Abstract
In this essay I have taken issue with the view that a special kind of anthropology is needed if anthropologists are to make a contribution to the study of complex societies. This point of view appears to represent a response to conditions which have prevailed more or less since the end of the World War II: instability in the newly emerging nations and the availability of funds for the application of social science to the solution of human problems. If this attitude persists, it would appear that anthropology will become either a new kind of social technology or a comparative sociology. It is argued by some social scientists that anthropology can no longer exist as an independent intellectual discipline. This argument is predicated upon the following propositions: (1) anthropology's traditional subject matter (i.e., preliterate societies and cultures) is disappearing; (2) anthropology has not developed a sophisticated empirical methodology; and (3) anthropology is lacking in systematic theory. The first of...
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