Fragile cultural achievements need many conditions at once to survive
Evidence
Most cultural transmission is like this. Slow. Unintended. Carried by people who do not know the long historical role they are playing. And the inheritances we have today — including the documentary record that complicates the polished literary tradition — are, in significant measure, the cumulative product of bored teenagers doing their homework, century after century. — , The Rod and the Child, 1888 (
#expands, via linked claim)
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 forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 837; Important cultural records survive through mundane, unintended preservation. — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 1888; The mummy’s value lies in guaranteeing that cultural accumulation has meaning — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 37 (+2 more)
Related
- Important cultural records survive through mundane, unintended preservation. (similarity 0.84)
- Each cultural form is inevitably replaced by its successor (similarity 0.82)
- Culture as constitutive of practice retains contingency and is never finally determined (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Important cultural records survive through mundane, unintended preservation.
#expands(0.83) — , The Rod and the Child, 1888 - Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them
#complicates(0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 837