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Patterns Of Culture By Sigmund Freud And Ruth Benedict

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Sigmund Freud and Ruth Benedict have conflicting conceptualizations of the relationship between the individual and the culture or society in which they live. Freud in an individualist, he views the individual as the effective factor in society. To Benedict, on the other hand, the individual is a blank, which is molded by the culture in which they are raised. After investigating their dissimilar theories about the individual’s relationship to society, we can better understand how these two thinkers view the concept of human nature. Freud, the individualist, sees human nature as a strong, motivating force in the lives of individuals, and hence effective upon society. Whereas Benedict, the holist, identifies no trait that coincides with human nature, rather what people may believe is human nature is the effect of powerful forces within culture. In Patterns of Culture, Ruth Benedict discusses the effect that culture has on human lives, and what those implications are for the study of cultures, including our own. She begins by reminding the reader that when studying other cultures, we are viewing them, not with clear vision, but through the lens of our own culture. “No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes,” she notes, rather “He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking” (Benedict 2005:2). From the beginning, Benedict indicates that while the individual is the one looking, they can only do that with tools that and notions that

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