Relevant to this thread perhaps are the apparently polysemous notions of hot
culture and cold culture -- and the ones in mind are those representing
respectively the differences between people in action and the products of
people in action. I think Giddens uses the terms differently, referring to
cultures in which change is rapid i.e. the one inclusive of the U.S. as
compared to those in which change is not so rapid. What is the relation? --
I mean, after all, in the latter sense of hot culture, there seems to be
the tendency for the proliferation of cold culture in the former sense. Huh.
Hot culture, in the intersection of both senses, seems to be where the
straight uptake and the transformation of artifacts (re Wartofsky) not only
cross-generationally, but inter-generationally, are processes that are more
in balance than in cold culture (former sense).
Nevertheless, "conservative" seems a value-laden charge, and does not
describe how i take the term "appropriation". Appropriation is, IMHO, an
excellent start to causal description because its use per se raises the
question "appropriate to whom?", immediately opening the door between
learning, and development at the individual mind-brain (re Lang), i.e.
actions within as material changes, and more salient actions in its contexts
-- raising the question of how culture reproduces and produces anew.
"Appropriation" does not necessarily mean appropriate-to-the-investigator,
but appropriate within the context, as can be uncovered through an
ethnographic investigation. That's not to say that there are mind-brain
changes that are not appropriate as revealed by ethnography, and uncovering
those seem to bring in processes of creativity of the genres appearing in
studies of "the lads" and skateparks. Skateparks, i posit, being the
products of the social reponses to in-appropriate skateboard creativity.
Anyway, gotta run and make a living using little of the investigatory skills
i learned in my scientific training. That was another place and time, and,
on the surface, they no longer seem... appropriate.
;-)
bb
...you may be through with the past, but the past is not through with you...
[from the film "Magnolia"]
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