Two Types of Cultural Response to External Pressures among the Florida Seminoles

Abstract

A study of acculturation inevitably raises the question, what particular factors within a culture explain resistant or permissive responses to external pressures? Some anthropologists such as Schneider (1959) relate these responses to cultural levels. Others, like Benedict (1943) and Keesing (1945) associate resistance and permissiveness with a culture's total orientation. The Florida Seminoles among whom I have worked many years, demonstrate the thesis that a culture's traditional ideology, determines, in part, its responses. Tracing the stability of the value-system and its continuity through time, leads to this conclusion. To develop this thesis further, it can be shown that ideology as interrelated with social structure is reflected in a culture's responses; for example, a tightly structured society with a rigid value system, will resist foreign influences, while a loosely structured society which encourages multiple choice, will permit infiltration.