Culture as constitutive of practice retains contingency and is never finally determined

Evidence

These forms are frameworks for the creative life which, however, soon transcends them. They should also house the imitative life, for which, in the final analysis, there is no space left. They acquire fixed identities, a logic and lawfulness of their own; this new rigidity inevitably places them at a distance from the spiritual dynamic which created them and which makes them independent. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 837 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cultural symbols carry no fixed meaning; meaning shifts with the social field — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1012; Tradition is about how elements are articulated, not about persistence of old forms — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1017; Cultural studies rejects the base-superstructure model of economic determination (+26 more)

Related

• Cultures represent themselves as fixed but are always changed by history (similarity 0.90)
• Each cultural form is inevitably replaced by its successor (similarity 0.88)
• Culture is a constant battlefield with no permanent victories (similarity 0.88)
• Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them (similarity 0.87)
• Cultural struggle shifts positions, never staying over the same meaning (similarity 0.87)
• Culture remained an indeterminate site of convergent interests, not a fixed concept. (similarity 0.86)
• Cultural value is historically mobile as forms move between elite and popular (similarity 0.85)
• Tradition is about how elements are articulated, not about persistence of old forms (similarity 0.85)
• Objectified cultural forms always lag behind the life that created them (similarity 0.85)
• Even the swastika has no fixed cultural meaning (similarity 0.84)
• Culture operates as signifying practice rather than a fixed way of life (similarity 0.84)
• Culture is inherently decentered and resists direct linkage to other structures (similarity 0.83)
• Cultural symbols carry no fixed meaning; meaning shifts with the social field (similarity 0.83)
• Cultural definitions remain incomplete working models that enable imagining (similarity 0.83)
• Human culture originates in the socially mediated relation between man and nature (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Cultural struggle shifts positions, never staying over the same meaning #corroborates (0.85)
• Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them #complicates (0.85) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 837
• Culture is a constant battlefield with no permanent victories #corroborates (0.80)