Another brief clarification.
By 'culturally commensurable', I meant, as the next bit says, "within the
same culture" on some short (ie. short compared to the timescale of
cultural change) timescale .. and NOT across cultures, which of course
would make no sense since the standards of commensurability must always be
those within some culture or community. (This was in the discussion of when
new truths can legitimately replace old ones vs. when we should simply add
the new ones to the repertory without thinking this means we have to drop
the old ones.)
I do not take the reified notion of "a culture" too seriously. But I
certainly find the qualifier "cultural" fairly useful. It highlights for us
the role of meanings, attitudes, beliefs, values, typical practices
(including discursive and semiotic practices of production and
interpretation) in the operation of a complex eco-social system.
The problem with speaking of "a culture" or "a language" for that matter,
is that they do not correspond to material systems, to some way of drawing
a line around (even a fuzzy line) a bunch of things that happen in the
world, a lot of doings and happenings involving people and other stuff. If
we speak of what people really do and say, then there is not the
uniformity, homogeneity, or systematic logical consistency that is usually
assumed by such notions. In fact I think it's pretty safe to say that
notions like "Chinese culture" or "the English language" are
political-ideological fictions, largely pernicious in the applications in
law and policy and public attitudes and beliefs, that deny the lived
realities of too many people and favor the interests of too few. This is
not to deny the importance of "culture" and "language", but they are much
looser notions than "cultures" and "languages".
JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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