Transcript
Page 1: CCI Symposium 14: Jason Potts

Intro1. Curiously Parallel – The Nature of Culture  Part I: Culture Makes Groups

2. Externalism – Identity (‘Me’ is ‘We’)3. Demes – Universal-Adversarial Groupishness 4. Malvoisine – Bad Neighbours5. Citizens – Demic Concentration Creates Knowledge Part II: Groups Make Knowledge

6. Meaningfulness – The Growth of Knowledge7. Newness – Innovation8. Waste – Reproductive Success9. Extinction – Resilience and Ossification Part III: Outro10. A Natural History of Demic Concentration

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The purpose of a cultural science is to

provide an analytic framework for a

general reconceptualisation of the

theory of culture – in the original

cultural studies ‘ordinary uses’ sense –

one that is focused not on its political

aspect but rather its evolutionary

significance as a generator of newness

and innovation.

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Rereading Darwinian’s evolutionary theory

Raymond Williams 'culture is ordinary’

semiotics (Lotman)

economic theory (from Schumpeter to McCloskey)

evolutionary science (Pagel & Gintis…)

Building blocks of

Cultural Science

A Natural History of Stories, Demes, Knowledge & Innovation

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Externalism

We don’t make culture,Culture makes us

Communication creates individuals - Luhmann

H. Sapiens is an extremely groupish animal – that is our evolutionary niche

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Demic concentration

• deme (biology) inter-breeding pop.

• deme/demos (political) inter-voting pop./citizen• Deme (cultural science) inter-knowing group

• Demic diffusion (Cavelli-Sforza 2000)– Knowledge in a population changes because individuals move

into new populations

• Demic concentration (Hartley-Potts 2014) – Knowledge in a population changes because the group

boundaries change

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Demes

• ‘We-group’ (against ‘they-group’)• Universal adversarial

• Demes are created by culture, especially storytelling

– Girlworld (Tavi Gevinson)– Australian national character (& war journalism)– Granddads (& stories they tell)– Neolithic revolution (Göbekli Tepe)

• Demic concentration makes knowledge/identity/meaningfulness

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Malvoisine

• A groupish animal– Bad neighbours have different knowledge: when you fight

& defeat them: what happens to knowledge?

– Biologists say: group selection theory

– Cultural science: this (conquest) is actually cooperation

• The clash of systems & demes is productive of newness,

meaningfulness and successful reproduction of culture

• What happens when culture gets big/global?

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citizens & cities

urban culture and citizenship can best be explained by investigating how culture is used, and how newness and innovation emerge from unstable and contested boundaries between different meaning systems

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meaningfulness

• Evolutionary theory resisted in the humanities

• growth of knowledge: elements of culture/‘memes’ etc?

1. Culture is not the issue, meaningfulness is

2. Meaningfulness evolves

3. Meaningfulness is complex and semiotic

Example: the invention of the gentleman: a cultural innovation that created new demes

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newness

• Culture is Janus-faced– Looking back: preservation/protection– Looking forward: newness

Three theories of dynamic origin1. Randomness makes variety2. Consciousness makes creativity

3. Demes make newness Hutter & Stark’s economic sociology of newness: structural folds, tension, irritation

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waste

• Optimal efficiency of cultural production is … really, really wasteful (just like in nature)

• Because that’s how communication works

• Example: the childish invention of culture

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extinction

• ‘a prosocial groupish animal, honed by conflict & extinction’

• Cultural protection & cultural extinction

– Cultural protection (UNESCO) = ossification – Cultural extinction is loss of meaningfulness, not failure to replicate– it is also ‘demically relativistic’ (conquest as cooperation)

– Creative cities as model of open cultural systems

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Two applications

[1] A Cultural Science Model of Innovation

– Cultural explanation for innovation

[2] A Natural History of Demic Concentration

– A new theory of long duree/communications technology/economy

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The cultural (science) model of innovation

1. Culture makes groups2. Groups make knowledge3. Newness occurs at the boundaries of groups

– A new approach to cultural studies– A new approach to cultural economics– A new approach to innovation economics

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What is culture?Cultural studies/ anthro/ sociology/ Cultural science

Capital Stock Makes groups

(a) Produced and consumed (high-culture, cultural industries, etc)

Source of newness

(b) Common knowledge, socially learned, institution-like, for social coordination

Identity Statics/Politics Identity Dynamics/Evolution

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Origin of innovationeconomics Cultural science

Production function model Group dynamics and conflict model

Invest in more inputs ‘We-group’ dynamics of meaningfulness‘Externalized demic concentration’

Cooperation: combine factors/resources conflict, citizenry, childishness, cities

Innovation policy = economic policy Innovation policy = cultural policy

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A Natural History of Demic Concentration

Updating McLuhan/Ong (human groups/ not minds)Deme = unit of semiosphere (Lotman)

Hypothesis: number of demes-per-person grows with technology of knowledge reproduction. This gives us evolution in types of economy

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Natural history of culture, knowledge-technology & economy

• These epochs are a process: cumulative, separated by an ‘explosion’

• The plot is logarithmic, meaning acceleration

• Increasing specialization; time/space expansion of demes; literacy; …

What happens when demes-per-person increases?• Extent of access increases, & level of abstraction

• Scale & wastefulness increase

• Choice & imagination increase

A scientific theory, makes predictions, a testable hypothesis…