.299 what was her ultimate contribution? I think it's 00:32:47.299 --> 00:32:50.019 that she moved anthropology from the measurement 00:32:50.019 --> 00:32:52.259 of skulls and pottery shards, which is a lot 00:32:52.259 --> 00:32:55.059 of what it used to be, to the study of childhood, 00:32:55.220 --> 00:32:58.720 personality, and gender. She humanized the science. 00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:01.359 And despite the Freeman critique, despite the 00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:04.099 ethical questions about the photos, what is the 00:33:04.099 --> 00:33:06.640 core takeaway that still stands? The takeaway 00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:08.619 is her central thesis, the one she started with 00:33:08.619 --> 00:33:11.609 in Samoa. That culture shapes us as much as biology, 00:33:11.869 --> 00:33:13.769 maybe more. That we're not just products of our 00:33:13.769 --> 00:33:15.630 genes. We are not just products of our genes. 00:33:15.730 --> 00:33:17.809 We are products of how we are raised, what our 00:33:17.809 --> 00:33:20.369 society values, what anxieties it has, and what 00:33:20.369 --> 00:33:22.470 stories we are told about who we are supposed 00:33:22.470 --> 00:33:24.890 to be. That's a powerful thought. It means we 00:33:24.890 --> 00:33:27.690 have agency. If we create the culture, we can 00:33:27.690 --> 00:33:29.230 change the culture and therefore change ourselves. 00:33:29.670 --> 00:33:31.890 That's the hopeful message at the core of all 00:33:31.890 --> 00:33:34.849 her work. Exactly. I want to leave you, the listener, 00:33:35.029 --> 00:33:38.140 with a final thought to mull over. We talked 00:33:38.140 --> 00:33:40.740 about Margaret Mead's own proposed ideal for 00:33:40.740 --> 00:33:44.720 a human life. A society where sexual orientation 00:33:44.720 --> 00:33:48.539 and gender roles could evolve fluidly throughout 00:33:48.539 --> 00:33:51.039 a single person's lifetime. It's a radical idea. 00:33:51.339 --> 00:33:54.740 It is. And I want you to ask yourself, is our 00:33:54.740 --> 00:33:58.480 current society right now closer to her vision? 00:33:59.500 --> 00:34:02.240 Or have we just swapped one set of rigid rules 00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:05.779 for another? Are we truly becoming fluid? Or 00:34:05.779 --> 00:34:07.880 are we just busy creating new, smaller, more 00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:10.380 specific boxes to put ourselves into? That is 00:34:10.380 --> 00:34:11.760 the question she would want us to be asking. 00:34:11.860 --> 00:34:13.820 Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into 00:34:13.820 --> 00:34:15.440 the life and mind of Margaret Mead. It's been 00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:17.000 a journey. Always a pleasure. We'll see you next 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:17.159 time.