Culture Change: The Dynamic Fabric
The following materials are key presentation points developed by the instructor during
class lectures. They are not a substitute for student participation in the class lectures,
but a highlighting of the pertinent items considered.
General Themes Thus far we have been looking at the structural aspects of
culture, as if we cut out and isolated a cross-section of society, a slice from its
on-going temporal succession and then studied it - a synchronic view.
But cultures do not
exist in static states, but are always dynamic and undergoing change - a diachronic
process. We'll turn now to identifying some of the change processes that interact with the
structural processes we've already discussed - in art and religion, kinship and marriage, and
ecology and economics within Indigenous societies and beyond.
Specifically, we'll focus on two sets of intriguing questions relating to culture change:
A. What are the range of possible reactions and adaptations taken by an
Indigenous society to Euro-American conquest? What are the ways in which the "conquest" and "domination" of one
society by another are played out? Or rephrased and as it is being played out even within our own lives,
what is the
interplay between modernity and tradition? - To what extent are the rapid changes in
technology overwhelming our humanity?
- While we have explored some of the factors that lead to
social cohesion through kinship and love, why do we also have
the capacity to Hate someone else? Why do we go to
War?
B. What is the interplay and relationship between the influences and contributions of the
individual,
as expressed in "innovation," and the larger infrastructural influences of
history and culture on those individuals?
- or rephrased, do
great men/women make history or does history make great men/women? -
To what extent do each of us have a voice in our own destines and create our own
realities?
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A. Culture Contact, War, Schismogenesis, and Revitalization. When one people become overwhelmed by the
influences of another culture, as with military conquest, missionary zeal, technological
and economic expansion, or imposition of modernity, what are their possible responses? We
will conceptualize the responses as "stages" in process of
"diffusion."
- Contact and diffusion, i.e., cultural contact between two autonomous
societies, with exchanges of communications, technology, resources, ideas,
decision making and power.
- forms of contact include indirect through intermediaries, exploration,
commerce and trade exchange networks, religious pilgrimage, marriage
exchanges, and conflict and war. In this context, let us explore
some of the theories proposed to help explain why we can hate each other
and go to War:
- Instinctive, Cathartic, Cognitive Dissonance, Social Solidarity,
Frustration and Relative Deprivation, Socialization, and
Exclusivity.
- Lessons from the
Mobius Strip and the Mountain Climb.
Implications of exclusivity on "inequality," "hatred," "war," and on the
"ecological crisis" and "global warming."
- Evaluation. Who is making the decisions and who is dreaming the
dream, i.e., who controls power and is sovereign? Possible scenarios:
- indigenous/host sovereignty and alien non-directed process
- indigenous/host non-sovereignty and alien directed process
- two societies with sovereignty, as equals or as dominate/subordinate
- Integration. What results
from the contact?
- Pluralism (core values maintained)
- Incorporation -
sovereignty, e.g., Musicians of Bremen, and American Indian turkey,
maize, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, etc. (a vast majority of cultural traits via
incorporation, as opposed to innovation)
-
Traditionalism -
sovereignty, e.g.,
changing the "style" without changing the "message," incorporation
of chain saws for stone axes. A way to resist colonialism,
while maintaining core values, also called "resistance.
"Stable but supple." (in Frey's
Basbaaaliíchiwé under "Traditionalism"
and
Sqigwts)
-
Compartmentalization -
non-sovereignty, e.g., Pueblo and Spanish religion
- Schismogenesis -
between
two sovereigns or between a sovereign and a non-sovereign. When two distinct and relatively
autonomous and sovereign societies (or classes within a society) come into contact with each other, what are the
possible culture change outcomes? Mutual intensification of societal patterns
via positive feedback loops and
lack of "compensators," resulting in
progressive differentiation
and disorder, i.e.,
entropy (Systems Theory). Implications for "competitive" relationships.
Theory developed by Gregory Bateson. (core values becoming more entrenched, with
mutual behaviors intensify, resulting in collapse) - between
sovereigns - as either:
- Symmetrical - rivalry between equals, e.g., Cold War and others
- Complementary - Asymmetrical
- dominate/subordinate between
unequals, e.g., Rich Getting Richer and the Poor Getting Poorer
By country Gates at $82 Billion
The Poor
- 80% of world's population lives on $10 a day,
while the
average for billionaires is $2,700,000 a day, and the schism is
increasing rapidly
- Assimilation (core values altered)
- Adaptation -
sovereignty, e.g., the horse and Plains Indian society.
e.g., horse and buggy for cars.
Jobs
- Syncretism -
non-sovereignty, e.g., Virgin of Guadalupe
- Replacement -
non-sovereignty, e.g., tipis for houses
(reservations), Gods for
God (missionaries)
- Disintegration -
non-sovereignty, e.g., "steel axes" among the Yir-Yorant of
Australia
- Revitalization -
from non-sovereignty seeking sovereignty.
Seeks to maintain sovereignty and to alter core
values. Defined as a "deliberate, organized attempt by some members of a society to
construct a more satisfying culture by rapid acceptance of a pattern of multiple
innovations" (Wallace 1970:188). The following theory was developed by
A. F. C.
Wallace.
- Steady State: cultural vitality and stasis; aspirations rendered accessible and
are generally met.
- Period of Increased Societal and Personal Stress: fluctuation of steady state.
- Period of Relative and/or Absolute Cultural Deprivation: socio-economic,
political and religious institutions collapse; cultural and personal aspirations
unobtainable and unfulfilled; personal and societal dysfunction; institutional deviance.
- Period of Revitalization:
Prerequisites for success.
- formulate a new cultural code and utopian ideals; new dream and the means to obtain
(religious
via prophetic revelation or political/economic via doctrinal thesis; and return to an
utopian dream or reformulate a new utopian dream)
- communicate new code:
often characterized by evangelistic zeal, with promises of
immediate or future benefits and rewards, and if refuse to accept the new code, spiritual
and/or material peril (you are either with us or against us)
- organization: triadic and charismatic (charismatic formulator granted
authoritarian privilege though with little organizational skills; visionary), (disciples
who organize the revitalization movement; administer programs; protect the formulator;
interpret his/her message to the people; combat heresy; pragmatic), (converts, the
"true believers")
- adaptation and societal transformation:
adjust to internal order and external
resistance (clarify and redefine the goals and the means), (obtain and secure
communication networks and power bases, i.e., economic, military, religious sanctioning),
(institute moral sanctioning of conversion, subversion and possibly violence to obtain
ultimate societal goals, i.e., mobilize people in a "holy war" or revolution)
- routinization: charismatic leader deified and replaced by organizational
administrators and bureaucratic structures that seek status quo and resist change; from
"cult to church," from "radicals to government"
- New Steady State:
newly formed spiritual, economic and/or political culture and
stasis with aspirations rendered accessible to people; deviance and dysfunction greatly
reduced
- Examples:
- American Indian examples: Handsome Lake Religion (Seneca), Ghost Dance Religion (Plains, failed
attempt), Peyote Religion (widespread)
- Political examples: American Revolution, Communist Revolutions in Russia, China and Cuba
- Religious examples: Melanesian Cargo Cults, Protestant Reformation, Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism
- Genocide and Extinction of a society and its people
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B. Creativity, Innovation, and the Superorganic: The Interplay of the Individual and the Culture.
In all that we have come define our humanity by, e.g., language, tool users, etc., nothing
is more mysterious, yet more desired, than "creativity" and the ability to bring
about "innovation." To consider these issues, we need to understand the
interplay of the individual in relation to culture.
- At the Individual level:
- "Creativity" - need for
degree of
imagination and independence, ability to get out side one's
traditions/think outside the box, the degree of cultural marginality,
and maybe a little touch of . . .
,
in conjunction with self-acceptance and
high self-esteem, high
levels of energy and focusing of that energy, and
heightened sensitivity
to and awareness of phenomena of world (all of which are stimulus for
and prerequisites of "creativity").
- But the act of "innovation" involves the
ability to
identify (1. identification - to think divergently), and then
re-combine the elements (2.
re-combination - to think convergently), all of which is based upon a cultural process.
Implications: "there's nothing new under the sun," just
re-combinations of what already exists.
An "innovation" is thus "creativity" put to cultural expression. Theory developed by Homer Barnett
(American Anthropologist).
e.g.,
Fish and Submarines
(identify constituent elements and re-combine them),
and
Pasteur and immunization (an accidental
discovery)
- At the Collective Cultural level:
if a creative act is to ultimately become a
cultural innovation, the larger infrastructure will have to come into play.
Culture will
either accept or reject.
If the latter, the creative person gets labeled
a "madman."
If accept, it must have to be integrated into the larger
infrastructure of world view, religion, art, social order and ecological
order. And in Western society, the creative person is labeled a "genius."
Consider
Alfred Kroeber's
(American Anthropologist) theory of the "superorganic" and "style patterns."
- "Style Pattern" - each society undergoes a series of cultural process
stages.
- At
the inception of a society, there is the unconscious
formation of cultural "goals" and a particular style
pattern.
- As time passes, there are incremental and
antecedent changes in conformity to that style pattern, all moving toward
"cultural climax."
- Then the process is followed by "cultural fatigue" of the style
pattern and decline of that society.
- How distinct
is this conceptualization of culture and change from that proposed for the
history of Western science by
Thomas Kuhn's Paradigm Shifts
?
- Kroeber's theory calls for a
redefinition of "Genius,"
with implications
suggesting the
fallacies of "great man theory" of
history and of "necessity is the mother of invention,"
and
reiterates the importance of
"cultural diversity." What is
there that would replace a
fatigued style pattern?
e.g.,
Mendel
and Gene Inheritance (before his time),
Darwin and
Wallace
on the "Natural
Selection" (the time was right),
the Flag
(so you need a flag? What are its necessary
antecedents?), and
the iPhone
Also re-consider the process of "domestication" of plants and
animals in light of "style patterns."
Why did
it occur in the first place? Was it the result of "innovation" or the
"superorganic," or the interplay of both and if so, how so?
And what are the
implications of these change processes for future technological changes occurring in our
society?
- Yet are we ultimately "pawns" to culture - determined by the
"superorganic"? Consider the many lessons offered by
Indigenous peoples,
e.g., power of ritual and artistic symbols to create the world.
And
consider something in parallel, that of modern
quantum physicists,
i.e., is reality a "wave" or "particle" ? - the
vital act is the act of
participation.
Thus an intrinsic dialectic of the two levels,
the individual and the cultural, ultimately placing responsibility for
creating and molding our worlds
in our own hands.
In a sense we will have come full circle in our discussions of this
semester. Again the questions: Are we "masters of our
own fate," alone and adrift in a world of our own making, free to continually
"discover," "innovate" and "improve upon?"
Or are we a part
of an intricate "web of life," eternally linked to a finite set of
"archetypal" meanings emanating from a "creation time" or
"mountain tops?"
Are we the stories we tell?
In how we respond to these questions, be cautious
of our Euro-American predisposition to view the world through the eyes of the
social construct, the "individual." Might we emphasis the
role of the genius given our emphasis on individualism?
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