In his
book The Evolution of Culture (1959),
White claimed to be returning to the concept of cultural evolution used by
Tylor and Morgan, but now informed by a century of archaeological discoveries
and a much larger ethnographic record. White’s approach has been called general evolution, the idea that over
time and through the archaeological, historical, and ethnographic records, we
can see the evolution of culture as a whole. For example, human economies have
evolved from Paleolithic foraging, through early farming and herding, to
intensive forms of agriculture, and to industrialism. Socio- politically, too,
there has been evolution, from bands and tribes to chiefdoms and states. There
can be no doubt, White argued, that culture has evolved. But unlike the
unilinear evolutionists of the 19th century, White realized that particular
cultures might not evolve in the same direction. For White, energy capture was the main measure and cause of cultural advance: Cultures advanced in proportion to the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year.
Leslie
White was, like Mead, a strong advocate of the importance of culture. White saw
cultural anthropology as a science, and he named that science culturology. Cultural
forces, which rested on the unique human capacity for symbolic thought, were so
powerful that individuals made little difference. White disputed what was then
called the “great man theory of history,” the idea that particular individuals
were responsible for great discoveries and epochal changes. White looked
instead to the constellation of cultural forces that produced great
individuals. During certain historical periods, such as the Renaissance,
conditions were right for the expression of creativity and greatness, and
individual genius blossomed. At other times and places, there may have been
just as many great minds, but the culture did not en- courage their expression.
As proof of this theory, White pointed to the simultaneity of discovery.
Several times in human history, when culture was ready, people working
independently in different places have come up with the same revolutionary idea
or achievement. Examples include the formulation of the theory of evolution
through natural selection by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, the
independent discovery of Mendelian genetics by three separate scientists in
1917.
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