|
|
Culture
Jesse S. Cook III (jcook@AWOD.COM)
Wed, 7 Aug 1996 13:07:44 -0400
On 7 August 1996, Ronald Kephart replied:
"The point is that culture as we know it consists of behaviors and beliefs."
Leave out "as we know it" (because, if we don't know it, who does?) and I
couldn't agree more.
"In all those exchanges I was taking 'culture' to represent 'human culture'
as opposed to what I was calling 'proto-culture' (culture without the
symbolic component)."
Ah, I get it! You want to call human culture before the invention of
language "proto-culture" and human culture after the invention of language
"culture". Ok, but why? What does that do for you?
I think I said once before that the invention of language was a "quantum
leap" and, in a certain sense, it was, but it no doubt took place over an
extended period of time and, thus, there was no dichotomy between before and
after; it was a continuum. Thus, the proto-culture/culture dichotomy just
doesn't exist. So why artificially create it?
"Similarly. when we talk about 'language' we don't have to specify 'human
language' every time."
Certainly not as long as no one is saying that nonhuman animals have language.
"And, by the way, I hope everyone read and profited from Ralph Holloway's
post..."
So do I.
Jesse S. Cook III E-Mail: jcook@awod.com
Post Office Box 40984 or
Charleston, SC 29485 USA 201-9573@mcimail.com
"Our attitude toward others is not determined by who *they* are;
it is determined by who *we* are."
|