This article explores some of the implications of the current ideational
definition of culture. If culture consists of shared ideas, then
the findings of cognitive psychology concerning the limits of shortterm
memory necessarily constrain the size and complexity of cultural
units. Wierzbicka’s universal linguistic primes or primitives
would then be the atomic units of culture. Although this approach
has much to recommend it, problems remain concerning the relation
of cultural ideas to their physical manifestations in artifacts
and actions, and a classification of the kinds of relations cultural
ideas have to their physical manifestations is presented. Finally,
the notion that the collection of cultural items held by the members
of a society form any kind of entity is critiqued, and the argument is
made that there is just one common culture for all humans. |