From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Mon 09 Jun 2003 - 11:57:36 GMT
On Sunday, June 8, 2003, at 11:03 PM, Ray wrote:
> I suspect the Shakers did not die out due to lack of biological
> reproduction.
Anyone claiming that the cultural venue of the Shakers is gone has
never visited a furniture store.
Yes, its totality is gone- there will perhaps never be another Shaker
colony, pursuing their vision of xianity and faith through abstinence
and dancing, but the utilitarian vision of their resource use has not
disappeared.
It is specious argument to deny such cultural continuation- the
performances of the Shakers are well reported in history and artifact.
What there is no more, culturally evolutionarily speaking, is any
reason or compulsion to adopt the communal living style and the
individual religious strictness.
The venue for Shakerness has changed. It is now found, in truncated
form, on the floor of stores specializing in Northeastern US
woodworking.
But, there it is.
So, how did that furniture get there?
- Wade
===============================================================
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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon 09 Jun 2003 - 12:08:54 GMT