[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in

[Alan Rudy]

Yeah, sure, and I don't think non-human species have culture either.  I just
don't think that either the universals most often provided by Maslow and the
others Geertz critiqued or the specification of culture you laid out serve
to sufficiently differentiate humans from non-human species.  The universals
are too general to have any actual substance and the specifics are too
evident across species to serve... which is why, good Marxist that I am, I
introduced the argument about the productive coevolution of qualitatively
new cultures/natures resulting from the always-emergent,
invariably-contested, thoroughly-uneven and inter-layered accretion of
historically material semiotic conditions.  A material semiotic homo faber
rather than the more straightforwardly semiotic homo symbolicus I think
you've supported and, just now (in the second post after this one), shown
Geertz to embrace - at least in a "narrowed sense."

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 2:23 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:


> Jeff and Alan,
>
> Isn't it pretty clear that Geertz holds that non-human species don't
> have culture, that humans are the only species with culture and
> meaning ? I'm not talking about your arguments here, but rather
> Geertz's position.
>
> Charles
>
>
>
>