- Paperback: 346 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press (21 May 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300072880
- ISBN-13: 978-0300072884
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 16.3 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,604,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
In this book J.M. Balkin offers a theory of cultural evolution, a theory that explains shared understandings, disagreement and diversity within cultures. Drawing on many fields of study - including anthropology, evolutionary theory, cognitive science, linguistics, sociology, political theory, philosophy, social psychology and law - the author explores how cultures grow and spread, how shared understandings arise and how people of different cultures can understand and evaluate each other's views. Cultural evolution occurs through the transmission of cultural information and know-how - "cultural software" - in human minds, Balkin says. Individuals embody cultural software and spread it to others through communication and social learning. Ideology, the author contends, is neither a special nor a pathological form of thought but an ordinary product of the evolution of cultural software. Because cultural understanding is a patchwork of older imperfect tools that are continually adapted to solve new problems, human understanding is partly adequate and partly inadequate to the pursuit of justice. Balkin presents numerous examples that illuminate the source of ideological effects and their contributions to injustice. He also enters the debate over multiculturalism, applying his theory to problems of mutual understanding between people who hold different worldviews. He argues that cultural understanding presupposes transcendent ideals and shows how both ideological analysis of others and ideological self-criticism are possible.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wise and erudite analysis of cultural understanding,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cultural Software: Theory of Ideology (Paperback)
This is a wonderfully wise, erudite, and well-written book. Don't let the title fool you. The book is not about forms of software designed to promote culture. The book is about cultural understanding, and culture software is an apt metaphor, helping Balkin to explain his position. As Balkin demonstrates in a wide variety of contexts, our tools of cultural understanding are a double-edged sword leading us to progress on the one hand and substantial injustice on the other. The book features an enormously valuable guide to and critique of the literature on ideology, a persuasive account of the pragmatic necessity of making transcendent claims about truth and justice, and extremely rich discussions of the ways we think about the world, including, e.g., narration, metaphor, and paired oppositions. Particularly impressive is Balkin's ability to crisply, accessibly, and fairly treat a wide variety of important thinkers from many different disciples. This book should appeal to all who try to think broadly whether their primary intellectual allegiance is to Anthropology, History, Law, Philosophy (analytic or continental), Political Science, Psychology, or Sociology.Steven Shiffrin, Cornell University
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A profound and sophisticated theory,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cultural Software: Theory of Ideology (Paperback)
I highly recommend this book, especially for scholars in law, philosophy, and political theory. It is one of the most insightful and wide-ranging books I have read. Balkin develops a profound and sophisticated theory of cultural understanding - the ways in which individuals think, form their beliefs, values, and identities, and evaluate each other's ideas. Balkin explains cultural understanding by using the very appropriate metaphor of "cultural software." With this metaphor, he crafts a theory of cultural understanding that accounts for the effects of historical change on shared belief systems as well as variation and disagreement among individuals in the same culture. Balkin's topic is one that is both incredibly complex yet essential to many fields: conceptions of cultural understanding underpin much of the scholarly discourse in philosophy, sociology, political theory, and law. Although his project is quite ambitious, he engages it with remarkable clarity, depth, and sophistication. The book is unusual in that it masterfully synthesizes numerous diverse fields, including philosophy, law, psychology, biology, and sociology. Balkin is at home in each of these fields, displaying command over the thought of such diverse thinkers such as Plato, Geertz, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Gadamer, Goffman, and Mannheim. Balkin is a fantastic writer, able to explain his concepts very clearly without resorting to excessive jargon and without sacrificing complexity or nuance. The richness of his thought is manifested when he applies his theories to concrete issues in law and politics, such as his powerful analysis of racism toward the end of the book. The book is also worth reading for Balkin's absolutely superb discussion of narratives, one of the most illuminating I have read. In sum, this book is definitely worth reading; Balkin has set forth a serious and convincing theory to be reckoned with.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews) 26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wise and erudite analysis of cultural understanding,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Cultural Software: Theory of Ideology (Paperback)
This is a wonderfully wise, erudite, and well-written book. Don't let the title fool you. The book is not about forms of software designed to promote culture. The book is about cultural understanding, and culture software is an apt metaphor, helping Balkin to explain his position. As Balkin demonstrates in a wide variety of contexts, our tools of cultural understanding are a double-edged sword leading us to progress on the one hand and substantial injustice on the other. The book features an enormously valuable guide to and critique of the literature on ideology, a persuasive account of the pragmatic necessity of making transcendent claims about truth and justice, and extremely rich discussions of the ways we think about the world, including, e.g., narration, metaphor, and paired oppositions. Particularly impressive is Balkin's ability to crisply, accessibly, and fairly treat a wide variety of important thinkers from many different disciples. This book should appeal to all who try to think broadly whether their primary intellectual allegiance is to Anthropology, History, Law, Philosophy (analytic or continental), Political Science, Psychology, or Sociology.Steven Shiffrin, Cornell University 14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A profound and sophisticated theory,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Cultural Software: Theory of Ideology (Paperback)
I highly recommend this book, especially for scholars in law, philosophy, and political theory. It is one of the most insightful and wide-ranging books I have read. Balkin develops a profound and sophisticated theory of cultural understanding - the ways in which individuals think, form their beliefs, values, and identities, and evaluate each other's ideas. Balkin explains cultural understanding by using the very appropriate metaphor of "cultural software." With this metaphor, he crafts a theory of cultural understanding that accounts for the effects of historical change on shared belief systems as well as variation and disagreement among individuals in the same culture. Balkin's topic is one that is both incredibly complex yet essential to many fields: conceptions of cultural understanding underpin much of the scholarly discourse in philosophy, sociology, political theory, and law. Although his project is quite ambitious, he engages it with remarkable clarity, depth, and sophistication. The book is unusual in that it masterfully synthesizes numerous diverse fields, including philosophy, law, psychology, biology, and sociology. Balkin is at home in each of these fields, displaying command over the thought of such diverse thinkers such as Plato, Geertz, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Gadamer, Goffman, and Mannheim. Balkin is a fantastic writer, able to explain his concepts very clearly without resorting to excessive jargon and without sacrificing complexity or nuance. The richness of his thought is manifested when he applies his theories to concrete issues in law and politics, such as his powerful analysis of racism toward the end of the book. The book is also worth reading for Balkin's absolutely superb discussion of narratives, one of the most illuminating I have read. In sum, this book is definitely worth reading; Balkin has set forth a serious and convincing theory to be reckoned with. 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A theory?,
By Enjolras - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology (Paperback)
Theories should have predictive power and present insights otherwise available. I don't see what Balkin's Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology gives us. Much of the book seems to contrast his theory to other great philosophers, but the exact contours of his theory remain elusive. Perhaps this is because of the metaphor of software prevalent throughout the book. It just doesn't seem to fit what he's describing. He describes an interactive process between individuals and cultural power, but software is generally created by one person or group and installed into a passive computer. I suspect the metaphor stems from the fact that Balkin wrote this book near the height of the tech bubble (today it would probably be the "cultural app"). Still, he does manage to parry his arguments against a wide range of philosophers and at least exposes the weaknesses in their theories, if not the strengths of his. Beware though that this book will only be readable to professional students of philosophy; layreaders will be left bewildered.
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