Embedded Files
from The Meaning of Life: Ascending Jacob’s Ladder by Hazy Notion
Comparing a solitary migration up the Spectrum to a cultural migration is a bit like comparing the personalised transport of a bicycle to the mass transportation of a train. A train is faster and more comfortable for most people, most of the time. But sometimes a person might find that a particular destination can be reached sooner by travelling alone on a bicycle. This might be because of a delay in the train’s departure or because its route is indirect. The train’s progress might also be slowed by frequent stopping along the way.
In order to assist travellers to make up their minds about whether to use personal transport, or stay on the train, it might be useful to look at the timetable of cultural transportation, and the route it takes. To do this the best place to start is with an overview of the sweep of ‘macro’ cultural evolution. This is the history of collective evolution through the three Themes of Self identity.
There are three great periods of cultural evolution which correspond with collective progress through the three Themes of Self identity. The earliest collective identity of Self was a cultural pattern anthropologists call hunter/gatherer. Various levels of hunter/gatherer development reflect collective passage through the Over-Theme of Territory. But a more advanced form involved a collective expression of the Survival of Self.
The next Theme of Self was collectively expressed as the matriarchal or neolithic age. The matriarchal age was agriculturally based and was an expression of Fertility of Self. Both hunter/gatherer and matriarchal societies essentially belong to the pre-historical period of human development. Nevertheless, pockets of both cultural types have continued to exist in isolated parts of the world almost until present times.
The third Theme of Self — Status — is collectively expressed as modern, city-based, hierarchical culture. The evolution from hunter/gatherer to matriarchal to modern culture is the result of an evolution of collective consciousness from Survival of Self, to Fertility of Self, to Status of Self. The cultural evolution is an outward manifestation of the collective inner changes involved in movement through these three Themes.
Figure 15 Cultural Evolution
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse