Yes, Culture matters, but in what Way?

Abstract

People, when asked to expound on some grand theme — power, trust, economy, society... culture — usually begin with a few pearls of wisdom from a great and long-dead figure: Max Weber, for instance, or Emile Durkheim or Karl Marx or Adam Smith. The best I have been able to come up with is Hitler’s deputy, Hermann Goering: “When I hear the word “culture” I reach for my revolver.” There are a couple of problems with this particular pearl. First, Goering was talking about “high” culture — the arts, music... literature — rather than the anthropological definition we are using in this volume: all the things that we have that monkeys haven’t. Second, he never actually said it! It was a character in a 1930’s play — “Schlageter” by Hans Johst — who said it (though the character in question, I am assured, did bear an uncanny resemblance to Hermann Goering).

Paper presented at an international conference — “Environment Across Cultures” — sponsored by The International Human Dimensions Programme and The Europäische Akademie, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany, September 21–23, 1999.