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. |
From inside the book
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... never be posed ! Individualists long for the dependency they repudiate or at best indulge only in certain circumscribed contexts . The ambivalence one has toward one's culture — that simultaneously lies at the core of one's own ( and ...
... never run out of them . And they need us every bit as much as we need them . We cocreate one another . Witches define us and we define them . Without them we would become whatever chaos we most fear ( id , superego , and so on ) . We ...
... never be solved ? Certainly , no one expects the conflict between American individualist and communitarian perspectives to be resolved . But in the absence of resolution , the attempt to satisfy opposing ideals shapes the development of ...
... never be reached , to solve a problem that can never be solved . The idea that culture consists of oppositions is not new ( nor is it synonymous with the theories of Levi - Strauss ) . Although I consider my work a return to ...
... never considered because he lacked the category — culture . To take one example : Is society a reality sui generis , as Durkheim said , and must we explain social facts only in terms of other social facts ? Or is society made up of ...
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 |