Doubtless, Ortega was right in his appraisal of what he called "the Modern Theme." He was equally right, I suspect, in suggesting that this neglect of the past presents moderns with grave dangers. At the very least, we face the danger of constantly having to re-live the worse parts of the human past since our ignorance about them prevents us from avoiding them. Nevertheless, the past is potentially more valuable to us than merely an archive of failures. Good times are to be found there; but, perhaps even more importantly, alternative times are to be found there as well. One of the great dangers of human social life is becoming frozen in our tracks --- living life as though there were no alternatives, merely following our own steps into the future. One of the greatest things that history does, by portraying past societies, is to make us aware that alternative paths do exist and that people have lived them and found happiness in them.
Similar points must be made for the study of anthropology. In anthropology we go beyond the history of a particular people, as such, and explore the structure of society, their material conditions, language, religious beliefs, arts and literature. In undertaking a study of this depth, we aim at constructing a picture of the ideals, values, and goals that stand behind the day-to-day life of a people; that is, we try to understand their "culture." Social life, we think, is integrated; that is, even the most bizarre social customs that may be observed are consistent parts of cultural beliefs, when all is understood. What cultural anthropology demonstrates is the unity of ideal and practice in shaping society. But, more than this, it shows us that other societies are not merely different -- even bizarre, in our view -- but that they represent true alternatives in the ways that human ideals can be realized.
One of the great values in studying cultural anthropology is the way it makes us focus backward upon ourselves. When we see culture at work in another society, we must wonder how it works in our own. What is the culture that drives American society today? This is a disturbing question because the answers are neither clear not satisfying. Returning to Ortega's claim, we can see that a culture built simply on idealization of the future is really no culture at all; that is, we need ideals to carry into the future and can't expect the future itself to deliver what we should idealize. One of the big questions for Americans, today, is what we do value that is worth taking with us into the future.
Scientific studies tell us a great deal about what is possible and how it might be achieved. But only cultural studies can deliver useful concepts about what possibilities should be valued and offer avenues to well integrated social life. One of the great challenges to Americans today lies in the fact that science and engineering collectively offer us far more possibilities than we can imagine. Thus, our future is no longer constrained by what we have the capability to do; we must constrain and direct our future by what we choose to do. Choices, of course, are determined by values; hence, the biggest issue before us is the "value issue," something that science and engineering, as such, cannot answer or deliver.
Copyright 1998 by Tad Beckman, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711