MARGARET MEAD

The name of Margaret Mead will forever surfaced when people talk about Samoa because of her book Coming of Age in Samoa in which she documented the lives of some Samoan youths. Her book was later challenged by others and it also became a subject in the old nature versus nurture debate.

The Controversy behind Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa is probably an outcome of a struggle in the West as it comes to term with its self.

From the outset, coming into the 20th century, materially speaking, the West was on a course of great development never achieved by any previous civilization. The discoveries of the maturing sciences and engineering was giving the average citizen a standard of living never seen before. But despite of these accomplishments, there were the ensuing efforts to define the morals and ethics of the developing generations. These efforts were discussed and clarified in churches, universities, government hearings, media, and in the homes. The work of Mead was an extension of these dialogs. She chose to do her research in a place she believed far removed of any smitten of sophistication and furthest from anything resembling her home and surrounding. She chose to do her research in Samoa, the Manu'a islands, and primarily in the village of Ta'u.

In some degree, I sympathized with Meads relentless attempt to show her people that there was more to life than material possessions, that there was more to life than winning the rat race, and that there was also a need for the West to rethink its dealings with its minorities and how everyone should be treated.

But in retropect, many Samoans think that she went too far in her writings to portraying them as lacking any of the strong and complicated emotion and passion that she disliked so much in the West. What is even more puzzling is why an intelligent student skimmed over some very basic facts that show the corollary that all people by nature are the same and are effected by the demands imposed on them by the societies they live in, as shown in her other books. Whatever her reasons, or lack of, we'll leave it to the scholars.


Margaret Mead US Postage Stamp.

"As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own."
(from Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead, 1928)

It suffices us to know that Samoans are similar in many respects to every other group of people. Nonetheless, living on these beautiful islands with an abundance of crops and fish might have caused a unique approach to life that could be misinterpreted by the uninitiated eyes.

From the outside, the Samoans appear content with life, easy going and view achievement with distaste. This view might give an observer a mistaken notion about Samoans. Like every other people, Samoans lacks none of the human frailties and they're clearly are empowered with the human drive to compete to win and to succeed. But the natural surroundings of the islands and years of refined traditions have created a markedly Samoan way.

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