My lecturer told me that the Golden Bough by James Frazer is nowadays considered deeply flawed, or something?

Question

Can you explain to me his main concepts and why these are discredited?

Answer 1

As with anything written that long ago, we have learned a lot in the intervening years, understand humanity differenlty (some may say better, or  not as well).  We also have a much better understanding of the past through archaeology.  All of this together means that most of the very old writings considered classics -when read with out current understandings - appear somewhat flawed and ethnocentric.  

Another good example is Lewis Henry Morgan's work on the evolution of society (Barbarism, Savagery and the like) - which attempted to ascribe different cultures to one of several levels of societal evolution - assuming that all cultures passed through these stages, ascending to higher stages with time.  We now understand that not all cultures neatly fit one of his levels, that there is no natural drive to go from one to the next higher level, and that his veiwpoint was very ethnocentric (among other things).

Despite our current understandings, works like the Golden Bough and Morgan's work are important for all students of anthropology to be aware of, and to review.  It provides information on how we as anthropologists got to where we are today, how the field developed, how humans have looked at others through time and provide a frame of reference in which to evaluate more modern works.

As for the details on the book - it has been to long for me to provide accurate info for you - I bow out to others on that.

Answer 2

You ask a thought provoking question.

Unless the lecturer cited reasons or examples for his statement regarding the Golden Bough as being deeply flawed, I guess we have a case of academic rivalry or someone wanting to publish their own findings to make a name for themselves.

My reasoning is that as a religious person, I have had many civil and informative conversations with practicing pagans of various beliefs and while many of them feel there are other or better books that discuss origins of pagan spiritual practices and mythology, I have heard specifically from several people that the Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer is worth reading to gain insight into that culture.

Academia encourages new voices and new views.  You have to be careful that the critic you are listening to may have ulterior motives for self promotion.  Otherwise, the lecturer should have given you specific examples and reliable sources.

Answer 3

Well, it's outdated, so a lot of its theoretical underpinnings are no longer considered valid.  On the other hand, I'd say it's definitely worth reading.  You just have to read it as a historical document, not as literal truth.

(I'd reccommend the abridged version, which I believe is a mere 600 pages long).

Answer 4

Since no one has even tried to answer this, I'll give you a hand.

Frazer is important because he is the father of anthropology.  "The Golden Bough" is discredited for a number of reasons, the primary one being that it was not based on fieldwork.  Frazer, following Darwin's work in biology, attempted to establish an evolutionary model of religion.  The anthropology of religion is no longer approached through Frazer's evolutionary lens because of the work of Functionalist anthropologists like Bronislaw Malinowski, which demonstrated - through fieldwork- that Frazer's various evolutionary stages existed contemporaneously in a culture, and even in individuals.  Religion was thus not a stage of cultural development, but served a function within culture.

It is important to recognize that Functionalism, which discredited Frazer's evolutionary notion of culture, has been out of vogue for more than half a century.  Its criticism is nonetheless an accurate one.  Frazer's ideas were a starting point for anthropology; they were necessary for its development as a social science.  But they have been convincingly demolished.

Best,

Eric F

M.A.

Cultural Anthropology