>I assume that human cultures (I am no socyologist, you know, but I studied
>some manuals back at the University) are similar, in some respects, to the
>human ages of an individual.
As a metaphor it might be useful, depending on what you want to
illustrate thereby. It doesn't have much to do with reality though.
Incidentally, i am a sociologist and wrote my master's thesis on the
problems of conceptualizing and defining the mental bellybutton lint
notion of 'society', a concept that is plagued by exactly the same
problems as 'culture'. The paper with summary in english can be found
at:
http://www.soc.uu.se/publications/workpap.html
>There are childish, young, adult, elder and ancient human cultures. I recall
>someone stated that human cultures can be male or female, so I suppose I am
>not completely mad. I am at least farther from the red line than Greg is and
>I am content of this.
The problem is that the 'age' of a culture is a perception in the present projected into the past. Cultural continuity is an empty concept, since all cultures change constantly. Deciding what elements to base the perceived continuity on is always subjective opinion.
>How can you define a human culture? By two dimensions, I assume.
>Geography and Language.
You can of course declare that culture is defined by those two dimensions, but it results in a highly artificial definition that fails to recognize some 'cultures' like diaspora jews and most nomad cultures. Also, if two speakers of the same national language (which is sometimes the case with swedish) can't understand each other, is language really a good tool for defining culture. And, combined with the fact of non-communication _within_ swedish, what to make of the fact that speakers of Norwegian, Danish and Swedish can understand each other?
>If you can define a human aggregation by meaning of both a geographical
>specification AND a linguistical one, you have a human culture, in my own
>humble assumption.
The problem is not to judge whether a human aggregation is a culture or not, since all human aggregations be definition have culture (man being a social animal and all that); the problem is to distinguish _between_ cultures. If you can't define where swedish culture ends and finnish culture begins using your method (which you can't BTW), then your method is non-productive when it comes to identifying cultures.
The perception that there exists such a thing as 'an Italian/ British/ Swedish culture' is merely a perception. It comes apart when you try to distinguish between cultures.
>I'd like comments. Do not nail me too soon.
As a poetic metaphor your theory might have meaning, as an observation of reality it has not.
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #327
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