September 2002 posts
The
true essence of magic? (season 7 speculation) -- Slain, 13:39:26
09/13/02 Fri
I was replying to the drugs thread, but unfortunately it just
got archived. But I didn't want to just bin what I'd written,
so here's an extended version:
One issue the season finale got me thinking about was the moral
nature of magic. My previous theory (which I'd argue has been
borne out by the show so far), was that smaller more natural magics,
ala Tara, were not harmful or 'addictive', and were essentially
morally good or neutral. Whereas more powerful magics which drew
on the demon realms were harmful, evil and 'addictive'; the source
of the magic was essentially evil, or least it didn't conform
to any human moral standards, and it actively saught to draw in
the magician to greater extremes. Darker magic was always the
more powerful, because the demon realms are more magical, and
free of human moral constraints.
However, in 'Grave', Giles used the term 'true essence of magic':
GILES: The gift I was given by the coven was the true essence
of Magic. Which comes, in all it's purity, from the Earth itself.
Willow's magic came from a place of rage and power.
(Psyche)
This essence seemed to be good, or at least neutral, and it cut
Willow off from the evil, controlling magic she was relying on
(courtesy of Rack and her own rage); instead of rage, it gave
her an extreme empathy with all humanity. But from the term 'true
essence' you could infer that 'true magic' comes from the earth
(from humanity?), not from the demon realms; that the quintessence
of magic is earthly.
Or did Giles in fact mean 'the true essence of earthly magic',
separating out the two, earthly and unearthly? Giles is somewhat
stunned in this scene, and isn't entirely making sense. But he
does seem to be suggesting that there's powerful magic which comes
from a pure good/neutral source, presumably the source from which
Tara drew much of her power. If we disregard the idea of human
vs. demonic in magic (or Tara vs. D'Hoffryn, for two examples
of both sides), and assume that the source of all Willow's magic,
in Season 6, is from her rage, from human, earthly rage, then
perhaps we return to the idea of magic as a neutral substance,
where the intent behind it is more important than the source?
I don't think that, up until Season 6, magic has been presented
in this way. But this is the first Season where Willow has frequently
used spells without apparent preparation (or, without using help
from gods, goddesses and demons). She seems to call magic from
within herself. But while she seems to do this, I don't think
she is. Aside from Rack, I think Willow has been relying on the
demon realms, and calling on these dark forces; as we saw in 'Bargaining'.
As, after all, true addiction is generally considered to be reliance
on an external substance, rather than something from within.
So, the revised theory. I still adhere to the idea of human vs.
demonic magic. Demonic magic comes from other dimensions, and
is corrupting and dangerous; external. Human magic comes from
the earth, perhaps from the life force of all those billions of
people; internal. The magic that Willow became addicted to was
external, it came from the demon realms, via Rack (the demon in
'Wrecked' being evidence of the source). The magic Willow used
in the season finale was a combination of the two, dark demonic
magic from Rack and from the spell books in the Magic Box, and
more natural, human magic driven by Willow's rage, the later being
what she relied upon towards the end.
But the demonic magic, which wasn't governed by human morality,
was the controlling force; Giles supplanted this with the true
essence of earthly magic. While Willow had clearly believed, on
past evidence, that the most powerful magic came from an external
force which felt no empathy for humankind, and that tapping into
this by spells and summoning was the way to greater power, Giles
showed her that earthly magic is equally or more powerful. Tara
used small amount of natural magic, but clearly it is possible
to become powerful through earthly magic; crucially, without
losing empathy for other human beings, and without becoming focussed
only on the self.
So, from the fog a point to this post slowly emerges; I'm wondering
if Willow might be able to become a powerful Wicca without
using 'dark magic'? All of which, as you can see, is many times
removed from the drug addiction metaphor. Of course, it's possible
she might go back to 'cold turkey', get advice from Mrs. Riley
and attend regular "magic users annonymous' meetings. But
if that happens, then the sound you'll not be able to hear will
be me, silently screaming.
[> It's as good a theory
as any. -- HonorH, 14:10:20 09/13/02 Fri
I always felt like Willow's magic use was less an addiction than
a compulsion. Using the magic made her feel stronger, more important.
That's the feeling she got addicted to, as well as the magics
Rack fed her. As she began using more and more magic, the compulsion
got stronger until she felt dependent on it. It weakened her so
that, as we saw in "Gone," she had a hard time doing
things the ordinary way. That, ultimately, wasn't good for her.
As for the magics she used in the finale, I think you're very
right: they weren't pure. She was channeling them through her
rage and lust for power, and from dark gods and demons. And, too,
the way she was using them was darkening her soul.
In my story "Tara Incognita" (hey, stop rolling your
eyes; this isn't just a plug), I have Willow beginning to do some
spells again. I hope that's where they're going to take her next
season--to a place where she understands how magic is supposed
to be used and what it's truly for.
[> [> Willow Spoilery
For Season 7 -- Sergio, 15:08:52 09/13/02 Fri
The questions you ask are also being asked by ME. There are multiple
scenes in the 1st two episodes that deal with Willow/Giles and
the control of her magic. Apparantly she comes back from England
educated about magic and able to harnass it, but with the risk
of falling off the wagon. Obviously if this is the case, the drug
metaphor fails.
[> Re: The true essence
of magic? (season 7 speculation) -- Darby, 14:16:48 09/13/02
Fri
I'm going to make a suggestion that I'm not sure I can support
from the show's canon, but here goes:
I see magic as having three sources:
Tara's Wiccan magic derives from the earthly realm and is requested
or cooperative - it is freely loaned from that earthly source
of magic to those that respect it and use it responsibly. This
corresponds to a host of cultures' beliefs about existing with
Nature, even those that request forgiveness from the spirits of
prey animals (the fawn spell).
A similar but generally more powerful form of magic comes from
realms and/or entities from beyond the earth, Osiris for example.
These magics often come at a price, either obvious (part of the
rules going in) or karmic. This is a grey area, depending upon
the power source.
The third type of magic can be drawn forth, compelled, from either
the earthly plane (but it can have rebound consequences) or demonic
planes (where it may come at a price or may exert an influence
on the user. Because the use of this magic is all about power,
these are almost always describable as "dark" magics,
as much due to the motivations of the user as the source of the
power. This is the power that Willow taps, first with effort,
then casually as her ability to grab and pull it through her increases.
This may also be the classic source of the "magic always
has consequences" caveat, which may or may not apply to all
magics.
The neat thing about this concept is that, in theory, it matches
the "magic as drugs" metaphor if you accept that addiction
is associated with both the motivation for taking the drugs, the
type of drugs involved and the drugs' effects on individuals.
It also implies that, depending upon the deeper roots of Willow's
addictions, she might never be able to tap into the more benign
magics without getting pulled back over the edge. God, I hate
to support the magic-drugs imagery, but it can work canonically
as well as metaphorically.
Does this make sense? Am I missing important contradictory evidence
from the show(s)?
- Darby, shooting from the hip on a Friday afternoon.
[> [> Lovely theory,
Darby -- Slain, 15:16:02 09/13/02 Fri
I see what you're saying - that magic can be taken freely, summoned
with consequences or simply drawn by force. You could say it's
either given, bought or stolen, then. Tara uses gifts of magic,
or occasionally buys power. Willow initially did this, but in
Season 6 began to draw power forcibly, stealing it from Rack and
the Magic Box books, and attempting to steal it from Dawn. Giles'
gift of magic was what eventually gave her the ability to return
to given power. The Gift part II, you could say.
I don't think this needs to contradict with my theory, as it seems
to me this deal principally with how magic is taken, whereas I
was dealing mostly with the source of the magic. Willow begins
by using natural, earthly magics, which are freely given and without
a price. She believes that this kind of magic is never powerful,
on the grounds that something freely given is not as great as
something bought. So she begins to bargain and deal with the demon
realms, and with Rack, and to accept the consequences. Later,
she ceases to buy her power, and even challenges Osiris when he/she/it
(for some reason I'm leaning toward 'she') refuses to grant her
wishes. She takes her power, taking from both the demon and earthly
realms, but presumably mostly from the former.
The nature of the magic is still central, I think, because while
the method of aquiring it is important, Willow largely bypassed
natural magic; I don't think it's possible to steal or buy earthly
power, whereas demonic magic can be. I think if Willow does learn
to accept whatever magic is given to her freely, like Tara, then
she could avoid addiction; I don't think it's possible to become
addicited to this kind of magic, because the magic user doesn't
have the ability to summon it at will, except perhaps when they
are sufficently at peace to do so.
It occurs to me that natural magic was perhaps what Oz used to
control his Werewolf; when he was at peace, he could work a, presumably,
very powerful spell to repress the wolf, but as soon as he became
jealous he lost the magic. I think dark, otherworldly magic does
bear up the drugs analogy; it is something bought or stolen at
will, and can form an escape from human morality. Whereas Tara's
style of magic, while often fun, does not cut the magician off
from the human world in a totally escapist way; rather it joins
them with the earth, as Giles' gift of magic did in 'Grave'.
Immerse yourself in Gia, would be my message to Willow; perhaps
accompanies the gift of some joss sticks.
[> [> [> I wasn't
disagreeing, I was tinkering. (Grave spoilers) -- Darby, 17:15:16
09/13/02 Fri
I should have made that clear - as often happens here, your good
ideas gave me a few ideas too.
I may disagree in one area, though - I think that a powerful magician
can compel earthly magics. I'm thinking of Willow lighting the
barbeque before the rainy backlash, or even what she almost did
to end the world, described in the script as funneling earth energy
into the demonic temple. It may be what she has always done, although
one would have to suspect, all evidence to the contrary, that
Tara would have shown her how to ask for power nicely when needed.
Is there any evidence that Tara mentored Willow at all, except
for instances when Tara knew a spell that the plot required?
[> [> [> [> Re:
-- aliera, 18:02:43 09/13/02 Fri
I don't think so unless I missed it (always possible). Although
I have issues with the way the concept of magic has been portrayed
this season, I do like the implied differences between wicca,
more ritualistic magic and dark magick. Also very much like this
thread and the thinking that has gone into all of your theories.
There is another interesting discussion back in the archives at
http://ivyweb.com/board/archives/jun02_p2.html#3.
The niggle I still have (well there's, of course, a major niggle
about the metaphors) is about Joss's choice of Willow's spell
re: the deer in Bargaining. I understand it was cut; but oddly
for his usual practice it's an actual spell and I'm still very
curious about his intent and background in this area. This will
probably remain one of my unsolved mysteries...growing list.
Nonetheless, great thread and theories everyone.
[> [> [> [> Tara
mentoring Willow -- HonorH, 18:10:34 09/13/02 Fri
No, not as such. Tara always let Willow take the lead in their
relationship and, as of S5, was thinking Willow was way ahead
of her anyway. That, I think, is why Tara's stated misgivings
about Willow's magic use were so startling to Willow. I just don't
think it ever occurred to Tara before that Willow *needed* mentoring,
and more's the pity.
[> [> [> Re: Lovely
theory, Darby -- leslie,
17:38:12 09/13/02 Fri
I think you're onto something with the steal/buy analogy here.
In shamanic cultures, for instance, the job of the shaman is often
to travel to the realm of the Mistress or Master of Animals and
negotiate how many animals the hunters can kill on their hunt,
and there is always a price of some sort. The hunters also thank
the animals for giving up their lives so that people can eat,
and treat the uneaten remains (bones, skin) with respect.
It struck me this week that the source of Willow's magic at each
stage in her spiral into destructiveness is *really* dependent
on the source of her "juice." She doesn't get mean until
she's drained Rack--her attitude toward Dawn in Rack's den is
very similar to his toward her. (Another point that had escaped
me first time round--we all picked up on the "bored now"
connection to Vamp Willow, but she also greets Dawn with "Hey
cutie," almost exactly what Spike says when he approaches
Buffy about allying against Angelus.) Then, when she drains the
magic from Giles, it turns out the whole plan was to plant a kind
of trojan horse virus in the magic. So clearly there are different
kinds of magic with different effects on the user: bad magic comes
from bad people. This kind of leaves the point open, though--is
the magic *itself* good or bad, or does the goodness and badness
come from the being who channels it? Or a bit of both?
Part of this may come down to a distinction between Wicca as "magic"
and Wicca as "religion." A lot of what Willow does seems
to be more related to medieval ritual magic, in which performing
the ritual properly will *compel* supernatural beings to do your
will; religion, on the other hand, performs ritual as a way of
honoring the gods (putting on a good show, making them a nice
meal, offering them an interesting sermon) and communications
are phrase as requests. Tara seems more inclined to this latter
approach; she seems to take the "we beseech you" aspect
of invocation more seriously.
[> [> [> [> Sigh.
I miss Tara. -- Arethsua, 19:24:26 09/13/02 Fri
[> [> [> [> [>
I think we all do. S7 won't be the same with her. -- Scroll,
11:03:17 09/15/02 Sun
[> [> [> [> Re:
Lovely theory, Darby -- DEN, 08:17:05 09/14/02 Sat
Leslie, I agree with your notion of the "trojan horse"
virus in Giles's magic. What I do not have clear in my mind is
whether or not what happened after Willow ingests the magic was
a backup plan, a dead man's switch kind of contingency for a last-ditch
emergency. Common sense suggests to me instead that the coven
expected Giles to defeat Willow and proceed from there as necessary
Otherwise we're asked to assume that Dark Willow was to be intentionally
infused with magic far more powerful than that she already possessed,
in the hope/expectation that some unspecified and unpredictable
form of human love would bring her back and save the world. Given
the stakes, that seems AWFULLY high-risk for a first option!
Can anyone help me along
[> [> [> [> [>
Re: Lovely theory, Darby -- leslie,
10:19:32 09/14/02 Sat
I, too, am uncertain whether the "virus" was the main
plan or a safety device--it could also have been that, since presumably
Willow had not drained Rack yet at the time the coven devised
their plan (and hey, here's a question--how exactly did Giles
get there? If he took a plane from Britain to the West Coast like
a normal person, this all would have had to have happened pretty
shortly after Willow went wonky--maybe about the time she sucked
up all the magic in the books), they were only assuming that she
only had her own rage to deal with. The desire to end the world,
the real destructive darkness, seems to have been imbibed with
Rack. But the main point I was going for was the idea that different
magicks have different "personalities" and that we can
see them reflected in Willow's actions as she begins sucking up
any magic she can find.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> What I think (more or less) -- HonorH, 13:20:03
09/14/02 Sat
First, Anya says it was "nice of you to teleport" into
Sunnydale, so I'm thinking the coven must have just sort of blipped
Giles from Devon to Sunnydale.
Second, I think there were two distinct plans. The first was for
Giles to simply hold off Willow long enough for the coven to figure
out a way to drain her power. Failing that, he was to fight her
hard enough that she'd need a "pick me up," as she put
it, and the true magic he gave her would reconnect her humanity.
The destroying the world thing distinctly did *not* look like
it was part of anybody's plan. Luckily, Xander was there to put
things back on track.
And finally, I think that whatever happened, Giles was planning
on taking Willow with him after it all went down. He needed to
get her away from the Hellmouth and to someplace where he and
perhaps the coven could "detox" her and help her recuperate
from Tara's death and her subsequent actions.
[> [> Re: The true essence
of magic? (season 7 speculation) -- DEN, 15:26:11 09/13/02
Fri
Darby, your take on Willow's issue with magic makes very good
sense to me. The problem with s6 was not "magic as addiction"
but "magic as drugs," depicted with a heavy-handedness
unusual for an otherwise sophisticated show. Addiction of the
kind you describe need not depend on an "addictive substance"
like nicotine. Its roots are emotional/psychological, though it
can have physical symptoms. And it's no less real than substance
addiction--ask any gambling junkie!
[> [> Why are drugs addictive?
-- Cleanthes,
16:32:23 09/13/02 Fri
An opiate mimics natural brain chemicals; this gives the "high",
and explains the first step of why humans let drugs control them
- in a way, addicts let the evolution of the brain enslave them.
But WHY would the brain have this flaw? Well, evolution can only
weed out those problems sufficiently great to impact populations.
And why does time run at the speed it does such that this happens?
In the fullness of time, this problem must solve itself.
Why do 5 year olds stop asking why at every turn?
Why do scientific-minded adults think that the evolutionary answer
goes far enough?
Some mathematical function no doubt describes the degree of match
needed between some addictive chemical and a naturally-occuring
brain hormone necessary to cause problems. Perhaps the function
will even yield one-point numbers for this or that chemical.
Why?
The whole universe has this structure which determines that this
or that number (not just for addiction, but also, say, the speed
of light in a vacuum or Planck's constant) will control.
Doesn't this elevate numbers to a Platonic ideal, and, by extension,
to the underlying tension of the cosmos?
Willow's addiction to magic resembled a drug addiction. Many have
criticized this as a disappointingly prosaic way to look at things.
But, I suggest that drug addiction represents a call on a basic
fracture point in the Platonic whole-ness of the universe. Would
magic even be ABLE to differ?
[> [> [> Re: Why are
drugs addictive? -- DEN, 16:40:55 09/13/02 Fri
I'm not sure I understand Cleanthes's posting, but just reading
it made me feel intellectually superior! Maybe addiction has been
defined too narrowly. Might drug addiction be best understood
as only one subset of a family of dependencies caused by the interaction
of certain stimuli, physical or psychoogical, on a particular
individual's brain chemistry?
[> [> [> Re: Why are
drugs addictive? -- Arethusa, 19:20:33 09/13/02 Fri
"But WHY would the brain have this flaw? Well, evolution
can only weed out those problems sufficiently great to impact
populations."
Is it a flaw? Many societies used drugs to help extend endurance.
I just read recently about a society in Africa that uses a natural
drug to help sustain them on long distance travels. In Mexico,
men smoked pot to help them work longer hours. And wouldn't drugs
that induce euphoria be a benefit to some (pre-industrial) societies,
helping maintain social order? Since evolution hasn't yet eradicated
a desire for drugs, maybe there is a reason. Maybe we're wired
to seek pleasurable sensations, to aid in the propagation of the
species.
"Why do scientific-minded adults think that the evolutionary
answer goes far enough?"
Well, I can only speak for myself. Science relies on verifiable
facts. Religion relies on unverifiable faith. Science answers
questions; religion poses impenetrable ones. And not everyone
feels the need to have a deity (or deities) to turn to for comfort
or support or rules to live by. (I very much hope that doesn't
sound insulting; I certainly don't mean it to be.)
"Why do 5 year olds stop asking why at every turn?"
Because they finally realize that their parents don't know everything.
I'll leave the other questions to wiser heads.
Arethusa, providing small answers to big questions.
[> [> [> [> Re:
Why are drugs addictive? -- Cleanthes,
12:10:27 09/14/02 Sat
"Why do scientific-minded adults think that the evolutionary
answer goes far enough?"
Well, I can only speak for myself. Science relies on verifiable
facts. Religion relies on unverifiable faith. Science answers
questions; religion poses impenetrable ones. And not everyone
feels the need to have a deity (or deities) to turn to for comfort
or support or rules to live by. (I very much hope that doesn't
sound insulting; I certainly don't mean it to be.)
Ah, this is interesting. I did NOT have religion in mind as an
alternate to science (although religion certainly is such an alternate
approach)! Instead, I had fiction in mind - specifically speculative
fiction, like BtVS & the philosophy that underlies it!
[> [> [> [> Verifiable
Facts are in the eye of the beholder -- Darby's Wife, 19:42:32
09/14/02 Sat
<<"Why do scientific-minded adults think that the evolutionary
answer goes far enough?"
Well, I can only speak for myself. Science relies on verifiable
facts. Religion relies on unverifiable faith.>>
Having just read most of Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure
of Man" I have had a theory of mine confirmed. Science isn't
nearly as far away from religon as scientists like to believe.
What scientists call facts are often interperted through a prism
of their own assumptions, prejudices and belief systems. Science
and religon have alot more in commen then we normally like to
believe. It would be nice to have a factual platform to form our
view of the world, but unfortunately there's a context to everything
we see, hear and touch, which has an affect even on "facts."
- Sara, who likes to bait scientists, especially her own favorite
pet biologist
[> [> [> [> [>
Re: Verifiable Facts are in the eye of the beholder --
Arethusa, 20:23:01 09/14/02 Sat
I get that, to echo the Scoobies. I've read about aVictorian anatomy
study where the scientist found a skeleton of a woman with a smallish
brain and other stereotypical "female" characterists
and presented it as proof that women were inferior, conveniently
ignoring other skeletons that didn't fit his theory. (Wish I could
remember the details.)
Will identifying aand recognizing the context in which we live
help us to be objective? Is total objectivity even a good goal?
Sometimes a nut trying to prove a hypothesis can be inspired and
driven to scientific discovery.
I'm enjoying your posts; glad you joined the ponder of philosophers*
here.
*I found an amusing (well, amusing to an English teacher) website
with collective nouns on it here:
http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/
[> [> [> [> [>
[> Objectivity -- Darby's Wife, 20:55:50 09/14/02
Sat
I don't think total objectivity is possible, once you get past
"I think therfore I am" everything else has to be subjective,
it's all going through our own little heads. It seems that recognizing
the influence our culture has on our perceptions, and striving
for objectivity can keep us flexible in our viewpoints. A very
interesting point about the crazy person who makes the great leaps-
it's a really romantic notion, but I'd be kind of worried about
whether or not I was just plain crazy...
(By the way, thanks to everyone for the warm welcome I'm getting!!!)
- Sara, who likes to map out bits and bytes, on/off being so very
comforting
[> [> [> Re: Why are
drugs addictive? -- Darby, 20:21:48 09/13/02 Fri
I'm not sure that I understand the question, but both aspects
of drugs have evolutionary explanations.
In the source plants, the drug molecules are insecticidal. And
plants go after bugs chemically the same way we usually do - with
attacks aimed at their nervous systems and molecules that can
bind to receptors for regular processing molecules in the brain
(ther's a conformational similarity that I guess could be represented
mathematically, but you'd get different numbers for each compound).
Human nervous systems use similar but somewhat different chemistry,
and the plant compounds literally mess with our minds because
that's what they are made for.
You could, I suppose, statistically support the assertion that
drug addiction affects reproductive success and therefore might
have a longterm effect on human evolution, but the drugs have
not been used for enough generations (except alcohol, which works
on our chemistry differently, or nicotine, which tends to exert
its effect after most users' procreative years) to show any real
effects. But evolution does its weeding among the individuals
of a population, there's no critical mass effect needed. And how
far does an evolutionary answer need to go?
If you want to get into real fun, try to pin down any ten people
who work in the field of addiction on what "addiction"
really is - you'll get at least four definitions with dramatically
different details. But those numbers may vary.
- Darby, who respects the magic of mathematics but often wonders
how much truth it really reveals.
[> [> [> [> Re:
Why are drugs addictive? -- Cleanthes,
12:35:11 09/14/02 Sat
You could, I suppose, statistically support the assertion that
drug addiction affects reproductive success and therefore might
have a longterm effect on human evolution, but the drugs have
not been used for enough generations (except alcohol, which works
on our chemistry differently, or nicotine, which tends to exert
its effect after most users' procreative years) to show any real
effects.
You've stated the science I was hoping to suggest. I believe it's
true that the human body produces a hormone (or it an enzyme?)
whose sole purpose is the metabolism of alcohol. Evolution HAS
had enough time to deal with that particular human activity. So,
why has enough time passed for alcohol to be dealt with by the
metabolism but not opiates?
It just HAS, comes back the answer, normally.
Well, doesn't that suggest that there is scope for fictional exploration
of this, not just in the "movie-of-the-week", oh-so-earnest
way? Without going so far as to say that Willow-the-magic-addict
was well-written, I'm still hoping to suggest that unanswered
and unanwerable "magic" lies underneath even the seemingly
everyday phenomena of addiction.
Of course, ME might have made Rack a Charles Manson cult leader
of greedy, excessive magic. Or, they could have made Rack a calm,
lyrical liar. Or perhaps a Mephistopheles offering Willow an overtly
Faustian boost in magic.
All of these would also have played on the weakness of the human
understanding of control, which we have because we must. Was not
Willow's flaw overreaching? ME used the drug metaphor, but many
others were available. To my mind, hybris is hybris; and that's
why drugs, religion, magic, video games and much more are addictive.
And that's my non-final answer!
[> [> [> [> [>
Follow-up -- Darby, 14:33:32 09/14/02 Sat
Alcohol, or ethanol, is a common toxin converted by enzymes in
the liver (some of which also convert acetaminophen, which is
why you don't want to overload the system with both) and is an
old, old system. Human alcohol use is based upon overloading the
system to get alcohol through the liver and to the nervous system
without being processed, something your liver will fight progressively
- it will devote more cells to the task over time. Human artifacts
relating to fermenting alcoholic beverages go back almost as far
as the earliest hints of alcohol. And, after all this time, it's
still fairly easy to toxify yourself with alcohol. One would have
to assume some adaptive benefits to somewhat balance the costs
(and they're not hard to come up with).
Opiate use affects, at best, a small fraction of a population
and only a fraction of those in a way that would impact their
fitness, and have been a significant impact on only a few cultures
for a relatively short period of time. (The affected receptors
in the brain, incidentally, are probably neurotransmitters - messenger
molecules - rather than hormones or enzymes.) Just from how evolution
works, one wouldn't expect to see a change. Also, evolution happens
not because something is needed, but because something can actually
change in an adaptive way - mutations messing with those brain
chemicals to negate their vulnerability may be a much more negative
thing than dealing with addicts.
And here's a bit of heresy - humans don't evolve in quite the
same way as other animals. Our societal structure allows much
greater distribution of reproductive success, so classic genetic
"weeding out" has a much smaller effect on us. We do
what you suggested as a general evolutionary pattern: we evolve
largely as populations. As much as "Social Darwinism"
is a reviled term, look at human history and tell me that cultures
with whatever advantages didn't supplant ones that are somehow
disadvantaged. And drug use has to be an issue with a big or critical
part of a population before its course will be swayed.
And on your final point, it's obvious that you have a particular
definition for addiction, and I think I can infer it from your
last paragraph, but could you put it in words?
- Darby, who cannot resist swooping into an evolution discussion.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> Re: Follow-up -- Rahael, 15:32:08 09/14/02 Sat
"As much as "Social Darwinism" is a reviled term,
look at human history and tell me that cultures with whatever
advantages didn't supplant ones that are somehow disadvantaged.
And drug use has to be an issue with a big or critical part of
a population before its course will be swayed."
How so? what cultures are you thinking of? What would you classify
as cultural 'advantages' and what would you say were 'disadvantages'?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Re: Follow-up -- Darby, 17:40:15 09/14/02
Sat
I guess I take my Darwinism (minus the Victorian directionality)
pretty straight up, as a matter of surviving and reproducing,
although with extensive opportunity to hybridize in the case of
cultures.
When one culture essentially imposes its basic structure on others
(think Greece through the Middle East, Rome through Europe, Britain
all over the place, the U.S. now) and largely supplants them,
they exert some sort of advantage-of-the-moment, be it military,
economic, or technological. Adaptive advantages, related to continued
survival and perpetuation of the "type," to use a more
Victorian (or prior) concept. I'd wager that's what happened to
the Neandertals - overwhelmed and absorbed. Nothing good or bad,
just the continuation of those whose abilities fit the time, classic
Darwinism. Social Darwinism got locked up with some skewed ideas
of "superiority," not something I'd link to a culture
in and of itself and not really a Darwinian concept.
Did that explain it well enough?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Ideas of success and failure -- Rahael,
17:58:52 09/14/02 Sat
Firstly, were the builders of empire unified by a monolithic cultural
outlook? Did the Scottish (who were very prominent) share the
same outlook and wishes as the English?
Aren't we privileging certain ideas of cultural imperialism with
'success'? How many cultures want to spread world wide? Aren't
cultures simply the product of the interaction of a group of people
in a close geographical location? an interaction that might be
carried further afield by books and other media? Isn't it meaningless
to talk about 'supplanting' since post Imperial British culture
(however we define it) is different to the the pre Imperial (depending
on not whether we are counting Ireland as a colony)?
Cultures meet and communicate. And within each culture are subcultures,
exisitng in varying degrees of tension. I guess I find it hard
to apply the principles of Darwinism here.
What about the attractiveness of self destructive cultures, which
are nevertheless very successful at spreading?
I am very loath to cloak cultures in terms of 'supplanting' because
that idea is at the very root of the fear of the other and fear
of the foreign. That somehow ideas and cultures are dangerous
to the survival of our own. That they'll supplant us, that they
are something threatening to our survival.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> Cultures -- Darby, 20:12:06
09/14/02 Sat
One of the more interesting developments of the last couple of
decades has been watching biologists bat around the question of
"Do animals have culture?" Which of course leads to
all manner of syntactical arguments.
You're right, culture is a bit harder to define than "species,"
which itself is not a terribly precise term, but I would tend
to put it in the "know it when I see it" category. Not
very useful, but there it is.
For humans, to me, culture is a basic approach to societal organization,
including who's in charge as well as how they get to be in charge.
It's internal structures, class systems and gender divisions.
It's economic systems. It's commonality of belief in how the world
works. In some cases, it's telling the difference between identical
twins - not so easy for outsiders, as I suspect I might difficulty
even seeing your point about the English and the Scots from a
general culture standpoint. But cultures spread, by armies, trade,
and missionaries, and invade and often overwhelm cultures not
as able to withstand the collision. I did allude to hybridization,
also a biological term pertinent at least sometimes to evolution
but definitely to cultures - rarely do cultures come in and obliterate
another, but after the original clash, very often what remains
looks much more like one then the other. How much of the American
system resembles the Iroquois Nation? How much of the British
system derives from the Picts and Druids, and how much from the
Romans and the Saxons? How much of the Australian aboriginal culture
will remain in another 200 years, except as elements in the Australian
culture?
Would you have had the Bible, or any books in English, to read
as a girl if Christian and British culture had not spread by imposition
and might as well as through the dissemination of art? And, from
an evolutionary standpoint, all are important.
I find it fascinating that novels of the future expect an Earth
with a unified culture, a unified political system, a unified
voice, and everyone nods at the inevitability of it. But how does
such a thing come about? From gentle persuasion and a free sharing
of ideas? I think we're not discussing human beings, evolved to
be nasty, territorial, and willing to integrate your group into
"us" - or, if you wish to remain "them," grind
you into dust. In a way, imperialism in all of its guises is the
human imperative, and "local culture" is becoming a
gradually outmoded term.
We are a long way from seeing anything close to a final result,
but the process (not progress) is clear.
- Darby, amazing myself at how jaded and negative this sounds.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Cultures -- Rahael, 03:55:56
09/15/02 Sun
"Would you have had the Bible, or any books in English, to
read as a girl if Christian and British culture had not spread
by imposition and might as well as through the dissemination of
art? And, from an evolutionary standpoint, all are important"
Well, you see, that's the point. I had the Bible and books in
English, but I was a tiny minority of the country that was invaded.
There was a massive nationalistic backlash against the English
and English culture. I never read any product of that culture
without a critical framework. In fact, my Grandmother and Grandfather
were probably the most nationalistic people in the family. Their
children diluted both their chauvinism, and had a more ambivalent
attitude about their mixed heritage.
THe reason why we were Christians was because a great great grandfather
built a massive fortune co-operating with the colonisers, through
business. His son slid down the prosperity scale by going and
getting himself an education and serving the English in their
civil service. He also converted, to further advantage himself.
I don't know whether we were more upset by the craven conversion,
or the way his father had built up his wealth!
And because of this complex history, because of the Colonial divide
and rule policy within native societies, we set off seething tensions
and divisions, where some sections of the population were resented.
Where they were excluded from the new nationalism. Is this supplantation?
I find a more complex and tense interaction going on, which is
ultimately more interesting than choosing to view every aspect
of society through Darwinian principles.
Furthermore re your points about global imperialism, and the erosion
of the local. I have to strongly disagree with you. A unified
world government might erode *national* cultures and myths. But
I'd expect that local cultures would flourish. I'd expect regionalism
to grow strong. Did the indvididual states lose their cultural
identity after unifying, in America? Or did they strongly assert
their regional character even more (this is not a rhetorical question.
I know nothing about American history!).
THe great lie (as propounded by Spike in Pangs) and by Imperialists
in general is to say "Conquest is part of human nature. It's
always going to happen." I object to that. It gives a kind
of justification to violent political behaviour. Yes, in the conflict
over scarse resources, human societies have often resorted to
violence. They've done all sorts of things. Human societies are
complex. I'd wouldn't say that imperialism is the human imperative.
I'd say the human imperative is to procreate. Sometimes protecting
the species, living, working, procreating, raising young happens
best in peaceful, stable environments. I'd say that's the imperative,
and sometimes societies go to war to maintain that. In the end,
I still think the answer is more complex. It's not a useful hypothesis
for me to follow when trying to answer an essay.
"Why did Oliver Cromwell engage in the second civil war?"
Because of things like ideals, and principles. Because according
to a shared world view, the king had transgressed. He fought to
maintain the cultural understanding, not to supplant one with
another.
When I first came on to this board, I rapidly got into an argument
about social Darwinism with this guy called d'Herblay. I think
I kept insisting that this approach missed just about everything
interesting regarding the situations it was applied to. I still
think the same.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> Addendum -- Rahael,
04:13:02 09/15/02 Sun
The most successful trick used by an imperialist is not to supplant
local culture (it's a huge long process, and the people really
resent you!) but to work with it. After all, most imperialists
are just after one thing: money. They don't really care if the
natives are reading assigned texts.
Secondly your question about local cultures reminded me of Charles
V, the Holy Roman Empire and different systems of government.
THe way he ruled his patchwork of kingdoms, assuming different
cultural identities in different domains helped keep together
a vast, and tense empire. It was a method of government very common
in the Early Modern Era. James I & VI (the very title is a strong
hint!) didn't integrate England and Scotland culturally - he didn't
attempt to supplant English culture with Scottish. He was happy
to be at once an English king and a Scottish one. He was primarily
interested in the huge wealth the English throne could give him.
I don't think we should ever underestimate the human imperative
toward pragmatism. Nor how fascinating cultures are - especially
when you look at sub-cultures. One might regard my Bible reading,
Jane Austen loving family as participating in a sub-culture. Nothing
more, nothing less.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Addendum
-- Darby, 06:36:14 09/15/02 Sun
I think that we may be talking at cross purposes here. I say imperialism
and you see military might and totalitarianism, an "active"
method of forcing one culture on another. I say "culture"
and your focus tends to be on the differences. Let me try another
tack.
Say that "human cultures" exist like subspecies, and
that particular aspects of culture are equivalent to genes (there's
a whole discipline devoted to this, and the inheritable, genetic-but-not-DNA
"bits" are called memes). So each culture is
only as distinct as its combinations of memes. Memes, like genes
(for those with the background, read "alleles" where
these two terms pop up), are passed down through generations,
prone to mutation, and produce a combination of traits that affects
the survival / persistence of the culture. Change the culture's
environment, and perfectly useful memes (say, for example, the
practice of cannibalism, or even the idea of human leaders being
divine) may become quite the disadvantage and over time tend to
disappear, while useful memes (for example, shared languages or
particular patterns of commerce or even technologies) spread widely.
One of the most common changes in environment for a culture is
the collision with another culture, which raises challenges to
individual memes and the potential for Darwinian selection. This
would happen most dramatically in a militaristic "takeover"
situation, but there are many other ways. I think that Joss is
on the right track with a Firefly where the languages are
pretty much just English and Chinese - language memes may be some
of the easiest to see the patterns in. Will small, local cultures
persist? Sure, the same way that individual collections of genes
persist in individuals and in local groups. The Scots are also
genetically distinct from the English, but how different? The
differences will always be there, and will be important to the
individuals, but will seem of less and less significance from
an outside perspective. With global influences becoming more important
- the internet, popular culture, capitalism just to name a few
- we're heading toward a global culture. It may be a good thing,
it may be a bad thing, it will probably be some combination of
that. To make a probably unfortunate example, a Terran's impression
of Klingon culture would probably ignore regional differences
as insignificant, even though the Klingons might still feel that
regions were quite different from each other.
You're right, the U.S. is a good example, and one I've some experience
with. When I've lived in various regions, I've been taken by the
differences between what I was used to and what I experienced.
But, objectively, the differences were really overwhelmed by the
similarities, and the similarities over time increase. Is it fair
for outsiders to speak of a monolithic "American culture"?
Sure.
Now is this the only way to look at the interactions of cultures?
No, I was only saying as a bit of an offhand remark (the genesis
of subthreads everywhere!) that Darwinian principles could easily
be applied to cultures. I knew at the time that it might "press
some buttons," but I still thought that it was a valid point
to make.
- Darby, who is trying very hard to avoid concepts of "success"
or "failure" here, or "weak" and "strong,"
which reduces the ideas from principles to examples.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Memes, national
identity, and the communion wafer -- Rahael, 08:01:38 09/15/02
Sun
This is certainly worth discussing - it's a very interesting and
lively debate, so thank you for bringing it up!
You say that there's a monolithic American culture which encompasses
all sorts of regional identities. I'd agree, but I'd say that
the idea of 'America', the idea and the identity and the mythmaking
- that's a part of the complex interaction between regional identities.
It exists only as long as the people who exist within continue
to think of it as such. From far away, we might think of Americans
being pretty similar, say compared to India, or the entire Asian
subcontinent. But then all Europeans in the 17th Century look
pretty similar.
As people grow closer, yes, ideas spread faster. But do people
react to these ideas in the same way? I find it hard to believe
that the internet and television is slowly going to make the world.
This year has seen some pretty sharp idealogical and cultural
differences active in world politics! Whenever people communicate,
the chances for conflict, just as much as communication grow greater.
My favourite example is Holy Communion in early modern Europe.
All those people, just in one church, kneeling/standing (depending
on denomination!) partaking of that wafer and that wine. Yet that
round globe of a wafer encompasses so many hopes, ideas and world
views! Only in that one church. Then go wider, into that region,
into that country, into Europe itself. Protestants, at war with
each other because of a tiny point of doctrine. The vernacular
Bible allowed for a common culture to arise. But it didn't mean
heterogeneity. It meant more difference, more conflict. Because
imagery and text contain a world of possibility.
Think of the American flag, that potent symbol that is draped
around that monolithic culture. Does it mean the same thing for
everyone around the world, despite the fact it is a very common
image? Does it even mean the same thing for people in one city
in America?
I think this very flexibilty is what allows a diverse and huge
landmass to unite under one symbol. But it brings its own problems.
Conflict, agreement, pragmatic tensions. From afar, it would look
like all Americans have a common mindset. But is this a useful
assumption to make? Will it allow for good decision making, successful
decision making? Will assuming that Indians and Africans regard
a certain idea in the same way as an American might do, because
global culture has spread around the world be a safe assumption
to make? No. It simply means that certain images are now seen
by more people around the world than ever before. It also means
that there are now even more interpretations than ever before.
More complex relationships.
Let me go back to Civil War England. Nothing in culture separated
the two opposing sides in the first civil war (the second one
is more complex). What caused the path to war was two conflicting
interpretations of how to reach a commonly agreed ideal. Sometimes,
sharing an ideal can mean more conflict.
So what is Richard Dawkins going to add here, apart from denouncing
both sides as religious bigots and partakers of a virulent form
of meme? (sorry! I may be being hugely unfair to him!!)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Lamarck or
Darwin? -- Sophist, 08:27:04 09/15/02 Sun
When I first read your original post, I thought you were going
to raise the issue of culture as affecting group selection. Now,
I understand you to be making a point about purely cultural "evolution".
What I'm wondering is this: cultural change seems pretty clearly
to work on Lamarckian principles, not Darwinian. Doesn't it make
more sense to analyze cultural change through that lens rather
than Darwin's?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
-- Darby, 09:07:39 09/15/02 Sun
The LaMarckian ideas fit in, mostly because LaMarck was not the
buffoon he's been made to seem by history. But they're not entirely
necessary. And this isn't quite "cultural evolution,"
in the classic sense of the word.
In memes, as in genes, there's nothing really "new,"
just various levels of dramatic mutation following a "build
upon this" pattern, as genetics does. Anything that you inherited
from your parent(s), even in a slightly-altered form, that can
be passed on, would be acted on by selection pressures. The idea
of "acquired characteristics" gets a bit fuzzy for memes
(especially as they can be treated as infective), but it doesn't
really matter. You can find a few LaMarckian blips here and there,
but you can in DNA-type inheritance, too. Traits, once in place,
should follow Darwinian selection patterns. Wow, there's a whole
essay buried in this point...
That last bit about some living things actually following LaMarck
brings me to Rah's responses. We really do look at this from near-opposite
perspectives (wanna bet we have opposite learning styles?). I
don't dispute the variety of individuals within any given type,
and how they adhere to various degrees to that type. One of my
favorite sayings is, "the animals don't read the books, so
they don't know they're breaking the rules." That doesn't
make generalized information about the behavior of a species meaningless.
But you can't dispute the occasional usefulness of looking at
things across the Big Picture to see what sorts of trends can
be puzzled out. Just as studying the behavior of individual specimens
allows to you "fuzz" the differences and get a basic
idea of their behavioral patterns.
- Darby, who tends to filter everything through an evolutionary
prism, even critters like us.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
-- Rahael, 09:24:40 09/15/02 Sun
One could say that the devil is in the details, and that it determines
which big picture you're looking at ;)
My argument is not so much that individuals are varied, but by
its very nature, cultures must allow for multiple and differing
responses. I'd argue that we have a 'global' culture now. It's
a rich tapestry. It will not grow less in complexity if the earth
were to unify under some form of Government, or if the communication
between people in far flung places were to get easier.
I'd also differentiate between 'behavioural patterns' and 'ideas/cultures'
since I think the two interact with each other, modifying, communicationg,
resisting, accepting. Behaviour forms culture; culture modifies
behaviour. At the end of the day, the evolutionary prism doesn't
exist outside of culture, or the world of ideas. It too is rooted
in a historical and intellectual context. Our prisms give all
of us a different perspectives. I too subscribe to evolutionary
theory as elegant, persuasive and useful. I think what I find
most attractive about it was that infused the world with beautiful
complexity.
Now I'm trying to think what my prism is.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Examples. -- Darby, 09:55:16 09/15/02 Sun
I'll say right off that these are imperfect examples, but I think
illustrative enought to be useful.
Language is a big element in isolating cultures (isolation is
a huge element of evolutionary theory, as I'm sure you know) and
can be used, for sake of discussion, as "representing"
discrete cultures. The world has been losing languages at a fast
rate for the last 200 years. I'd argue that the cultures (those
that remain, anyway) who spoke those languages are much more likely
to become less distinct as a result. Using language as an imperfect
stand-in for culture, the U.S. alone has been the site of hundreds
of cultures "adapting" to the new environment. The resulting
cultures have internal distinctions, but become more and more
like the "American" culture, and more and more like
each other.
I look at a species, or a culture, and see the commonalities that
allow some understanding of how things change (certainly not the
only one, or probably even the best one) and how differences are
less significant than they are treated, of how basic shared traits
lead to wonderful and nasty things. You look at the same thing
and see all of the individuals and their unique features and contributions,
as elements of the beauty and horror of your world. These are
not mutually exclusive. I like your perspective, and I appreciate
it even though my mind only works that way if I force it to.
- Darby, who is much more likely to remember the general attributes
of a type of poetry than a specific poem, but still likes poetry.
Sometimes. A bit. Maybe that was a bad example.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> Good example -- Rahael, 10:14:30 09/15/02 Sun
Will have to think more about languages. I am fluent in one of
the world's most 'successful' languages as well as one of the
world's oldest living ones. Certainly, I am not dismissing how
important language is in forming world views and values and behaviour,
since I've posted about this before!
Interestingly, both of the languages I speak are peppered with
words from the other. I often mix and mangle them in conversation.
Personally, I think bilingualism is very important. There have
been studies done which show that children who live in homes where
more than one language is spoken do better at school (if you consider
that important! ;) ). It seems also to enhance language ability
in general. So it suits language ability to be bilingual. How
does this play out in 'evolutionary' terms? I also find that I'm
severely hampered by not speaking French, in terms of my working
life, and I was severely hampered in my academic one by not being
fluent in Latin, French or Italian.
LOL re the poetry. I'll confess that I keep wanting to call you
'Sara's husband'!
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Genes
and individuals -- Sophist, 10:44:27 09/15/02 Sun
I can understand the analogy of memes=genes, though in both cases
I think the definitions are pretty fuzzy. For example, I'd be
pretty skeptical of any claim for a "meme" of "religion"
or "Christianity" or even "transubstantiation".
Putting that aside for the moment, I think your analogy breaks
down at the next level.
In nature, selection does not act directly on genes (well, it
does in the chemical environment surrounding the gene, but not
at higher levels). It acts on individuals (you, me, dubdub's kittens),
and the impact on genes themselves is mediated by the interaction
of the individual with its environment. If we were to continue
the analogy to evolution, what would be the social equivalent
of the individual?
You appear to be arguing that "culture" can be drafted
for this role. The problem I'm having, and that I think is at
the source of Rah's posts, is this: we can define an individual
reasonably well for purposes of natural selection (at least until
we get down to, say, fungi or bacterial colonies), but I don't
see that any such definition would work with the term "culture".
It's simply too diffuse a concept.
Take your example of language (and I know you only introduced
it as a surrogate for culture). Language, in fact, does not track
culture very well at all. Many people speak English, but could
hardly be described as "American" in culture. Or take
the US and England -- the two countries have shared a common language
for 225 years, yet in that time their culture has diverged.
This leads me to conclude that the argument has to rely on direct
interaction between "memes" and the environment, without
the mediation of any higher level "individual". This
would result in the cultural mixing that Rah keeps pointing out.
This blending of outcomes in the successor generation is what
makes the process Lamarckian (at least it seems so to me). And
it would mean that we shouldn't speak of "successful cultures"
even if we could speak of "successful memes". In concrete
terms, monotheism could be a successful meme, and we never reach
the question of whether "Judaism" (whatever that may
mean) has been successful as a "culture".
In short, I can see that the concept of natural selection might
work if applied to a well-defined "meme", but I don't
see it as relevant to cultures.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Cultures = Populations -- Darby, 11:13:03 09/15/02 Sun
What I'm speaking about does happen at the level of the individual,
and it does eventually affect the basic "type" of the
culture. The tricky thing is the inheritance pattern, which seems
Lamarkian because...well, it is. But Lamarck was just mistaken
about the inheritance pattern behind evolution - change that pattern,
he's not so wrong anymore.
Take a Quebec individual human, or better yet a bunch of them.
The more integrated into American / Canadian culture by virtue
of physical location or economic status, the more a lack of the
English meme is a disadvantage that affects the passage of that
meme. Or Rahael, as an adaptation to her cultural environment,
learns English (inherits it directly from the other cultural population,
very non-Mendelian but still a passage of traits and still adaptive)
and gains some advantage in social status (which, from a cultural
standpoint, may be equivalent to a Darwinian reproductive advantage,
since it raises her profile and ability to influence others of
her culture to follow suit). This may be contrary to the actual
Rah, but right now she's the hypothetical Rah.
This happens at the level of both the individual, the individual
memes and the population as a whole, just as selection affects
individuals, individual alleles (the sources of the traits that
get selected for or against) and the population. Modern evolutionary
biology is much more about allele selection and alteration of
the gene pool than individual organisms, which become unwieldy
combinations of alleles when you try to track them.
It's not a perfect comparison, but it's workable. I tend to lean
toward those aspects of science that say, "Well, it may not
be the absolute best representation, but it'll give me a good
idea of how things work. And ferret out some details I might not
have seen any other way."
- Darby, who is only now feeling comfortable with this "meme"
idea he read about a while ago.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> Re: Cultures = Populations -- Sophist, 12:05:58
09/15/02 Sun
Just to translate here, I understand you to say that meme=gene
and culture=deme. If that's not right, let me know.
I have several problems with this.
This happens at the level of both the individual, the individual
memes and the population as a whole, just as selection affects
individuals, individual alleles (the sources of the traits that
get selected for or against) and the population.
Hmmm. I don't see the connection between success of the meme and
success of the individual person. A meme, unlike a gene, can propagate
in a population without regard to the success of any individual
person who "carries" it.
We could define a "deme" as any group "carrying"
a particular meme. This raises 2 issues:
1. Such a deme is a collection of memes/alleles, and selection
would operate on the collective survivability of all memes/alleles
within the deme rather than the survivability of any particular
meme.
2. I can understand culture as being analogous to the environment
in which memes compete. What I don't understand is what would
be the environment in which cultures compete. If we say it's limited
to other cultures, this seems like saying that lions compete only
against other lions. Of course, they don't. What do you see as
the relevant environment when it comes to cultural competition?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Addendum -- Sophist, 12:53:25 09/15/02 Sun
I was having problems with the Board, so I'll add this here.
I don't understand how "culture" can be a defined entity
that survives as an integral whole and replicates as such. I especially
don't understand this in light of the Lamarckian blending of ideas
that takes place when cultures interact.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Re: Addendum -- redcat, 14:00:30 09/15/02
Sun
Sophist, youíre saying much more elegantly here
what I was trying to suggest in my post below about
using biological metaphors to describe culture and cultural interactions.
Just because certain
developmental patterns or processes in human cultures (or in ìcultureî
as an abstract concept)
can usefully be understood in terms of certain biological patterns
or processes does not make
those cultures (or ìcultureî) *the same as* biological
organisms or species. Part of the problem
with using biological evolution as a descriptive template to discuss
social, cultural and historic
patterns of human group interaction is that itís very easy
to slide into assuming that ìcultureî
has the same biological imperatives that living organisms do,
and especially that cultures have
the same or similar imperatives toward survival that the biologically-linked
collections of such
organisms we call ìspeciesî do. There is little evidence
that cultures always or even
predominately interact under the competitive model of Darwinist
evolutionary science, which
posits a constant struggle for always limited space and resources
as a corollary to species
survival. In contrast, there is ample evidence of quite a bit
more complexity in human culture-
group interaction, ranging from those contact situations that
do resemble one species
aggressively wiping out a neighboring species, to situations in
which up to twenty linguistically,
culturally, and socially distinct cultural groups have jockeyed
for position (space, resources,
ìpowerî) within a fixed geographic region over many
centuries without significant cultural inter-
fusion (for example among certain areas of the Papua Highlands),
to the most common pattern
(which Rah and Ete have both discussed here) of complex cultural
cross-fertilization. The
assumption of the existence of a straightforward, linear drive
for survival at all costs (and for
ultimate, absolute expansion into all available territory) as
an applicable template to lay on
either galaxies or the abstract concept of human culture, much
less any individual culture
simply as a by-product of *being* a human culture, is rationally
flawed on its surface.
But now, see how easy it is to use biological metaphors! Of course
cultures can neither
fertilize nor be fertilized, because they are not living organisms
- no eggs, no sperm, not even
any pollen, in fact no reproductive organs at all. But the language
of biology seems to be a
ìnaturalî descriptor for human social, cultural,
linguistic, historic activity, just as marking
differences between humans based on seemingly ìnaturalî
characteristics, like the shape of
the genitals or the color of the skin, seems to be a fairly ìnaturalî
way to do the job of
distinguishing between humans. But in fact, while sex may well
be an important marker of
ìrealî difference between humans, I wonder how many
on this board would be willing to argue
that skin color is? Using biological metaphors as a system of
understanding non-biological
processes is effectively limited when one begins to assume that
the ultimate goal of
reproductive evolution, the survival of a set of genes in a particular
species population, has a
relationship to something analogous to a ìsurvival imperativeî
within the complex set of
processes, ideas and structures we collect under the umbrella
term ìculture.î
Darby, are you arguing that cultures, or even any particular culture
(ìwestern,î ìmodern,î
ìglobalî?) operate under the same type of survival
imperative that biological species do? If so,
whatís your explanation for why that would be so? Side
question: do you apply the same
principle of the ìimperative to surviveî to galaxies?
Not being snarky here, just interested,
since I think the question raises some philosophical issues about
the possibility of divine intent
that may some relevance to this discussion of biology and culture.)
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[> [> Re: Cultures = Populations -- Darby, 13:38:38
09/15/02 Sun
Drawing a blank on "deme," either haven't seen it or
don't remember. Sorry.
How does a meme propagate except through its carriers? Well, I
guess communication media can do it, but those are just extensions
of the creators, still individuals.
There isn't really a "collective survivability" paradigm.
Alleles, and memes, can convey advantages in certain combinations,
if those combinations are common enough, but also can work
singly and often do. If the climate gets colder, are there advantages
to insulation, metabolic adaptation, behavioral adaptation, and
snow-based camouflage on a population of rabbits? Yes, but any
trait, alone or in combination, could convey a survival and reproductive
advantage as the climate cools. Could we get a hardy, furry, burrowing
white rabbit from the several different "types"? Evolutionary
theory would suggest that we could without an initial push for
the entire package. And in some areas, you'll find furry, brown,
burrowing rabbits because the coloration alleles did not mutate
conveniently.
And the same thing could be said about memes - cultures exist
as somewhat distinct "memepools" for whom some meme-traits
can be adaptive in a given circumstance and some aren't. The environment
would be the regional environment, with what aspects impact human
populations - climate, agricultural potential, minerals, trade
availability, etc. In this instance, you've got a niche with just
one critter, us, in it - cultures do compete against other cultures.
The weird thing is that there's a "hearts and minds"
component to the adaptive success of a meme - the environment
includes the basic tapestry of human societal instincts, the need
to belong to groups and have a place in the system. Maybe that
was the important point I was leaving out.
When two sexual reproducers - or populations of same - come into
contact and interbreed, the result shows blended aspects of both,
but evolution continues and the resultant population may reflect
the traits of one founder group much more than the other. Can't
cultures show a similar pattern without being LaMarckian?
- Darby
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[> [> [> Re: fundamental definitions -- redcat,
16:22:22 09/15/02 Sun
Darby: ì...cultures exist as somewhat distinct
ìmemepoolsî for whom some meme-traits can be adaptive
in a given
circumstance and some aren't.î
Sophist: ìI don't understand how "culture" can
be a defined entity that survives as an integral whole and replicates
as
such.î
Perhaps herein lies the crux of the debate: are cultures relatively
static, reproducible entities, or aggregate
collections of processes and inter-connections that constantly
are in fluid motion?
As is probably clear from my responses here, Iím with Sophist,
Rah and Ete on this one, Darby. Would love to hear
what Sara has to say, though... hint, hint...
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[> [> [> [> Re: fundamental definitions --
Darby, 16:34:35 09/15/02 Sun
In evolution, populations and the genepools that define them are...
"aggregate collections of processes and inter-connections
that constantly are in fluid motion" - your attributes for
culture. An ecosystem is at best a snapshot. Look again in an
evolutionary eyeblink and it's different.
That's why the comparison resonates. I guess everybody else sees
Life differently than I do. That's the thing - I don't disagree
with the various descriptions of cultures, but I absolutely see
biology as dealing with exactly the same concepts.
- Darby, who'll see if I can't pull Sara away from Yom Kippur
dinner duty to contribute.
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[> [> [> [> Re: fundamental definitions --
Darby's Wife, 17:42:28 09/15/02 Sun
Wow, Redcat, that's so cool to be asked! This is such a weird
way to build a community and yet here we are, from all parts of
the world, all different backgrounds and experiences and yet it's
a community. And as communities go, probably the most welcoming,
interesting and diverse one I've ever had the privilege to join.
Now, at first I thought this was just an off topic intro, to celebrate
how special it feels to participate in this - but as I type, type,
type away I'm finding that my feelings about community are merging
into my feelings about culture.
So, are cultures static, reproducible entities, or collections
of processes and connections that are in motion?
My answer to that question is yes. I think on many levels you're
all right. (Now this could be a cop-out on my part, because you
are all way smarter than me, and keep using words I don't understand,
but...) Everything is based on the perspective you're looking
at it through - from space the earth is just a big ball, but here
I can look and see mountains and valleys.
I think that Darbs is looking at the culture question, kind of
from space - Greeks, then Romans, then Franks, then Anglo-Saxons,
etc. A culture comes in and by some combination of assimilation
and force (resistance is futile) overwhelms/absorbs another culture.
And I think a Darwinian metaphor is an interesting way to look
at it. Survival of the fittest tends to sound like a value judgement,
as if fit means good and valuable, and unfit means defective,
poor. I know that scientists have misused the metaphor with those
types of value judgements attached, just as they feverishly abused
statistics of cranial measurements, obscenely given IQ tests,
and anything else they could think of, to prove racial superiorities.
("The Mismeasure of Man" - read it, it'll make you want
to slap alot of dead people!) But if you look at the Darwin metaphor
not as a value judgement, but purely as map of survival it makes
for a fascinating parallel between behavior patterns and biological
patterns. Now, part of why I like the parallel is in some ways
I find it comforting. When you see the quantity and quality of
evil in the world, it's hard not to lose hope and be filled with
dread, especially when you have a kid running around in that world.
When we look at human behavior from a biological perspective,
it depersonalizes the evil, people are just behaving according
to their natures, horrible as those natures may be. It gives me
a chance to catch my breath and think of spiders eating those
poor flies in their web while they're still alive. Of course,
I hope I would never use this view as a way of ignoring something
right in front of me - it's a coping mechanism for exposure to
the news. Now, this is from someone who has not personally been
exposed to the evil. For those of you that have experienced it
first hand I can understand if you're not very sympathetic with
this poor little suburban girl's fears of the bogeyman. However,
regardless of why I find it an attractive way of viewing the world,
or someone else finds it an extremely unattractive way, I do think
that the metaphor holds water when strictly defined.
Now, to why Sophist, Rahael, Redcat, and Ete are right - if you
look at culture from the mountains and valleys perspective, then
there aren't clear delinations. Culture is made up of so many
pieces that it becomes difficult to define, which brings me back
to my first paragraph, and the idea of culture and community.
I think a large part of what makes a culture is shared values,
in addition to shared structures and traditions. Here we are building
this far flung community, but in some ways we're building a culture
too, in the common decisions regarding deportment in posts, symbols
and abbreviations, and even in the use of Buffyisms. This is the
emotional definition of culture, the hugs and puppies look at
it. And in this view there are so many different cultures, in
different contexts, that do change and grow and even mutate a
little, that an analytical approach seems impossible.
Darbs is taking a more analytical view of culture. Neither one
is wrong, they're just different. As Darbs was reading me the
different posts in the thread, we were marveling at how much of
all other posts he basically agreed with, it just wasn't the direction
he was discussing. If we're talking of fruit based desserts, and
I start talking about apple pie, it doesn't mean that I don't
think your orange mousse wouldn't be yummy. (Ummm, orange mousse,
apple pie with ice cream... can anyone tell I'm about to begin
fasting?) Anyway that's my two cents, that somehow grew to a couple
of bucks...I do run on!
- Sara, who hopes that redcat isn't really, really sorry she asked!
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[> [> [> [> [> Re: fundamental definitions
-- redcat, 18:47:26 09/15/02 Sun
Aloha e Sara -- on the contrary, Iím glad I asked
and very glad you responded! I had actually written a reply to
Darbyís last post above, but it apparently got lost in
the ethers somewhere, so itís great to read your thoughts
instead.
Basically, the lost post said much the same thing as you and Darby
do here, that we are all talking about things that
we simultaneously experience as stable/fixed and fluid/changeable.
I think this is true for many folks on this board in
terms of our experiences of our own biology AND our culture/s,
as well as the interconnections between the two.
And I wrote that, like Darby (and now you), I also am continually
fascinated with the reflexive power of biological,
particularly Darwinian evolutionary, metaphors to describe patterns
and behaviors of non-biological systems, like
galaxies, cultures and sub-cultures. But I still think, even if
one works very hard to remove the value judgements you
write of (or at least try to remove them as much as is possible
given that weíre using descriptive language, which is
always somewhat value laden), that there is still the danger in
ascribing a survivalist imperative to non-biological
systems. This shows up for me in your notion of using a Darwinian
template as a ìmap of survival.î I absolutely
agree that the parallels between human behavior patterns and biological
patterns are fascinating, but I stop short of
ascribing some sort of over-riding uber-intent, especially such
a seemingly linear and ìprogressiveî one as the
survival imperative, to either human cultures or galaxies. And
that caveat makes me a bit more cautious in using
that particular descriptive template than I might be if I was
convinced that culture itself as an abstract concept, as
well as all cultures individually at all the available historical
ìsnapshotî moments of their fluid existences, must
*inherently* function in ways linked directly to cultural survival,
ie, to the survival of each specific individual culture.
As Sophist notes below, there is no real direct correlation between
ìculturesî and ìcompetitors for resources.î
Your opening paragraph in this context made me think of the sub-cultures
that begin to self-organize even among
the members of a board community like this one. Hmmm, much organic
chewy goodness for thought there...
BTW, so cool to see you referencing Gould. A fairly large chunk
(maybe 100 pages) of ìMismeasure of Manî used
to be on my syllabus for a class in the ëhistory of race,
class and gender as ideas in American cultureí that I taught
a
number of times in the 90s. Some of my students probably would
have joined you in wanting to hit a bunch of dead
folks, LOL! Itís a very interesting text. :-)
[which brings me to my final note to Darby - Iím glad I
disappointed your expectations of virtual violence... (grin)...but
saddened to think you would have had such...can even a poor pagan
turn over a new leaf for the New Year and *try*
not to be naughty anymore?]
Wishing you both the best during this special time,
malama pono,
redcat
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[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: fundamental definitions
-- Darby's Wife, 19:15:06 09/15/02 Sun
RC, a question - is an imperative for survival a bad thing by
definition? I do think cultures want to survive, and would even
expect that they can compete for resources. Isn't that one of
the reasons there has always been a historical hatred and resentment
of Jews, the feeling that we've gotten more than our fair share.
(...you know we run Hollywood and media after all!) As a Jew,
that is certainly more assimilated than any other generation in
my family, I worry about our culture disappearing - not that it
stops me from eating my Egg McMuffin, but just that concern tells
me that a culture can have a survival instinct just as an individual
does. It seems that wanting to survive isn't bad, on a cultural
or individual level, just what you may be willing to do to accomplish
that, which would be the problem. What do you think?
- Sara
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: fundamental definitions
-- Etrangere, 22:36:24 09/15/02 Sun
But cultures cannot have a "survival instinct". Culture
are made of ideas, and ideas do not have intent. Now humans, or
some of them who are the "host" of cultures can havea
will to make their culture survive, but it's not the same thing.
It is true that a sort of Reproduction is at play with cultures,
but the main problem is cultures are way more mutable and changeable
than any kind of biological entity. Sometimes cultures look at
themselves, for exemple, and pretend : we are not what we used
to be, we should go back to good ol' time, and then it moves toward
a totally imaginary re-creation of what they think where that
golden age. How would you explain that in term of evolutionism
?
Ete - who's got exams for Yom Kippour, grrr argh !
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: fundamental definitions
-- redcat, 00:39:32 09/16/02 Mon
The short answer is no, of course the will/desire, the "want"
to survive is not a bad thing, either by definition or inherently
in practice. But like Ete notes, it's a thing that living organisms
-- like the people who are members of cultures -- do, not something
that a non-living non-organism -- like a culture -- can do. It's
kinda like the mantra I used to chant to my students (in the good
old days when I was teaching for a living...), texts can't "say"
(or argue or state or suggest) anything, only their *authors*
can, since speech in all its forms is a human/animal function
and the last time I checked, paper and ink were only metaphorically
"alive." I don't think the difference between saying
that a culture can want to survive and saying that all or some
of the members of that culture want it to survive is just a matter
of semantics.
I'm also grateful for d'Herblay's superb (late) post below and
take serioiusly his argument, in support of yours and Darby's,
for recognition of the (inheritable) biological basis for certain
classes of human behaviors, some of which can be considered memes
or meme-clusters from within a sociobiological perspective. It's
still a pretty far stretch, however, to go from recognizing that
some meme-clusters do have a biological basis to then saying that
human cultures (or the abstract concept "human culture")
will act in ways that both functionally and inherently are the
same as the ways living organisms will act due to the life-force
that drives all life toward survival, that ephemeral but infamous
"will to live."
And if the stars do sing to each other as they grandly sweep through
space, it's certainly not in a register we are equipped to hear
as song...
Am so glad you joined the discussion! And am sending Darby a whole
string of Whoo!s and Hoo!s for starting and maintaining this fabulous
thread!
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Plug, plug,
plug -- d'Herblay, 02:28:10 09/16/02 Mon
And if the stars do sing to each other as they grandly sweep
through space, it's certainly not in a register we are equipped
to hear as song...
Probably because I am delving into this project to avoid working
on another, guilt has caused me to see in both Arethusa's post
below and in this above statement resonances with certain motifs
of a little thing I like to call: Title
Not Yet Determined.
I'm also grateful for d'Herblay's superb (late) post below
and take serioiusly his argument, in support of yours and Darby's,
for recognition of the (inheritable) biological basis for certain
classes of human behaviors, some of which can be considered memes
or meme-clusters from within a sociobiological perspective.
Mmmmm. I'm a little warm and fuzzy! However, I'm just enough
of a contrarian to disagree with just about everyone (as well
as enough of a joiner to agree with something in everyone's argument).
I think that, regarding memetics, I'm with Sophist (this was parallel
evolution in so far as it was expressed on the board, though I
suspect that there were definite elements of common descent).
Though memetics and sociobiology share some cheerleaders, they
are making different claims. Sociobiology is a theory asserting
that behavior has biological components, and therefore was subject
to biological Darwinian selection. (Standard disclaimer: I tend
towards the Gouldian when it comes to the Arguments from Authority
I take into my fallacy-plex; I am agnostic to the extent to which
sociobiology is useful.) Memetics, on the other hand, argues that
elements of, for lack of a better word, culture are subject to
non-biological (though an extended phenotyper will question that
very word) selection along Darwinian lines. Therefore, to a militant
sociobiologist, these behaviors would not be considered memes
or memeplexes but the expression of genes, geneplexes, or, perhaps,
something to do with, I dunno, proteins. One of the things which
might behoove Darby to do, and something I will try to do should
I return to this thread, is to develop a definition of "Darwinian
selection" which does not rely upon its roots in biology.
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[> [> [> Re: Cultures = Populations -- Sophist,
17:48:58 09/15/02 Sun
Drawing a blank on "deme," either haven't seen it
or don't remember. Sorry.
As I understand it, a deme is any population larger than an individual
and smaller than a species. In your analogy, I suppose it would
be a sub-culture, or even a group subscribing to a particular
meme.
How does a meme propagate except through its carriers?
I think this a key point. In biology, the survival and replication
of a gene is tied to the survival and replication of the individual
carrying it. In culture, the meme is not so tied to any identifiable
individual. My memes can reproduce even if I don't.
There isn't really a "collective survivability" paradigm.
Well, there is in two senses. One is that nature can select only
whole rabbits, not individual alleles (except in extreme cases
like absence of lungs, assuming one allele controls that). That's
why brown rabbits can exist if they have the rest of the package.
The other sense is one you need. If cultures do, in fact, compete
(and not just memes), then you are arguing for something akin
to species selection. The culture now becomes the relevant "individual"
for purposes of selection. The point here is that, as others have
said, cultures are collections of memes. Moreover, they
rarely die entirely; some aspects can be carried by the conquerors.
For example, the name of the river Danube (and Don and Dneiper)
actually comes from the Old Avestan word for "river"
despite the fact that the Avestan culture hasn't been around for
almost 3000 years. This sort of blending is Lamarckian, not Darwinian.
The environment would be the regional environment, with what
aspects impact human populations - climate, agricultural potential,
minerals, trade availability, etc. In this instance, you've got
a niche with just one critter, us, in it - cultures do compete
against other cultures.
I guess I don't see the tie between natural resources and memes.
That tie is direct in the case of survival of individuals. It's
at best indirect in the case of survival of memes. In fact, I'd
go so far as to say it's essentially random -- if my culture is
lucky enough to live in an area with many domesticable animals,
our memes will survive compared to those who aren't so fortunate.
The memes didn't cause survival, it was the other way around.
I don't see "cultures" as competing for resources. Individuals
do, and other socially constructed entities do (states, cities,
tribes, etc.). But "cultures" per se don't. There is
no 1-1 correlation between "culture" and "competitor
for resources".
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[> [> [> [> Hey, Sophist, it's lovely to be agreeing
with you! We should try to do it more often... :-) -- redcat,
18:04:02 09/15/02 Sun
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[> [> [> [> Re: Cultures = Populations -- Darby,
19:36:16 09/15/02 Sun
That's me, the unifying influence, I hope somewhat cuddlier than
Hitler.
We're getting bogged down in trying to tie the details of DNA-based
evolution to the details of meme-based evolution. But classic
Darwinian evolution regards inheritable traits. My contention
is that the memes in a culture reside in the individuals, who
mostly pass them on individual to individual, and primarily as
a package, but not always. On that, we have classical Darwinism.
But modern Darwinism is about allele frequencies and the passage
of genes, which parallels the passage of memes as discrete units
between individuals and in the gene pool of a population. That's
also not very Gouldian, I should mention.
I guess I'm saying that you don't have American culture except
with a bunch of Americans, or French culture without a bunch of
French people, or Hawaiian culture...you get the idea. Culture
is a product of populations, and populations are collections of
individuals from which basic cultural "traits" can be
derived. Cultural inheritance can easily fit Darwinian precepts
- the question then becomes, can you fit concepts such as adaptation,
contextual advantage, reproduction of selected traits to cultures?
The environment impact is tricky, but only because humans as a
species adapt the environment to us rather than vice versa. But
a culture with domesticable animals is at a disadvantage unless
they develop a domestication meme, which itself can become competitive
- look at the spread of horse domestication memes from Mongolia.
Maybe we're looking at a form of inheritance more comparable to
bacterial plasmids, but the patterns are recognizable.
As far as cultures not being completely erased but becoming part
of the new one, did you know that your allele for actin, our main
movement protein, is essentially identical to that evolved by
amebas upteen hundred million years ago? You keep what works,
alter what doesn't.
Another comparability problem is that, biologically, blendable
but distinct populations don't reconnect all that often, so the
patterns of evolution there are pretty obscure. But the patterns
exist and, to my perspective, mimic patterns in intersecting cultures.
Okay, I've monopolized way too much board space. I'll shut up
now.
- Darby, withdrawing back under his rock.
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[> [> [> [> [> Just to sum up a few points
-- Sophist, 21:10:57 09/15/02 Sun
Cuz I think we've talked this one pretty far.
Thanks redcat for the compliments and for the excellent arguments
in support. Great points were made by Rah, Ete, and Darby long
before I butted in and by Sara after.
I guess I'm saying that you don't have American culture except
with a bunch of Americans, or French culture without a bunch of
French people, or Hawaiian culture...you get the idea.
I just have a hard time defining exactly what "American"
culture might be. Baseball? Apple pie? Motherhood? I just can't
see the concept of "culture" as being as well-defined
as, say, species. Nor can I see attributes like inheritance or
any direct connection to survival. I think that, to some degree,
you're switching levels between memes and culture in some way
that's not kosher (a topical word choice), but which I haven't
articulated very well.
As far as cultures not being completely erased but becoming
part of the new one, did you know that your allele for actin,
our main movement protein, is essentially identical to that evolved
by amebas upteen hundred million years ago? You keep what works,
alter what doesn't.
I deliberately used my example of the river names to point out
that culture includes the transmission of "memes" that
could not possibly be tied to survival. There are songs and poems
about the Don and the Danube (Strauss, anyone?), to say nothing
of book titles. They actually form a non-trivial part of culture
without having any imaginable survival value.
I know that there are non-functional strands of DNA in the genome.
But speaking as someone who is reasonably well-read in history,
I could not possibly identify the cultural equivalent of actin,
some characteristic that "caused" any culture, much
less all cultures, to survive.
Great discussion, everyone. If anyone else wants the last word,
take it.
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[> [> [> [> [> [> Language? -- Darby,
07:32:57 09/16/02 Mon
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Since you asked.......
-- Sophist, 09:18:49 09/16/02 Mon
I said I would leave the last word to others, but since that last
word had a question mark appended, I'll say this:
I think Chomsky is right about the capacity for language. There
is good evidence that a particular "organ" in the brain
is responsible for the human capacity for language. That is entirely
consistent with Darwin and a good example of true biological selection.
The particular language one speaks, however, is a different story.
Any particular language has no survival advantage over
any other language. All languages are essentially equally complex.
More important, and relevant to my point about river names, is
that languages, like river names, are acquired characteristics.
They are transmitted in Lamarckian descent -- no child speaks
precisely the language of his/her parents; words are borrowed
freely from other languages.
Nor is language in any way a marker for culture. Just ask the
Serbs and Croats, who speak an identical language. Or the Brits
and Yankees. Iranian "culture" (to the extent one can
speak of such things) seems reasonably close to that of Iraq,
yet the Persian language of Iran is closer to English than it
is to the Arabic spoken in Iraq.
Lastly, languages, per se, do not compete for the material resources
necessary for individuals or cultures to survive (as distinguished
from the capacity for language, which very likely does
aid such survival).
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Since you
asked....... -- Darby, 09:50:53 09/16/02 Mon
This is where it gets dicey. You can almost certainly find behavioral
genes connected with language, or heirarchical social structure,
or a capacity for music - but how do these play out in human societies?
As meme alleles, which can follow selection patterns even if their
reproduction is non-mendelian (a term I find I prefer to lamarckian).
Follow the trail of English and its concurrent adaptive memetic
advantages: associated with British imperialism, a great fraction
of missionary spread, and the American influence of high technology
(air traffic control, computer terms, the vast majority of the
internet). As with real alleles, there are linkages - where English
goes, depending upon its cultural context, other memes have gone
with it - British governmental systems, puritanical Christianity
(that's a reach, I know), American labelling and popular culture,
etc., all of which are subject to mutation, hybridization, and,
most importantly, selection pressure in their new environments.
If you give up that reproduction of traits has to be mendelian,
but that Darwinian selection is linked to reproductive success
no matter the means of reproduction - well, there you go.
- Darby, also having trouble letting go, and who, ironically enough,
taught about LaMarck and Darwin today and had a chance to mention
this discussion.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Because
it's wrong -- Sophist, 16:22:25 09/16/02 Mon
Just thought I'd cross-pollinate this thread with leslie's above.
In the spirit of Lamarck, maybe. Or in honor of my mulish disposition.
Your suggestions about the influence of English have it backward,
according to Steven Pinker:
"Is thought dependent on words? Do people literally
think in English, Cherokee, Kivunjo...? ... In much of our social
and political discourse, people simply assume that words determine
thoughts. ... The implication is heavy: the foundational categories
of reality are not 'in' the world but are imposed by one's culture....
But it is wrong, all wrong. ... As we shall see in this chapter,
there is no scientific evidence that languages dramatically shape
their speakers' ways of thinking." The Language Instinct,
Ch. 3, pp. 56-58 (Hardcover Edition).
In essence, says Pinker, we think in "mentalese" and
translate into language. Our language does not shape our thoughts,
rather, our thoughts shape our language. And in that case, speaking
the English language does convey any adaptive advantage.
Ok, so I can't let go either.
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
-- aliera, 05:23:09 09/17/02 Tue
Thanks, Soph. Actually, I had read this first. Could you write
a bit about how he came to this conclusion? It's an interesting
concept and I'd like to understand what he based it on. I'll also
go take a look for him googlewise. Somewhat OT did you know that
Tolkien developed the languages first and then the mythology for
Middlearth? I wonder if there's been any work correlating the
development of myth and languange, if there's any established
relationship between the two. More google it seems.
I was thinking in terms of predispositions last night (I haven't
looked at the whole thread just the bottom section). I'm reading
"The Neanderthal Enigma" this week along with the book
on Whitman and the Gould book. In NE they talk about different
replacement advantage theories: use of tools, ability to move
around and adapt to different areas, use of languange, culture.
It just crossed my mind our modern need to locate a discrete cause
and how that may bias the work. Do we see what we're looking for
already? I place value on myth, language, connections and I am
predisposed to find those types of theories more attractive. Since
I like to try to understand the why, I am predisposed to think
there was a "why". And yet in looking through these
materials men and women with much more knowledge and experience
are trying to make determinations about early culture based on
fossil record, very limited information and so there is always
speculation involved and therefore some bias in the work, even
if it's cultural not personal.
One of the attractive things about the board is that it generally
leads me into new areas to explore and think about, sometimes
more than I have time for!
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> Re: Cultures = Populations -- Arethusa,
19:53:18 09/15/02 Sun
(I'm being terribly brave here because I have only a vauge understanding
of what everyone's talking about....)
When the Irish came to America, they held on tightly to their
culture, as many new immigrants do. They also worked extremely
hard to gain as much power as possible, due to inconveniences
like anti-Catholic and anti-Irish attacks, both random and organized,
and "No Irish Need Apply" addendums on Help Wanted signs.
They organized through the Church, political machines, and "infiltration"
of such crony-heavy institutions as the police forces. They were
compteting for survival with other immigrant ethnic groups, and
the wealthier, more powerful and protestant establishment. They
managed to remain intact by clinging to their cultural identity,
and using it to bind and stregnthen themselves together.
So the question is-what am I not seeing? It does seem as if this
culture competed for resources with other cultures, seeking to
gain power so it could safely retain its identity as Americans
of Irish descent, and Catholics.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Cultures = Populations
-- Darby, 20:18:57 09/15/02 Sun
Well, I'm not quite gone yet.
First, I'd mostly say that there isn't that much difference between
the two cultures under discussion - it's like comparing coyotes
with black bars under their cheeks with coyotes with brown bars
under their cheeks.
But having said that, how distinct is a Boston Irishman from a
Boston Englishman? Or Pole? As distinct as leaves on two different
oaks? My ancestors, no surprise, were Irish (among other things),
and I understand some pride in one's ancestry, but I think that
most of my memes are American. Within the continental U.S., "ethnic
identity" separates groups based on barely distinguishable
traits, and many groups are barely separate. The question is,
how different are they, really? And do we really want to focus
on such differences? Long-term, is it really that adaptive?
- Darby, with a "Mc" in his name.
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> Fire bad. Tree pretty.
-- Arethusa, 09:09:09 09/16/02 Mon
I look up "culture" and there were three definitions
that might apply: (1)the integrated pattern of human knowledge,
belief and behavior that depends on man's capacity for learning
and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations and (2) the
customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial,
religious, or social group, (3)the set of shared attitudes, values
goals and practices that characterize a company or corporation
(Miriam Webster)
I'm thinking about the latter two when I refer to culture. And
obviously that's thinking too small, on an evolutionary scale.
So we're left with the first definition-the pattern of what mankind
knows, believes, and does, which depends on man's capacity for
learning and ability to pass this knowledge, belief, actions to
future generations.
(A half hour passes while A. thinks.)
Okay, I think I get it.
Culture is pretty much the same all over, on an evolutionary scale.
We all pretty much have the same capacity for learning, and we
all pass down what we learn. We all acquire knowledge, develop
beliefs, exhibit certain general behaviors. The problems arise
when different sub-cultures which developed very slightly differently
don't look at the big picture of overall human development. Culture
can't compete, only tiny factions of sub-catagories of variations
in culture can compete.
Looking at it this way, we are the cumulation of all that has
passed before us, and the well-spring of all that is to come.
We just can't see the pattern sometimes, any more than the stars
can see the patterns we apply to them from millions of miles away.
We are all mankind, we contain multitudes.
(I'm beginning to think all roads lead to Whitman, too.)
Arethusa (whose last name is English and who doesn't worry about
old grudges)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> Fire bad. Tree pretty.
-- Arethusa, 09:41:14 09/16/02 Mon
I look up "culture" and there were three definitions
that might apply: (1)the integrated pattern of human knowledge,
belief and behavior that depends on man's capacity for learning
and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations and (2) the
customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial,
religious, or social group, (3)the set of shared attitudes, values
goals and practices that characterize a company or corporation
(Miriam Webster)
I'm thinking about the latter two when I refer to culture. And
obviously that's thinking too small, on an evolutionary scale.
So we're left with the first definition-the pattern of what mankind
knows, believes, and does, which depends on man's capacity for
learning and ability to pass this knowledge, belief, actions to
future generations.
(A half hour passes while A. thinks.)
Okay, I think I get it.
Culture is pretty much the same all over, on an evolutionary scale.
We all pretty much have the same capacity for learning, and we
all pass down what we learn. We all acquire knowledge, develop
beliefs, exhibit certain general behaviors. The problems arise
when different sub-cultures which developed very slightly differently
don't look at the big picture of overall human development. Culture
can't compete, only tiny factions of sub-catagories of variations
in culture can compete.
Looking at it this way, we are the cumulation of all that has
passed before us, and the well-spring of all that is to come.
We just can't see the pattern sometimes, any more than the stars
can see the patterns we apply to them from millions of miles away.
We are all mankind, we contain multitudes.
(I'm beginning to think all roads lead to Whitman, too.)
Arethusa (whose last name is English and who doesn't worry about
old grudges)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Sorry. (Almost a
year posting, and no double posts until now) -- Arethusa,
10:06:59 09/16/02 Mon
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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Voy bad. Tree
pretty. -- aliera, 18:13:30 09/16/02 Mon
It may be for Sapiens (perhaps Darby could weigh in) but; I've
seen at least one theory that links increase in brain size amongst
early humans to increased culture/language... one that equates
the success of Sapiens over other early like species to development
of culture/language...and one that mentions the apparent physical
lacks of the Neanderthals in regards to language as a possible
explanation of why the species didn't survive. I don't know too
much about the validity of these theories or where the debates
are at currently (most of the books I'm into recently were written
in the mid 90's.) The Eve theory was mentioned again in a couple
also which I gather is still controversial or perhaps overset?
I had it in mind last May or June when we were talking about the
First Slayer. Also, something very intriguing I'm noticing in
reading across fields lately, rather than focusing primarily in
the myth/pysch realm, is the mention of and importance given to
use of language as a prederminant, or rather something that colors
our interpretations, but perhaps the references here have just
made me more sensitive to references elsewhere. Re: the cultures
and absorbed cultures question...seems to be an unanswerable right
now. My husbands family is Icelandic and they have held on to
much of their culture and taken the tack of stabilizing the language
by making new words out of existing words. They are very proud
of and very concerned with preserving their language and their
culture and I wonder if the two are inevitably linked.
I liked the Whitman mention too of course! I am trying to imagine
what it would be like to recreate yourself as Archetype and put
that out for people. Unimaginable. I read some of his work again
this year and felt so expanded. And then this weekend I was browsing
in and out of some criticism of his work which was intriguing
and disconcerting also! The contrariness of the man! The simplicity
like water running through my fingers! At least some people think
that he saw himself as a question, a seeder, a catalyst, rather
than The Answer. So I think he might have liked your thoughts.
The stars. The mystery. Yet connections, inexpressably fascinating
patterns, clues, threads. This was one of the attractive qualities
of the Eve theory too. That we can trace our roots back to each
other and yet what allowed that connection to happen was a mystery,
a fluke, a seredipity...as far as they knew no discernable advantage
to that/those particular mitochondrial DNA. And I love the realization
that the more we know the more we realize there is. You know how
it happened? But what about? You have an answer? Let me point
out a question. Because even as a child, I was much about the
questions. Why? Why? Why? As good as all the reading is I still
keep thinking "What! No, that's not quite it." But the
mystery of who we are, the puzzle of it, the quest...I do so love.
"...the real Me stands yet
untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock congratulatory signs and bows,
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,
Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath."
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> See my last
(latest) two responses to Darby, above -- Sophist, 18:59:27
09/16/02 Mon
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Addendum
-- Malandanza, 11:14:09 09/16/02 Mon
"The most successful trick used by an imperialist is not
to supplant local culture (it's a huge long process, and the people
really resent you!) but to work with it. After all, most imperialists
are just after one thing: money. They don't really care if the
natives are reading assigned texts."
That might be true for economic imperialists like the Dutch and
Portuguese, but I do think that in modern times there was quite
a bit of destruction of the indigenous cultures that were supplanted
by the new culture. Whether is was Spanish missionaries in the
New World, British colonizers "Tak[ing] up the white man's
burden" (Kipling) or Americans exporting democracy, the new
culture replaces the old. In America, there is little remaining
of the great Native American cultures -- you can go to the reservations
and see the remnants -- some medicine men might even dress up
for you and perform some sacred rituals, but there was a time
when you could go to the zoo to see the last passenger pigeon.
Where is their influence in American culture? Here in the South
West, I can look around and see evidence of the Spanish influence
on our culture, but the Apaches, Mohaves, Yumas, Navajos? What
happened to the culture of these Warrior peoples? No trace remains.
The further we go back in history, the more we see of the destruction
of a less fit culture by a better adapted one. The first civilization
that discovered how to work iron used it to dominate their corner
of the world. The Mongols massacred the people they conquered,
as did the Israelites when they entered Canaan. Sometimes the
barbarians kept pieces of the old culture and adapted it to their
own -- but look at how much was lost during the dark ages.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Fit cultures
-- Rahael, 13:05:15 09/16/02 Mon
Surely, if one is talking about cultures having 'advantages' and
'disadvantages' that give rise to their survival or decay it has
to mean *more* than someone just massacring everyone who practices
a certain culture. That wouldn't cut much ice with me, because
it would meant that the most important qualification for a really
'fit' culture would be military might and ruthlessness.
And then, we'd just end up with a tautology - the cultures which
are successful are the ones that impose themselves on other cultures
and wipe them out. Of course they are the ones who then 'survive'.
But does this prove that there are 'advantages' more than sheer
murderousness included in culture? Something within cultures that
make them want to make their values hegemonic? Rewrite the world
in their image?
My interpretation of what Darby is saying (and the more complex
evolutionary arguments go right above my head, so I could have
seriously got him wrong!) is that there is less complexity and
variety in world culture - that slowly, one culture, one way of
thinking is becoming dominant, and is making its values, or trying
to make its values the values of the world. And that there is
something in all cultures that attempts to swallow others up.
That a set of values that makes claims toward universality can't
tolerate the presence of other value systems. And that language
is a very insidious way of remaking other people's world views,
because words are powerful. Of course the fact that the words
of the King James edition of the Bible are as familiar to me as
the great poems of my mother tongue has an effect on my culture.
It structures the very world I view, it shapes the concepts and
parameters of my world vision.
The question I posed earlier, which hasn't been answered is, what
if having more than one value system, what if having two or three
languages, and being living in a syncretic 'ecology' gives you
advantages and benefits? Both in terms of culture itself (richer,
more sophisticated, more useful) and in terms of everyday life.
What if losing variety led to impoverishment? and what if the
peculiar alchemy of culture was not involved in a progressivist
model from many to one, but a constant state of interactin, growth,
decay, flux, change, communication and tension? The snapshot,
rather than a dystopian future where one will triumph?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Extinction
as a sign of fitness -- Malandanza, 00:35:14 09/17/02 Tue
"Surely, if one is talking about cultures having 'advantages'
and 'disadvantages' that give rise to their survival or decay
it has to mean *more* than someone just massacring everyone who
practices a certain culture. That wouldn't cut much ice with me,
because it would meant that the most important qualification for
a really 'fit' culture would be military might and ruthlessness.
"And then, we'd just end up with a tautology - the cultures
which are successful are the ones that impose themselves on other
cultures and wipe them out. Of course they are the ones who then
'survive'. But does this prove that there are 'advantages' more
than sheer murderousness included in culture? Something within
cultures that make them want to make their values hegemonic? Rewrite
the world in their image?"
Well, I do believe (and I think Darby would agree) that there's
a pretty strong correlation between extinction and a lack of fitness.
If a society cannot survive, how fit can it really be?
My point was that the imperialists did want to destroy and supplant
the local cultures -- and have been quite successful in doing
so. If the British didn't succeed in your corner of the world,
it's not because they had any qualms about wiping out an ancient
culture but because the existing people managed to resist assimilation
(proving their fitness).
But I don't think it follows that ruthlessness and military might
are the only qualifications for fitness. Consider pre-WWII Japan
and Germany and compare them with the U.S. -- but whose culture
won? The Samurai and Prussians are now Yankee businessmen. The
Soviet Union was ruthless in its domination and attempts to indoctrinate
its satellite nations, but they were unable to destroy the indigenous
cultures. Spain never annihilated the Basques, nor has Turkey
managed to eradicate the Kurdish culture. The Jews, of course,
survived all manner of attempts at destruction.
Furthermore, when barbarian cultures have taken over more advanced
cultures, they sometimes absorb the memes of the conquered people
and end up transmitting someone else's culture information through
the ages. Not always, of course -- Carthage faired somewhat worse
than Greece in the face of Roman conquest. There was something
in Greek culture that enabled it to survive, at least in part.
When advanced nations attack barbarian nations, the meme flow
is generally one way -- the indigenous culture is supplanted or
corrupted by the invader.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> 'Advanced
Cultures' -- Rahael, 06:39:36 09/17/02 Tue
"Well, I do believe (and I think Darby would agree) that
there's a pretty strong correlation between extinction and a lack
of fitness. If a society cannot survive, how fit can it really
be?"
Are we talking about 'cultures' going extinct or the people practicing
the cultures becoming extinct? Are we actually saying that some
cultures enable their societies to go on for longer than others?
That view seems to treat cultures as discrete entities, not the
fluid product of an interaction between people. If the entire
human population were wiped out by an unpreventable natural disaster,
culture would be wiped out. But it wouldn't tell us anything about
the 'fitness' of culture - only the fragility of human life. If
a peaceful country were fell upon by a determined military, yes,
they would die. However, I will not agree that the attacking force
had an 'advanced' and 'fit' culture. To think that is to fall
into a certain vision of human societies that I actually find
scary. Not because it is the 'truth', but because it is the vision
behind some pretty terrible cultures that were not good for the
societies that held them.
"If the British didn't succeed in your corner of the world,
it's not because they had any qualms about wiping out an ancient
culture but because the existing people managed to resist assimilation
(proving their fitness)."
The British didn't want to wipe out an ancient culture. Theyd
didn't think we had 'any culture' at all. We were just barbarians
worshipping funny little gods. Some parts of the British Empire
attempted to educate us. Others attempted to rule us. But mostly,
they wanted to enrich themselves. In this process, their culture
interacted with our culture, to produce a distinctive cultural
phenomenon that became part of the foundation for modern British
society. This is not because my culture was especially 'fit' -
what Britain absorbed wasn't part of my culture. What was absorbed
by both cultures was an interaction. An experience. A history.
Think of it as reproduction, not a military war. This happens
every time cultures meet, violently or peacefully. No culture
ever becomes 'supplanted'. Because either the native people are
wiped out wholesale or they live on with a new cultural interaction
taking place. No, the massacre of native people does not have
anything to say about the fitness or not of their culture. That
culture dies, but it was never proved 'unfit', because the people
that practiced it practiced nothing else before they died. They
didn't abandon their culture for another. They didn't 'choose'
a 'better' or more 'advantageous' culture. They were simply killed.
I have to say that the British did think that their culture was
superior to those they invaded, and that this superiority gave
a kind of legitimacy to their actions.
Yes, we can use 'evolution' as a mirror to culture to spark off
an interesting debate. But we can't mix up genetic evolution and
'cultural' evolution as if they were part of the same process.
What Darby is suggesting, I thought was an analogy, not saying
that different cultures provide different evolutionary advantages.
(are you?)
"But I don't think it follows that ruthlessness and military
might are the only qualifications for fitness. Consider pre-WWII
Japan and Germany and compare them with the U.S. -- but whose
culture won? The Samurai and Prussians are now Yankee businessmen.
The Soviet Union was ruthless in its domination and attempts to
indoctrinate its satellite nations, but they were unable to destroy
the indigenous cultures. Spain never annihilated the Basques,
nor has Turkey managed to eradicate the Kurdish culture. The Jews,
of course, survived all manner of attempts at destruction."
Ahh, so capitalism is a unique feature only of American culture?
The German businesses that flourished under the Nazis have pretty
familiar names - they are the big companies there still. Both
Germany and Japan could be said to have pretty 'fit' cultures
because they are more successful economically than one of the
victors, Britain, and I wouldn't particularly describe Japanese
culture as resembling America's. So are you really sure that German
Businessmen are 'Yankee' ones? I'm going to leave the Soviet Union
to CW if he wants to comment - but I'd say that the sheer landmass
meant that totalitarianism never managed to impose its will on
everyone.
I'd be interested in you pointing out to me what exactly constitutes
an 'advanced' culture, and what a 'backward' one is. Because if
the answer is that no successful culture shares any characteristic
with another *other* than success, I'd have to be extremely sceptical.
I mean, is European culture backward? since the birthrate in Europe
is falling dramatically? Would it be more 'advanced' if European
culture encouraged its participants to reproduce enthusiastically?
Personally, I don't believe in grand narratives to explain human
behaviour. And I don't think there can be an overarching explanantial
model for telling us why cultures thrive and why they fail. I
think the story of how they interact, of what they contain, of
their engagement with other cultures both in the past and in the
contemporary present is the study of history. Which is a large,
eclectic sprawling field of inquiry precisely because there is
no large model. It's because the seedbeds of culture are so varied
that we have so many schools of history. And the reason why historians
are always kept in business with no conclusively agreed picture
of past societies and cultures is because part of the way we imagine
our own culture, and that of others tells us about ourselves.
Says Rahael, thinking of Marx that enormously influential thinker
who created a grand narrative that was supposed to tell us how
societies would 'evolve'. Inevitably evolve. Who was influenced
by Darwin. And whose philosophy was supposed to have been utterly
defeated by a more 'advanced' culture. Say, do you think he's
managed to have more influence than he's given credit for?? And
does this mean that Marx is 'advanced'? More 'advanced' than revisionist
schools of history who focus on events and chance rather than
large scale models?
Or does this simply prove that human beings like to see order
and pattern in everything, even in the dynamic interactions between
cultures and societies?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> For the record -- this
guy d'Herblay, 22:39:41 09/15/02 Sun
The argument -- is two posts on my part and one on Rah's really
an argument by this board's standards? -- the discussion
to which this woman Rahael refers (click
and then scroll way down) was not about social Darwinism,
which was discussed earlier in the condemnatory terms it deserves,
but about memetics (an absolutely beautiful piece of bunkum, in
my opinion, based on an analogy between discrete genes and fluctuating
culture which doesn't stand scrutiny), with a sidetrack into biological
bases of culture, consciousness and intellectualization. d'Herblay
is not a social Darwinist, though d'Horrible may be returning
to this thread, and he's apt to say many horribly inflammatory
things.
The idea that I flirt with but Rah treats with frigidity is sociobiology,
or evolutionary psychology, or whatever it has been renamed by
its proponents, much as the Republican Party is now claiming
to have never
used the word privatization in reference to Social
Security, and if you say they did, that's advocacy journalism!
This field has gotten a bad name largely through the work of some
of its proponents (I'm looking at you, Robert Wright!), but I
find the claims that the human brain as well as certain animal
behaviors now termed culture have been shaped through descent
with modification and through some form of selection to be (in
the arena of my own brain at least) pretty incontrovertible. Frans
de Waal has done very compelling work documenting Machiavellian
maneuvering among chimpanzees; as an old Lockean-Hobbesian (d'Horrible
would leave out the "Lockean"), I have a certain fondness
for the idea of moving the signing of the social contract back
a few evolutionary generations. I'm far too ignorant to make a
full assessment of the field yet -- John T. Bonner's The Evolution
of Culture in Animals lies unread on my bathroom floor despite
being only 190 pages (with pictures), but one difference between
social Darwinism and sociobiology is that where social Darwinism
concentrates on the differences between humans, sociobiology,
in its most promising avenues, concentrates on the commonalities,
not within the species but without. (I almost typed "sociobiology,
in the right hands . . . " Another important difference between
the two is that social Darwinism is sinister enough to be a stain
on the right hands. Yes, I'm looking at you, George Bernard Shaw,
eugenicist!)
My off-hand criticism of Shaw leads us to the central difference
between the two fields: social Darwinism is an argument that human
interference can and should shape nature; sociobiology an argument
that nature cannot help but shape human and other animal behavior.
One is the triumphalism of human ingenuity over natural process;
the other is the surrender of human ingenuity itself to formation
by natural process. (That sociobiology is sometimes used as a
justification for surrender in attempts to rectify ills in the
status quo is a fault not of the theory but of some of its more
opportunistic popularizers; I know of no biologist who makes such
arguments [but, again, my ignorance can be astounding, and I would
not be astounded to find that there exists some such biologist
who makes exactly those sorts of claims; in fact, I would be astounded
if such a sweeping generalization held up].)
There are popularizers (and biologists, I think; my ignorance
extends to Edward O. Wilson's Consilience) who would claim
that seeing a biological base to behavior is to reduce all study
of human activity to biology. This sort of overreaching is, to
me, akin to expecting the fact that music is, on a basic level,
just noise to explain why I crank up The Buzzcocks. This morning,
Steven
Pinker said some interesting things about reductionism:
I prefer the word unification to reduction. An analogy is
that even though we know that sand and mountains and dirt and
so on are nothing but molecules -- they're not special kinds
of stuff -- a physicist couldn't explain the geography of Europe,
even though Europe is nothing but a bunch of protons, neutrons
and electrons. Likewise, with human history and politics and
cultural affairs, that level of analysis isn't going to tell
you the best way to organize a society or how to change a law
or try to influence a social value. An understanding of history
and culture can only benefit from a better understanding of human
emotion and thought. But you don't get much insight into day-to-day
behavior by thinking about a person as a hundred billion neurons
firing in complicated patterns.
To riff off of Pinker's analogy, one may well need an understanding
of molecular chemistry to understand crystal formation, and an
understanding of atomic processes to understand molecular structure
(I should make clear that I lack all of these understandings),
but they get you only so far in understanding feldspar, and while
they might enhance my appreciation, they are utterly useless to
explaining why I look with such absolute awe a spinel
inscribed by Timur, Akbar and Shah Jahan. However, to deny that
biological explanations are sufficient to meaningfully explain
certain very human feelings is not to deny the meaningfulness
of there being biological foundations for feelings.
Anyway, I just wanted to set the record straight, though I don't
know how recordable my stance really should be. Here stands one
whose thoughts are writ in water. My greatest argument that studies
of biological influences on behavior should not be dismissed out
of hand based on fears that they may lead to ugliness is that
they may just lead instead to truth. Truth is beauty, beauty truth
-- there is much we know of Earth, but much more we need to know.
Now, if you will excuse me, d'Horrible wants to brush up on Jared
Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza's
Genes, Peoples, and Languages, Robert T. Pennock's Tower
of Babel, John McWhorter's The Power of Babel, and
other books so representative of a crabbed, constricted realm
of inquiry that their authors could barely be bothered to come
up with original titles. I just hope that he'll read the other
posts in this subthread first. This is something I haven't had
time to do, so I apologize if any of this has been repetitive
or redundant. It would not be the first time I've reinvented the
reinventing-the-wheel meme.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Cultures -- Ete, 05:31:35
09/15/02 Sun
>>I did allude to hybridization, also a biological term
pertinent at least sometimes to evolution but definitely to cultures
There's words for that. Acculturation and syncretism . No need
to use a biological vocabulary.
>> - rarely do cultures come in and obliterate another,
but after the original clash, very often what remains looks much
more like one then the other.
Cultures change. It shows they're alive.
Cultures are not only aimed at allowing its survivance, not only
at adaptation to its environment. You can't reduce cultures to
fonctionnalisme.
>>I find it fascinating that novels of the future expect
an Earth with a unified culture, a unified political system, a
unified voice, and everyone nods at the inevitability of it.
huh. No.
Just no. (Have you read Neal Stephenson ? Friedmann ? Even Hamilton
? Or Mike Resncik ? What have you read exactly ? Do you think
that a unified authority means a unified culture ? yeah right...)
It can't be so.
The variety of culture do not only come from different regions,
it comes from all kind of divisions. There's a working class culture
and a bourgeoisie culture, there's a mal culture and a female
culture, there's a genre culture and a mainstream culture. and
So many more.
Do cultures war against each other ? Yeah, sometimes they do.
And sometimes when a culture wins against won, it finds itself
having more of the ideas of that beaten culture. How much of the
greek culture went into the roman one ? How much of the greek
culture went into the christian one ? Or there's the case of vodoo,
how much religions beliefs hide under the name of catholicism
so as to keep alive those beliefs. You don't always need to fight
to keep a culture alive. The jewish culture has survived for 2
thousands year without much fighting.
Look at the way the Qebec has kept itself with a french language.
The way cultures interract is very complex. You just can't just
simplify it to a comparason with biological evolution. It belittles
so much of what could be said about it.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Cultures -- Darby,
07:08:40 09/15/02 Sun
Point by point -
Sure you can use a different vocabulary, but I was making a comparison
to biological principles. I knew people could figure out the common
concepts, which is why I didn't "translate."
Of course you can reduce cultures to functionalism. Reductionism
is what science does. You can reduce a human being to their genome
and to their functionalism. Does it miss important aspects of
the human? Depends on what you're discussing. It's valid to say
of someone with cystic fibrosis, "But they have such artistic
talent!" but it probably won't significantly impact their
survival. That's actually a bad example, since art styles are
a cultural meme themselves. And cultures do change, as species
do - I'm just talking about one perspective on the patterns.
I never said that every novel projects a unified Earth, of course
there are exceptions. I have my doubts too. Do I really have to
make a list, though? The vast majority of space-faring plots involving
interactions with other planets' cultures state or suggest such
a thing. Of course, to a group of aliens, we might seem a single
culture right now. And part of that culture might be the obsession
with small, insignificant local differences to the detriment of
cooperation.
And that leads into the next point - if any small collection
of practices can be named a "culture," then we are very
much discussing different concepts. Culture by my definition here
is much more of an overview - the ideas of class or gender groups
forming semi-distinct entities is something that happens within
a culture, and in fact a trait I would use to compare cultures,
but the groups are not cultures unto themselves. I'm not saying
that you can't call them that, but that we're no longer discussing
the same thing if you do.
My wife (on her way out the door to take my son to Hebrew School)
tells me to note that Jewish culture has gone on for five thousand
years, not two, but they have done it by becoming less and less
distinct from the environmental culture - they are a classic example
of Darwinian, adapt-or-go-extinct principles. I would say that
they have shifted from a culture, distinct and separate, to a
sub-culture, largely assimilated. And, living next door, I know
that Quebec is theoretically French but becoming gradually more
and more "American" with time - the aspects that make
Quebec culture distinct will probably never disappear, but the
distinction will be picked apart as the culture adapts to its
environment. And I think that your other examples just demonstrate
Darwinian adaptation at work. Survival requires change, and change
has patterns, and I'm seeing a similarity in the patterns.
The thing about reductionism is that it reduces - by definition,
there is more that can be said about something that has been reduced
to some sort of essence. It only belittles the object of study
if one loses sight of the parts you have to ignore while focusing
on an essence. I don't think I'm doing that here, but you're right
to be suspicious - it's probably the one great failing of science,
that scientists aren't taught perspective as part of their training.
But that doesn't make the investigation itself wrong. You seem
to be seeing implications I didn't intend.
- Darby
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Cultures
-- Etrangere, 07:48:44 09/15/02 Sun
>>Of course you can reduce cultures to functionalism. Reductionism
is what science does. You can reduce a human being to their genome
and to their functionalism. Does it miss important aspects of
the human? Depends on what you're discussing. It's valid to say
of someone with cystic fibrosis, "But they have such artistic
talent!" but it probably won't significantly impact their
survival. That's actually a bad example, since art styles are
a cultural meme themselves. And cultures do change, as species
do - I'm just talking about one perspective on the patterns.
Err... but what I meant is that in cultures, it is not only about
"efficienty". That the way cultures interract, evolve
and disapear is not only influenced by matter of confrontations
and best adaptation.
Let me take an exemple. You'd think that most evolution of technics
are about doing the most efficiant thing, right ? Well no. Just
take a look at Windows ! :)
There's other matters at play. When you study the evolution of,
say, spears propulsers forms in Australia, aesthetics matter influence
those in way that are not related to efficiancy, and sometimes
even counter to it.
I see what you mean about science being about reduction. But I
was saying that even in that particular paradigm, this reduction
is not scientificaly legitimate.
>>I never said that every novel projects a unified Earth,
of course there are exceptions. I have my doubts too. Do I really
have to make a list, though? The vast majority of space-faring
plots involving interactions with other planets' cultures state
or suggest such a thing.
Wait a minute. Even if they describe a unified cultural planet,
there is still alterity with others planets. That's the point.
It's just a change of scale. A very lot of SF novels deals with
the concept of Alterity. Hell, any novel with an alien does that.
It's one of the major theme of Science Fiction.
>>Of course, to a group of aliens, we might seem a single
culture right now. And part of that culture might be the obsession
with small, insignificant local differences to the detriment of
cooperation.
Be careful, you're starting to be normative with saying that.
>>And that leads into the next point - if any small collection
of practices can be named a "culture," then we are very
much discussing different concepts. Culture by my definition here
is much more of an overview - the ideas of class or gender groups
forming semi-distinct entities is something that happens within
a culture, and in fact a trait I would use to compare cultures,
but the groups are not cultures unto themselves. I'm not saying
that you can't call them that, but that we're no longer discussing
the same thing if you do.
That's actually where the comparaison between biology and sociology/anthropology
begins to be hard because of hard science / "soft" science
epistemology.
In biology there is neat objective prooves of the difference between
a species, a groupe of species (whatever they're called), a phyllum
etc. (I lack the vocabulary, but I think i remember you've got
specific terms and terminology for each groupes and sub-groups)
It is not so in cultures. Should you limit a culture to a discting
national entity ? But then you overlook so much.
Shoul we speak and the english culture, the french culture, the
spanish culture ? Or should we speak about the western cutlure
? Or about the parisian culture, the basque culture, the provencial
culture ?
There's no precise scale about that. Each sociological/anthropological
work choose its ground and define it precisely for this work alone.
>>My wife (on her way out the door to take my son to Hebrew
School) tells me to note that Jewish culture has gone on for five
thousand years,
Yeah I meant after being a national (as much as you can sue that
word before the start of state-nation) entity using mean of confrontations
to survive. Wish a happy new year to your wife from me.
>>not two, but they have done it by becoming less and less
distinct from the environmental culture
Really ?
>> - they are a classic example of Darwinian, adapt-or-go-extinct
principles. I would say that they have shifted from a culture,
distinct and separate, to a sub-culture, largely assimilated.
Depends where, depends who. There's a definitive jewish culture,
with a particular language, laws, rites, values etc.
People are very seldom only part of that jewish culture. And of
course, that jewish culture is also influented by whatever culture
it is immersed within.
But say that it is a subculture ? Hardly. Except maybe on the
scale of the western culture, but that's a rather large one.
>>And, living next door, I know that Quebec is theoretically
French but becoming gradually more and more "American"
with time
No, I was talking about the fact that in the XIXth (I think) century,
the Quebecoise maintained part of their identity/culture/language
after the english gained control of the territory by... having
a lot of children and staying an important population.
>> - the aspects that make Quebec culture distinct will
probably never disappear, but the distinction will be picked apart
as the culture adapts to its environment.
Question : how do you define "environment" in a cultural
paradigm ?
>>The thing about reductionism is that it reduces - by definition,
there is more that can be said about something that has been reduced
to some sort of essence. It only belittles the object of study
if one loses sight of the parts you have to ignore while focusing
on an essence. I don't think I'm doing that here, but you're right
to be suspicious
Well what I mean is, you can say that some part of the way cultures
behaves can be compared to the way species do in darwinism etc.
But you cannot further that comparason very far. So much of those
kind of comparaisons become ideologies, prenotions, instead of
acurate scientific observations.
>>You seem to be seeing implications I didn't intend.
Do you know what Evolutionnism, in Sociology and Anthropology,
is ? The part it has in the history of those disciplinnes and
how it has been used to justify colonialism and racism ?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> This is a very
nice thread, thanks Ete and Darby! -- Rahael, hoping the debate
continues!, 08:07:41 09/15/02 Sun
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Cultures
-- Darby, 09:29:54 09/15/02 Sun
I think you have way too skewed an idea of biology as a science
- it's nowhere near as "hard" a science as you think.
None of the definitions of the hard sciences fit very well: in
physics, a law has no exceptions; in biology, a law barely reaches
the strength of a strong suggestion. Species is an incredibly
fuzzy concept, easily as fuzzy as "culture," and evolution
occurs on any level that represents a momentary advantage of a
certain trait in a certain environment. It's a good springboard
to this discussion.
But I want to bring you to a point you made: about Jewish culture,
"But say that it is a subculture ? Hardly. Except maybe on
the scale of the western culture, but that's a rather large one."
First, that shows that we're defining our terms differently, but
you've got to let me define my terms as long as it allows us to
understand each other; saying that my "culture" definition
is "wrong" is missing the point. I understand that what
you call a "culture" I would vehemently call a subculture,
but it's pointless here for me to berate your definition as long
as I make it clear it's not mine. My point is embedded in the
end of your statement about western culture. Where did this "rather
large one" come from? How many people, how many regions,
how much of the world would have fit into this designation 10,
50, 100, 200 years ago? This is the trend I'm discussing, the
spread and absorption, with adaptation, of existing cultures into
a larger, more widespread, inexorably more homogeneous one. Does
the western culture remain unchanged? No. Do the smaller cultures
disappear? Usually no, but they gradually take on, more and more,
the basic attributes of the absorbing culture. Does this mean
that the entire world will be eventually "westernized"?
I never make specific long-term evolutionary predictions. I'm
just saying, if current trends continue (and if they don't, Darwinian
effects will still be present), we'll see changes in cultures
that can be represented in the language of Natural Selection.
And, as I noted in my last response, I do know how such things
are misused. There's a difference between science and what gets
done with it. I'm trusting everyone here to not go out and oppress
other cultures, claiming "Darwinian imperatives."
An aside: we may be seeing adaptive change in "Windows"
- there is a limit to inefficiency in face of serious competition
(very Darwinian), but the latter has been lacking...may not be,
according to Sara, my computer guru.
- Darby, wondering if "guru" is a particularly masculine
noun
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Cultures
-- Etrangere, 10:01:48 09/15/02 Sun
You might be right about my "skewed idea of biology".
Tru enough I do not know much about it. Yet, I think it's more
easy to differentiate individual species (would it be only based
on genetic analysis) from individual cultures (does such a thing
exist ?)
I admit that biological evolution wokr on many scales of the er...
biological units (reminds me of Sophist's great review of that
book by err... I've got a bad memory of names :) so I guess it
can take this variety of scales in culture too.
But cultures... have no fronteers, no delimitation. When a culture
has changed enough that it is not the same culture anymore ? I
would think there's a specific criteria for that in species.
I do not disagree with your definition of culture as you made
it before I answered you. Indeed, a culture is made of institutions,
practices and representions&values. I'm trying to say that
there is no absolute, objective scale for cultures. If you're
trying to make about the western civilisation, yes, you will call
jewish a subculture. But if you're studying the jewish culture,
doh, you'll not consider it as a subculture, your subcultres will
be sepharad and ashkenaze, jewish cultures from different countries
etc. It's all relative to the ground of analysis.
About the "rather large one", you're speaking about
globalisation, right ? You think it's a unique concept (it is
a little bit, because it's allowed by mean of communication that
didn't existed before) but it's not so new as that. Protohistorians
refers to this globalisation as the second one, considering the
first one to be the globalisation of the techniques of agriculture
(IIRC, again i counsel you to read Race and History by Levis Strauss
he speaks about that). Alternatively, replace "Western culture"
by "indo-european culture" and you don't have that new
a concept.
People and ideas didn't start to move across the world recently,
they're just doin't it faster now.
Culture are not, just now, being absorbed into larger ones. They've
always been in that context.
And that civilisation is not so more homogenous that you think,
it creates its own kind of divisions. I think it's probably (sadly
sometimes) a prerequirate of the human mind to think in oppositions
and divisions. We define what is by setting a limits to what it
isn't.
By the way I don't see why this processus of globalisation could
be compared to the processus of natural selection, could you please
enlighten me ? :)
You didn't either define what is an "environment" in
the context of cultures.
Another point, correct me if i'm wrong, but should not memes be
considered as ideas in the environment of cultures rather than
cultures itself ?
As for your last point, I aknowledge that you try to not speak
of "superiority" etc. I was answering your question
about me seeing in what you say something more. By the way, evolutionism
in social science has not only bad implications, it also has very
strong scientific flaws.
As for Windows, the fact is it remains superior due to its competivity
in other fields that pure efficiancy, that's my point.
Have no idea about the "guru" thing. Humm, do not foreign
words usually are considered as masculine ? Or is that only in
french ?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Cultures
and ecology. -- Darby, 10:37:42 09/15/02 Sun
It's all in the definitions...
There is no accepted genetic basis for species, and there likely
will never be a good one. That won't stop one from eventually
being accepted, but that's the way of the world...
We're having, I just realized, an ecological discussion - not
too surprising, as evolution plays on an ecologic field. "Culture"
exists like "ecosystem" - an ecosystem is just as extensive
as you need for whatever you're discussing, it could be confined
to a square meter of dirt or a continent. The important thing
is defining the level you're working at so that everyone understands
the limitations and implications. I don't have a great "culture"
definition right now (which would make me a good ecologist), but
I'll give you a basic idea: a culture is a sizeable mass of humans
who share broadly common habits in social structures, including
government, language, class structure, economic structure, gender
roles, major technologies and shared aspects of history that might
have varying import from one to another (traditions and rituals).
I also would hesitate to decide based on a culture's own definition
/ attitude toward itself - some sort of outside consensus would
need to be made if we were doing this as an actual investigation.
But these attributes would be made up of the memes I've spoken
of, labelable cultural traits.
And the idea of globalization is very much a realization of the
process I'm talking about. Evolution is a process that very much
happens in isolation - connected populations, ones which share
genes, do not evolve separately. By the same token, populations
that come into contact (that would be a change in environment)
after isolation has produced distinctions between them will, if
gene flow is possible, become less distinct over time and more-and-more
adhere to a blended "type." I see that process at work
in globalization, a definite trend. The fact that local distinctions
persist isn't much of an issue - evolution can be a long-term
process.
And lastly, evolution in social science was very Lamarckian, which
made it flawed. Just because parallels made between evolutionary
patterns and social development in the past have been badly done
doesn't mean that they can't be done in a meaningful way.
- Darby, who meant that "Windows" has developed in an
environment of virtually no competition, which appears to be changing.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Cultures in isolation -- Etrangere, 11:14:10 09/15/02
Sun
"Culture" exists like "ecosystem" - an
ecosystem is just as extensive as you need for whatever you're
discussing, it could be confined to a square meter of dirt or
a continent."
Yes, exactly what I meant when saying you defined the culture
you were studying relatively to the field you have chosen.
"a culture is a sizeable mass of humans who share broadly
common habits in social structures, including government, language,
class structure, economic structure, gender roles, major technologies
and shared aspects of history that might have varying import from
one to another (traditions and rituals)."
So you refer only to national cultures. You can do that, but you
can do that only regarding the types of culture who developped
a political model of nations and states. You won't be able to
discuss a great number of cultures, mainly, every non-western
ones, because their history is different and have no such concepts.
And also any kind of cultures that is dominated by another culture-state.
Also, do you mean that traditions and ritualare "shared aspect
of history" ? There's ofcourse a history aspect of those,
but it's hardly what describe their importance in a culture.
Oh, and you can't say that a cultures is humans. A culture lives
"on" humans but is not them.
"Evolution is a process that very much happens in isolation
- connected populations, ones which share genes, do not evolve
separately. By the same token, populations that come into contact
(that would be a change in environment) after isolation has produced
distinctions between them will, if gene flow is possible, become
less distinct over time and more-and-more adhere to a blended
"type." "
LOL ! But it's the contrary that happens with cultures. If a culture
is in isolation (say, a group of people from siberian are isolated
on a continent separated by huge oceans from the others lands
: as those people spread across that continent they start differentiating
themselves into a thousand different kind of cultures. It only
when exterrior people will look at them as being one nation of
people)
Most often than not, when a particular culture is put in isolation,
it will divide itself into several cultures.
Do cultures that comes into contact re-merge ? Well, sometimes,
yes, there is syncretism. Sometimes there is domination or even
ethnocide. Sometimes on the contrary they strive to stay different,
they enhance ideologicaly their differences. Nothing is certain.
They certainly both change because of this contact.
"The fact that local distinctions persist isn't much of
an issue - evolution can be a long-term process."
But what does it mean with cultures ? How can the process be the
same, it doesn't work with the same way. A change of culture can
happen within a same individual. What's long-term and what's short-term
in cultures ?
"And lastly, evolution in social science was very Lamarckian,
which made it flawed. "
I can't comment, I do not know how Lamarck theories differ from
Darwin's
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> Re: Cultures in isolation -- Darby, 11:35:59 09/15/02
Sun
I think that much of what I could respond here is in my response
to Sophist on Culture = Population.
What you say about patterns of isolation and connection is in
fact very evolutionary - isolation is a common defferentiator
in species evolution. Sometimes the environment isolates, sometimes
it connects, and the repercussions follow fairly reliable patterns.
The thing with human cultures that makes the huge difference is
that isolation almost never produces an offshoot group so different
that it cannot reintegrate into others when contact arises.
One of the surviving aspects of Lamarkian evolution, which became,
much to his chagrin, associated with Darwin too, is the idea that
evolution is progress, that what follows is somehow better than
what came before, that the new is an improvement over the old.
In this context, people tend to see me talking about "superior"
cultures, or even stronger ones, but that's not what I'm doing.
Adaptation is a matter of fitting a moment's circumstances, and
what's good for you today may be very bad for you next week, or
vice versa.
- Darby, whose wife is amazed at the chat-like aspect of this
thread. That and its unwillingness to die.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> OK, I see (about your point about Lamarkism)
-- Etrangere, 12:04:35 09/15/02 Sun
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Cultures,
Biology and the Use of Metaphors as Ways of Understanding
-- redcat, 10:33:33 09/15/02 Sun
Wow, what an amazing set of posts to come back to after
a few days off the board!! Hereís my bit of contribution
for what itís worth. Since Rah and Ete have already made
most of the points that I would have if Iíd joined in earlier,
Iíll just add a small bit. I donít quite know where
to put it, but beneath this post seems as good a place as any.
Darby, my main problem with your argument here, as Ete suspected
it would be, is your assumption that human
cultures are *like* biological organisms because they exhibit
some characteristics that can be described using
metaphors drawn from the language and images of biology. This
is also true of other non-biological things like, for
example, the large star-system clusters we call galaxies. I use
the example of galaxies in part because Iíve always
found it such an elegant way to understand the distinction between
biological organisms and things that appear to
be patterned in similar ways to some organisms, and because in
the post directly above, you appropriately make the
distinction between the ìhardnessî of the sciences
of biology and physics.
The Hubble and other telescopes have, for the first time in human
history, given us vivid pictures of the universe far
beyond the confines of our rather small and certainly insignificant
Milky Way galaxy. Among those pictures are
several of galaxies that physicists and astronomers call ìcannibalî
galaxies, because they appear to ìdevourî other,
smaller galaxies that spin into their paths. Some of these very
large cannibalizing galaxies can be seen in the
process of integrating the matter and energy of up to three smaller
galaxies (ìsmallî here meaning about the size of
our own) at the same time. Visually, in the most graphic pictures
from space, this looks like a large roundish
ìmouthî ìswallowingî a small roundish
ìdishî (think of the cartoon character on the Reeseís
Peanut Butter candy
commercials inhaling a disk of chocolate-peanut-buttery goodness...).
The language used by astronomers to
describe the actions of these galaxies *to the general public
and in ìplainî English* consistently references biological
terminology, even though both the astronomers and the public are
aware that galaxies are not, in fact, biological
organisms, but accreted collections of matter and energy spinning
through space, and that most of people would
term them ìin-organic.î Physicists could have as
easily used the language of political science and talked about
these galaxies as ìimperialistic,î ìmilitaristicî
and ìaggressiveî since there is some indication that
they may actually
ìtargetî smaller, ìweakerî galaxies
and ìattackî them in order to absorb their ìresources.î
The choice to use
biological terminology as metaphors to describe the appearance
and behavior patterns of non-biological things,
rather than using other types of terminologies or metaphors, is
perhaps simply the most ìnaturalî way to do it, since
scientists from a wide range of disciplines tend to do so, but
that doesnít make the galaxies so described either
actually biological organisms or appropriately thought of as being
subject to the moral, social, political, cultural or
historical connotations that the word ìcannibalî
evokes.
In a thread somewhere above this one, Darby writes: ìSay
that "human cultures" exist like subspecies, and that
particular aspects of culture are equivalent to genes (there's
a whole discipline devoted to this, and the inheritable,
genetic-but-not-DNA "bits" are called memes).î
The first two words of that sentence point up, to me, one of the
central difficulties in this discussion. We may ìsay
thatî cultures are ìlikeî species or subspecies,
but in fact, doing so is merely a way of using a descriptive,
metaphorical and paradigmatic intellectual tool. Human cultures,
either individually or collectively across time, may
indeed exhibit certain historical processes, effects or patterns
to which we may fruitfully apply biological metaphors
in our attempts to understand them. However, cultures are not
biological organisms and, more importantly, they do
not follow biological, and certainly not Darwinian, imperatives.
For every example of an ìimperialistic imperativeî
in
human history I can provide several counter-examples of anti-imperialistic
behaviors among human cultural groups.
Cultures are not species, and the memes they exhibit that can
be described as *acting like* genes are no more
actually biological than ìcannibalisticî galaxies
are actually ìdevouringî ìweakerî galaxies.
The signifier is not the
same thing as the signified. To assume that human cultures operate
along the same basic principles as biological
evolution, or that ìcultureî as a human construct
even has the same end-goal (survival) that biological organisms
do,
is to confuse the system of description with the thing being described.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
Cultures, Biology and the Use of Metaphors as Ways of Understanding
-- Darby, 13:47:05 09/15/02 Sun
I responded earlier to this, but apparently messed up posting
it.
Basically, I agree. Finding language that conveniently applies
can lead one down a strange path. What I've tried to do here is
find concepts that apply, which is why I've been trying, as much
as possible, to retain evolutionary terminology so as not to wander
off too far.
Is this a perfect fit? I've gotta say, it works much better than
I really thought it would - I had read about memes but not thought
out the ramifications too much before. The fit with evolutionary
theory ties ideas together that I hadn't really seen in that light
before - and isn't that the main reason we're here?
Am I taking a marginally useful idea and beating it to death with
a stick? Maybe, but it doesn't feel like it to me. But that's
the possible pitfall, and knowing it's there doesn't always keep
one from falling in.
I agree, the culture - subspecies connect wasn't as good as the
culture - population one, which is why I changed how I was phrasing
it.
- Darby, who expected rc to come in and pop me upside the head,
but instead was nudged to think about my motivations and foundations
a bit more clearly. Thanks!
[> [> [> [> [>
[> Re-read Levis-Strauss' "Race and History",
Darby -- Etrangere, who's waiting for red cat reply :), 16:15:34
09/14/02 Sat
[> [> [> [> [>
[> Re: Follow-up -- Cleanthes,
18:29:51 09/14/02 Sat
And on your final point, it's obvious that you have a particular
definition for addiction, and I think I can infer it from your
last paragraph, but could you put it in words?
To save y'all from excessive carpel tunnel trouble cause by clicking
on this board too much, my final paragraph (supra) went:
All of these would also have played on the weakness of the
human understanding of control, which we have because we must.
Was not Willow's flaw overreaching? ME used the drug metaphor,
but many others were available. To my mind, hybris is hybris;
and that's why drugs, religion, magic, video games and much more
are addictive. And that's my non-final answer!
I defer to Darby's scientific discussion - it's exactly what I'm
thinking of as the cloth thru the openings of which the interstices
of the not-so-seamless web of the universe appear. The definition
I'm looking at for addiction isn't one useful for everyday or
in most circumstances. Instead, I'd like to narrow the focus to
just that portion of what addiction means as a flaw in the makeup
of the universe which means it also represents a hole thru which
irrationality enters explanation, perhaps via fiction or magic.
I remember seeing something on Animal Planet about sea turtles
in Australia. A particularly venomous kind of jellyfish had taken
up residence in a harbor just before the sea turtles normally
returned. The save-the-turtles people naturally were concerned
and tried to shoo the jellyfish away, or fence off the harbor.
Alas, the sea turtle got in, but then proceeded to eat the jellyfish
like so much popcorn. Evidently, the turtle had evolved immunity
to the toxin.
Susceptability to toxin seems pretty much the same to me as susceptability
to addictive substances. Except, of course, for the interesting
aspects, which are outside the scientific realm. People can choose
to use substances they know are addictive. Few do so expecting
that they will be addicted. "Hey, I'm ME (read, perfect),
special, & in control"
That such things as toxins and addictive substances exist, tho,
demonstrates that things ain't so perfect, special or subject
to control. Demanding things from the universe is the hybris and
is, to me, the interesting aspect of addiction, from a
philosophical/moral standpoint. I understand the "it's a
disease" explanation of alcoholism, and I believe this way
of looking at it works for many purposes. But, even conceeding
it's a disease, it's a disease quite, quite different from, say,
measles.
I do NOT, then, think that Willow ought be excused from much even
tho I didn't dislike the magic-as-addiction comparison as much
as most folks. How much of an excuse is it, really? Heck, how
much of an excuse is making excuses ever? Whining, making excuses,
admitting to addiction -- all this seems existentially inauthentic.
Anyway you cut it, addiction amounts to resigning one's self to
external slavery.
[> Magic -- Rufus, 06:09:11
09/14/02 Sat
I think of the "True essence of Magic" being similar
to love...in that it is a quality that can be used to balance,
heal. It is a giving, sharing.....coming from the emotion of love.
The dark magic Willow got into gave her a false sense of being
powerful, in control.....then it possessed her causing her to
need more and more to get that feeling of being better than she
thought herself to be. It became her ultimate costume.....underneath
was the geek she resented, not appreciating just how special she
was. Dark Magic closed Willow off to the qualities that were so
evident in Tara, compassion, love, respect for others. It was
her grief that allowed the dark magic to get ahold of her, shrouding
her from her friends, herself....that Willow we love. The dose
of the True essence of Magic found the real Willow, the one that
would never have hurt another...the one I hope to see again in
season seven.
[> [> ditto, rufus
-- aliera, 06:34:15 09/14/02 Sat
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