Sidney Mintz in conversation with Sonia Ryang 7th April 2007
FIRST PART
0:00:01 R: Influence
of war on work as an anthropologist and views on current war in
M: Undergraduate at Brooklyn College, in 1941 living with sister, Pearl Harbour made war inevitable; witnessed about 75,000 people at the recruiting office next day; feeling of being American; some friends did enlist but I stayed in school until February 1943 when joined the Air Force; conscription was a rite de passage, men stripped and remade as a 'family' of fighters for the duration of the war; many men regretted the loss of that intimacy when they returned to normal life after the war; in that sense war experiences are not all bad; that was a war US had to fight as it was attacked; after the war ended treated enemies with understanding so the world could be rebuilt with us as helpers; for me it was the defining division in my life; we are now and have been for some time the most powerful nation in the world and as such should use power with understanding and a lot of imagination; this has been missing since 9/11; have put ourselves into difficult position nationally and internationally; saddened by loss of reputation
00:10:33 R: Should anthropologists be engaged in this situation?
M: My undergraduate degree was in psychology and ended up teaching navigation in the Air Force; anthropologists played an important part in that war; David Price convened a meeting on anthropologists in World War II and I gave a paper on combat teams of Japanese-Americans who won more decorations for valour as a group than any others, who came out of the camps in order to serve. Also talked about American Indians, Navaho's in particular, and black Americans, and how the war was a test of Americanism for them in a way that it was not for white Americans; since the war many such groups have been accepted into society; for anthropologists after that war the picture is more murky; participation by some in Vietnam War split the AAA; since then same issues arise with some anthropologists recruiting for the US Government; attitude to 'my country right or wrong' has made some anthropologists do so; I do think this is wrong; Nixon got rid of conscription and now hardly anyone in Congress has a relative in an army that is in large measure drawn from the least privileged in the population; I believe in the draft and think it a tragedy that we gave it up
00:15:28 R: Memories of Ruth Benedict.
M: Took first class with Benedict when I was entering anthropology, in fact hearing her lecture was one of the main reasons I decided to try anthropology; remember her as tall, spare and silver-haired, blue-eyed, quite drawn in; leaned toward navy blue as her colour; used lipstick inexpertly; when she lectured she gazed into space; hard of hearing but refused to wear a hearing aid as a result didn't always understand questions; found her arresting in presentations though following her was not easy; one lecture struck me forcibly; my background is anti-imperialist 'pinko', and she pondered whether the submissive colonies should have gone to Dutch and aggressive to British; latter love belligerent peoples like the Masai, Gurkhas, and Maoris as they think them worthy enemies so worthy subjects; Dutch are wonderful with servile people but can't deal with belligerence; I was shocked but there was some thread of the possibility of how to think that excited me, not that she was right; remember having to write a paper on a Jewish religious service; fun to write as my father was anti-religious and mother a radical; could write about my grandparents and siblings as religious belief had skipped a generation; Benedict complimented me on the writing not the substance particularly; found her enormously encouraging; a good American, she wrote on race and said things that other people were unwilling to say; however only two who liked Benedict were Eric Wolf and me; [Sonia Ryang's thoughts on the importance of Benedict's book on Japanese culture]
00:25:02 R: Thoughts on the importance of fieldwork and Margaret Mead.
M: Knew some professors who were good teachers but lousy fieldworkers; Robert Redfield and Ruth Benedict both knew it and were not frightened to say so; now lousy fieldworkers don't admit it but write novels; I was good friends with Margaret Mead and when I went on leave she taught my course at Yale one year when Bush was a student in the class; she didn't want to grade them so gave them all the same mark, B+, I think the highest grade our esteemed President got at Yale; think she was criticized much more than she deserved by Derek Freeman; she did like to be famous and one of my problems with her book about Benedict is that it is hard to find Benedict in it; what was important was that she became a spokesman for anthropology and we have had no one since.