Synergy: Some Notes of Ruth Benedict1

Abstract

Excerpts from 1941 lectures by Ruth Benedict call attention to the correlation between social structure and character structure, especially aggressiveness. Social orders characterized by high or low synergy, by a syphon or a funnel system of economic distribution, are compared for their different capacities to support or humiliate the individual, render him secure or anxious, or to minimize or maximize aggression. Religion, an institution in which people apotheosize the cooperation or aggression their cultural life arouses, differs between societies with high and low synergy.

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