Culture: A Problem That Cannot Be SolvedFrench historian Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the conflict between the ideals of individualism and community defines American culture. In this groundbreaking new work, anthropologist Charles Nuckolls discovers that every culture consists of such paradoxes, thus making culture a problem that cannot be solved. He does, however, find much creative tension in these unresolvable opposites. |
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... constitute is incapable of final resolution . Such dialectics are pernicious , however , only if we take them too seriously , believing that ultimate solutions are desirable . They are not . Durkheim's sociocentric position produced ...
... constitute oppositions that are ultimately paradoxi- cal . The only way not to be depressed by this is to revel in ... constituting opposition in a new form . The sublime is such a moment in the form of an aesthetic concept . It ...
... who temporarily integrates opposed values . Such figures become cynosures , attracting great attention and constituting a kind of social marker . People measure themselves and others with Copyrighted Material xxii PREFACE.
... constitute opposed perspec- tives on the origin and organization of knowledge that we find repeated , again and again , in the history of the social and psychological sciences . Knowledge comes " in " from the external world , and the ...
... constitute the field where all minds meet " ( p . 26 ) . Moreover , categories that do not depend for their existence on any observable and substantial thing should not exert much force . But as Durkheim said , such things are ...
Contents
3 | |
41 | |
Value Dialectics and the Construction of a Regional Identity Max Weber in Oklahoma | 74 |
The Allocation of Value to Gender and the Cultural History of Psychiatric Diagnosis | 108 |
Cultural Ambivalence and the Knowledge Structures of Modern American Psychiatry | 161 |
The Narrative Reproduction of Values in Psychiatric Training and Practice | 202 |
Dialectical Values and Cultural Paradox | 270 |
Bibliography | 279 |
Index | 293 |