All cultures develop heterogeneously through borrowing and theft

Evidence

It follows that every culture develops heterogeneously, whether through social intercourse and interaction, commercial transaction, inadvertent or purposeful borrowing, youthful transgressions, or outright theft. It is of the very nature of culture, accordingly, that despite itself, in spite of its disposition qua cultural identity to repeat and reproduce itself, it could develop into something else. The threat to (a) culture is that it could become something different, lose its (current) identity, cease to be by seeing what it takes as its core convictions, values, or commitments eroded. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1891 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

We must be grateful to Ronald L. Meek for writing the prehistory of the concept of a “mode of production” (as that will later be worked out in the writings of Morgan and Marx), which in the eighteenth century took the form of what Meek calls the “four stages theory.” This theory came together in France and the Scottish Enlightenment, as the proposition that human cultures historically vary with their material or productive basis, which knows four essential transformations: hunting and gathering, pastoralism, agriculture, and commerce. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 861 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: All cultures arise from mixture, so hybridity theory restates an essentialist error. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 915; Every culture changes through borrowing, theft, and transgression despite itself — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1891; Culture’s inherent heterogeneity makes its own identity a perpetual threat to itself — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1891 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Every culture changes through borrowing, theft, and transgression despite itself #corroborates (0.93) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1891
• Human cultures historically vary with their material or productive basis #complicates (0.70) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 861