The Trouble With Culture: How Computers Are Calming the Culture Wars

by Hanson, F. Allan

• ISBN13: 9780791470176
• ISBN10: 0791470172
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-28
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

In this highly original book, anthropologist F. Allan Hanson reveals an entirely unanticipated but vital link between two of the most widely discussed features of contemporary American society: the computer revolution and the culture wars. Hanson argues that the culture wars stem from a divergence in the evolutionary paths of society and culture. Societies have evolved significantly over the last few millennia from small bands of farmers or hunter-gatherers into huge, internally diverse nation-states, while cultures--the closed systems of meanings and symbols that kept small, face-to-face societies together--have failed to keep pace. If cultures became more open, Hanson contends, then the maladaptive rupture between society and culture would be healed and the clashes that currently beset us would be greatly diminished. Interweaving lucid analysis with concrete case studies of common law, education, and other areas of contemporary life, Hanson demonstrates how the widespread use of computers is, in fact, encouraging more originality and open-mindedness, with the potential to ease polarization and calm the culture wars.

Author Biography

F. Allan Hanson is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Kansas.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Culture Gone Bad	p. 1
Culture	p. 1
Social and Cultural Evolution	p. 3
Open and Closed Culture	p. 7
Automation: A Preview	p. 12
An Overview	p. 13
Cultural Contradiction and Compartmentalization	p. 17
Culture Wars	p. 18
Poverty: From Making a Difference to Indifference	p. 22
The Divisive Effects of Automation	p. 25
Fixing the Trouble with Culture: Relativism, Postmodernism, and Automation	p. 33
Cultural Relativism	p. 34
Postmodernism	p. 38
Automation	p. 42
The Human Rage to Classify	p. 47
Classifying	p. 49
Classification by Correspondence	p. 51
Taxonomic Classification	p. 55
The Contrasting Logics of Correspondence and Taxonomy	p. 68
Classification and the Common Law	p. 73
Legal Information	p. 73
"Common-placing"	p. 74
Supply-Side Control versus an "Appalling Glut"	p. 75
Key Numbers	p. 76
Implications	p. 78
Conclusion	p. 80
Automated Classification and Indexing	p. 83
Classifying and Indexing	p. 84
How Automated Indexing Works	p. 87
Can Artificial Intelligence Classify?	p. 90
Can Artificial Intelligence Create Classificatory Schemes?	p. 96
The Automated Mode in Principle	p. 101
Internet Communication, Hypertext, and Automated Searching	p. 104
Focused Searching	p. 109
Open-Ended Searching	p. 110
The Automated Mode in Practice	p. 119
Automation and the Law	p. 120
Scholarly Research and Education	p. 129
Business and Manufacturing	p. 138
The New Superorganic	p. 141
Decentering the Individual	p. 143
The New Super-organic	p. 147
Opening Culture, Expanding Individuals	p. 153
Notes	p. 165
Bibliography	p. 173
Index	p. 189
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