Agner Fog:

Cultural Selection

Book published at Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.

See also my new book on Warlike and peaceful societies and related articles

Description

This book provides an interdisciplinary theory that challenges traditional sociology by its superior ability to explain the irrational or unplanned aspects of culture, and it reveals that our society is not as rational as we would like to believe.

The reader receives a comprehensive overview of cultural selection theory, including the history of the theory and the many different schools of thought, as well as an explanation of the nuts and bolts of cultural selection and the different selection mechanisms.

Furthermore, the author introduces the new groundbreaking cultural r/k theory - a theory which reveals causal connections between religion, politics, ethics, art, and sexual behavior; and which can explain such diverse phenomena as the fall of Rome, the advent of rock music in the late Soviet Union, and the anti-pornography movement in contemporary USA. The attraction of this theory lies in its impressive explanatory power and its usefulness for making predictions.

Unlike some elaborate mathematical treatises, this book maintains a down-to-earth theory with the main focus on the explanation of real world phenomena, including religion, politics, music, art, architecture, clothing fashion, sexual behavior, sport, and play. It thereby provides a solid foundation on which to base further research in many areas of human culture, including anthropology, archaeology, political and religious history, art, social psychology, sexology, peace research, and futurology.

Cultural selection theory is a scientific discipline that explains cultural change as the result of selection processes, much like the way biological evolution is explained by Darwinian selection.

The paradigm of cultural selection is broader than the paradigm of memetics, because the latter sees cultural evolution as a selection of information units called memes, analogous to genes, while cultural selection theory includes selection processes that can not adequately be explained in terms of information units. This includes quantitative and continuous variables, such as e.g. economic parameters.

Consider, for example, the question why big companies tend to grow even bigger. The answer is that they have an advantage in mass production, mass distribution, international marketing, synergy effects, more resources for product development, etc. This is obviously a selection process, but not one that can adequately be explained in terms of the selection of discrete information units.

On the society level, there are several important characteristics that can best be described as continuous or quantitative parameters. The book mentions flexibility versus specific adaptation, conservativism versus innovativism, size of political units, technological complexity, economic structure, etc.

One important social parameter that the book introduces is the regal - kalyptic (r/k) dimension. This new descriptive tool that is defined in the book encompasses and explains bellicosity vs. peacefulness, tyranny vs. democracy, fanaticism vs. tolerance, strict discipline vs. lenience, etc. The book identifies the selective factors that influence this cultural r/k dimension, and demonstrates how it is expressed through the art and music of the culture in question. This theory has important applications for the understanding of World peace and ecological balance. A definition of the cultural r/k dimension can also be found in my article Cultural r/k selection.

The book cultural selection gives a comprehensive overview of cultural selection theory and a description of the different selection mechanisms. It integrates theoretical contributions from many different sources and disciplines into a coherent paradigm, and provides many new and original theoretical contributions. The theory is illustrated with historical as well as contemporary examples.

A discussion forum is provided for discussions relating to the contents of this book.