Pencils are great, but they're not necessarily a good model for what is highest in us.  Here are some ideas for specific examples that might help answer questions in cultural psychology.  We can pose same the questions for any civilization at any time period.  But we can't expect to always get the same answer.

The history of the idea of the University.  It's an institution we all know and love.  How did it come into being?  How was it transmitted through the ages to attain a sort of continuity?  How has the idea of the University changed?  This example can help answer a burning question like "what part of cultural transmission is material and what part is ideal?"  Certainly the physical structure of a given University stays pretty much the same from year to year, although there can be important changes.  How are the buildings established by one generation inherited and used by the next?  (The answer for Universities will probably be different than if we asked this question for synagogues.  And the answer will also be different if we ask it of modern American Universities or of Universities in the Middle Ages.)

Wed, July 9

Defining our question
	This is a list serve, so I thought I would start a little discussion.  At the last session I claimed, perhaps flippantly, that our starting point needs to be specific and thorough examples of cultures.  Here I argue why.
	According to our two readings, cultural psychologists aim to understand the devices by which "culture" propagates itself through time and from person to person.  I think the first question to ask is whether such devices exist at all.  Why should there be one monolithic, timeless pattern of cultural transmission?  Isn't it unique to each age and civilization?
	I suppose that we, as cultural psychologists, need to confine our interest to those features which are the same for all instantiations of human life.  For example, each person is born of one man and one woman.  That's always been true of human beings (whether this will continue to be true remains to be seen).
	But if we want to find anything constant besides the strictest limitations of biology, we must look at actual cultures and see what makes them tick.  Without a large set of particular examples, what are generalities but reckless and wishful?
	Consider a passage from our latest reading, Mike's chapter.  On page 11, there is a citation of Katherine Nelson's examples of children learning Scripts, and a summary of the data: "First, [the Scripts] are indeed generalized, although grounded in particulars; the children are talking about a habitual event.  Second, the descriptions are dominated by the temporal sequencing of actions..."     Looking at the data, I would tend to agree with this conclusion.  Moreover, one could probably generate many more similar datasets by asking the children other questions or talking to other children.  However, it goes too far to say that these are the principles of Scripts, and Scripts are How Culture Is Transmitted.  Granted, contemporary American children work this way.  But do contemporary European children work this way?  Did Ancient Greek children?  Such is the type of sweeping claim made by cultural anthropology, and so overambitious for the small data set.
	There's a quote by John Cage: "Creative work defines itself; therefore confront the work."  In cultural psychology, I think the following maxim applies: "Cultures and cultural transmissions define themselves; therefore confront the people and their institutions."

Jeff