Cultural Theory

Description

Why do people want what they want? Why does one person see the world as a place to control, while another feels controlled by the world? A useful theory of culture, the authors contend, should start with these questions, and the answers, given different historical conditions, should apply equally well to people of all times, places, and walks of life.Taking their cue from the pioneering work of anthropologist Mary Douglas, the authors of Cultural Theory have created a typology of five ways of life?egalitarianism, fatalism, individualism, hierarchy, and autonomy?to serve as an analytic tool in examining people, culture, and politics. They then show how cultural theorists can develop large numbers of falsifiable propositions.Drawing on parables, poetry, case studies, fiction, and the Great Books, the authors illustrate how cultural biases and social relationships interact in particular ways to yield life patterns that are viable, sustainable, and ultimately, changeable under certain conditions. Figures throughout the book show the dynamic quality of these ways of life and specifically illustrate the role of surprise in effecting small- and large-scale change.The authors compare Cultural Theory with the thought of master social theorists from Montesquieu to Stinchcombe and then reanalyze the classic works in the political culture tradition from Almond and Verba to Pye. Demonstrating that there is more to social life than hierarchy and individualism, the authors offer evidence from earlier studies showing that the addition of egalitarianism and fatalism facilitates cross-national comparisons. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures and Tables Preface Acknowledgments Sociocultural Viability: An Introduction Our Point of Departure: The Grid-Group Typology The Patterns Behind the Dimensions How Free to Choose What? Notes PART ONE THE THEORY Introduction to Part One: Against Dualism Notes 1 The Social Construction of Nature Five Myths of Nature The Hermit’s Myth The Social Construction of Human Nature Notes 2 Making Ends Meet Reconciling Needs and Resources Limits to Reconciling Needs and Resources Five Strategies Mapped onto Five Ways of Life Only Five Management Strategies? Notes 3 Preferences Accounting for Tastes Deriving Preferences from Ways of Life Conclusion Notes 4 Ringing the Changes Thinking About Surprise A Typology of Surprises Twelve Kinds of Change Loosening the Constraints Change Is Essential to Stability Notes 5 Instability of the Parts, Coherence of the Whole Traveling Hopefully, Never Arriving The Making and Breaking of Alliances Fatalism’s Functions Why Pluralism Is Essential Cultural Theory Restated Notes PART TWO THE MASTERS Introduction to Part Two: The Indispensability of Functional Explanation Comparing Typologies of Viable Ways of Life Cultural-Functional Explanation Notes 6 Montesquieu, Comte, and Spencer Montesquieu Auguste Comte Herbert Spencer The Biological Parallel Cycling In and Out in Highland Burma Notes 7 Durkheim Young Emile and Master Durkheim The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life The Division of Labor in Society Suicide The Master, Not the Whippersnapper Notes 8 Marx Marx’s Historical Materialism Mystification in Marxian and Cultural Theory Marx’s Claim to a Privileged Position Beyond Individualist Hegemony Is Communism a New Way of Life? Notes 9 Weber Weber and Grid-Group Analysis Weber and Functional Explanation Weber and Durkheim Compared Conclusion Notes 10 Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Parsons Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown Talcott Parsons Linking the Micro and Macro The Assumption of Societal Consensus The Pattern Variables Functional Requisites Notes 11 Merton, Stinchcombe, and Elster Robert Merton Arthur Stinchcombe and Jon Elster Notes PART THREE POLITICAL CULTURES Introduction to Part Three: Cultures Are Plural, Not Singular On the Political in Political Culture Culture and Its Critics Political Culture and National Character Notes 12 The Missing Ways of Life: Egalitarianism and Fatalism The Moral Basis of a Backward Society The Mandarin and the Cadre Notes 13 American Political Subcultures Notes 14 The Civic Culture Reexamined Italy Germany Mexico The United States and Great Britain The Cultural Requisites of Democratic Stability Notes 15 Hard Questions, Soft Answers Stolen Rhetoric and Cultural Traitors The Multiple Self How Do Adherents of Rival Ways of Life Communicate? What Cultural Theory Leaves Out Notes Bibliography of Cultural Theory Index