«
»

How Fast Is a Culture?

No Comments

What must cultures be like for this to be possible...?

The problem, says Ms. Bell, is that cultures change far slower than technologies do. And because the rate of technological innovation is increasing, so too is the rate of moral panic.

It sounds nice, but it presumably requires culture to be something wholly distinct from technology, such that the introduction of new technology is not itself a cultural change. Yet if you think technological proliferation involves the production and dissemination of cultural artefacts, that sounds peculiar: how can a culture fail to keep pace with technology which it actually uses?

When a new technology comes in, society has to establish norms about how to handle it. That is a long and slow process.

This seem to identify culture with agreement: cultural change is accomplished when new conventions cease to be sites of conflict. Which (if I read this admittedly popular article accurately) sounds like a less than dynamic conception of change.







Would you like to be the first to respond...?

Comments usually take time to appear, because they are manually scrutinised for signs of spam. Please wait for your host to come along and set matters to rights.