Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA29142 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 5 Jun 2000 17:08:28 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31017458A8@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Jabbering ! Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 17:06:30 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Anthropologists did not invent culture.
> ----------
> From: Chuck
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Monday, June 5, 2000 10:24 am
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Jabbering !
>
>
>
> Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 05 Jun 2000, Vincent Campbell wrote:
> > >Ask people what a tie is for though- what's its functionality? What is
> the
> > >bit of material under your shirt collar supposed to do? I don't think
> most
> > >people would know, and would instead ascribe far more less manifest
> > >(although no less important) functions like those you mention. The
> problem
> > >then becomes one of arbitrariness- why does a strange bit of cloth
> around
> > >one's neck offer all these other (social) functions that they indeed
> do?
> > >
> > >Perhaps this is the distinctive element of cultural, as oppsed to say
> > >technological, artefacts, in that their (apparent) utility is highly
> > >flexible hence behaviours survive long after their origins have been
> > >forgotten.
> >
> > Tools can be extremely flexible. Just ask anyone who ever used a knife
> as
> > a screwdriver! Though there's obviously a distinction to be drawn
> between
> > practical and social/psychological utility. But the main point I want
> to
> > make is that, on any broad definition of culture, i.e. not just fine
> art,
> > technology is part of it. That's what the "industrial evolution" thing
> is
> > about, isn't it?
>
> Having come originally from the field that practically invented culture, I
> can
> tell you that after about 125 years of discussion, anthropologists pretty
> much
> agree to disagree. It's one of those concepts that has a lot of grey areas
> no
> matter how you slice it. As I have posted last week, I **might** want to
> say
> that culture is the ideational/conceptual part of culture that is in free
> variation. That is, the part that varies without consequence. It doesn't
> seem to
> matter that some brown ties dominate one group, and blue in another.
> "Seem" is
> the key word here - we might find out down the line that it does matter,
> so it's
> a moving target.
>
> But since you want to talk about technology and culture, you might be
> interested
> in knowing that some anthropologists talk about "technological culture".
>
> >
> >
> > Talking of which, the second instalment of the show we both saw last
> week
> > was on last night, don't know if you caught it, but again, I don't think
> > there was one reference to natural resource depletion. Plenty to
> economic
> > motivation, though! And contrasts with social conditions in continental
> > Europe, where innovations tended to be viewed as toys for the rich,
> rather
> > than commodities and income generators for the middle class. England
> > really was a nation of shopkeepers!
> >
>
> If they don't mention it by the end, we might want to start a discussion
> here on
> brain depletion - that of the producers of the show - and whether or not
> this
> disease can cause defective memes. :)
>
> Ok - you yourself asked for this one: here's a more specific description
> of how
> depletion of **land** and **wood fuel** and the consequent adoption of
> fossil
> fuels totally transformed the American economy within 150 years of its
> first
> industrial use.
>
> 1. 1830s - coal is introduced.
> 2. In less than a decade, the geographical distribution of cities was
> profoundly
> affected because industries could be located near the raw materials of the
> products being produced instead of rivers. People began moving in
> prodigous
> numbers to where the jobs were, and old communities broke up and were
> never
> restablished elsewhere.
> 3. In another 30-50 years, the entire country became "smaller" and more
> effectively a nation due to the development of railroads.
> 4. Oil is introduced in the late 1800s and introduces more technological
> possibilities.
> 4. Made the country even "smaller" when electrical generating plants based
> on
> fossil fuels made rural electrification possible (radio, for example,
> transformed national politics).
> 5. Continued to have profound effects by the development of TV as a mass
> product
> in the 1950s, computers startingin the 1960s, and ---- the ***internet***
> in the
> 1990s.
> 6. Oil was the major factor in increasing farm productivity by orders of
> magnitude with the introduction of the tractor. We went from a country
> which was
> 90% agricultural to an astonishing <1% in the blink of an eye - in a tiny
> fraction of 1% of the history of all of agriculture!!
>
> All of this produced profound changes in the psychology and sociology of
> Americans. And it happened because we ran out of trees to burn and land to
> farm.
>
> Now -- I could go back to your own British history and talk about the
> enclosure
> movement and how that came about in part because of the growing shortage
> of
> land. And I am going to assume that you know what a profound effect the
> enclosure movement had on England. The shortage of land, in fact, had a
> key role
> in the motivations of the Puritans to establish their City on a Hill here
> in my
> home country.
>
> I could, of course, go on and on and on. It's so obvious that you might
> even
> complain that it's too obvious, too easy, just like some of you protest
> that my
> notion of utility is too easy. But that's often the problem with the
> behavioral
> sciences - they are looking for the novel and forget the obvious which is
> usually far more fundamental, although less glitzy. And perhaps "obvious"
> is the
> wrong word because it obviously isn't obvious much like water isn't
> obvious to
> fish. And remember - I have only listed a few gross changes. But each
> change
> richochets throughout the economy in countless smaller ways which force
> other
> technological/social/cultural changes, and the aggregate is an entirely
> different way of life.
>
> And I might add, Vincent, that it appears to me that you are avoiding the
> "obvious," if I may use that term, in how radio, and later TV, has
> profoundly
> changed mentalities by creating new channels for the spread of your memes.
> McCluan had it at least half right: the medium is the message. He had to
> make it
> a big glitzy to get people's attention, and in so doing he also avoided
> some of
> the more obvious stuff. But he was on the right track.
>
> For what its worth, take my humble [ :)!! ]advice: start with the obvious
> because you will find plenty of stuff that isn't so obvious down the
> road.
>
>
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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