Posted by
Jochen Fromm-4 on
Mar 12, 2008; 10:50pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/questions-tp525926p525938.html
Really interesting questions.
How does an umbrella culture come into existence?
An umbrella culture is perhaps a bit like Franchising
in business: someone defines a code, a set of rules and
a certain strategy (including business strategy,
marketing strategy and operations strategy), and
the rest is implementing it while remaining largely
independent.
So one way is to invent a code that connects the agents
in the system without bringing them together physically
(for example a Franchising system, a language like English
combined with traditional media as television or radio,
or a modern Web 2.0 community with certain customs and
standard rules, etc.), so that you have unity in diversity.
The physical barrier is important to maintain the
diversity, the shared code is necessary for unity.
The complexity of a culture in this case is a
result of imposing unity (the shared culture) on
diversity (the diverse population).
Basic models about diversity in culture are Axelrod's
model for dissemination of culture (based on local
convergence and global polarization)..
http://ifisc.uib.es/research_topics/socio/culture.html..and Schelling's segregation model. Both are very good.
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/SegregationDiversity is important for any group, especially
if the famous "wisdom of crowds" is needed. However,
the "wisdom of crowds" depends of the type of
the crowd: is it a crowd of teenagers, or a crowd
of colleagues? If you want more women or youth in
your community, it is of course useful to make the
community more attractive for them.
Sensibilities of single members should be ignored
as long as they don't impair the code of the
umbrella culture. What can be changed and what
not is usually well known in most groups, it is
the classic distinction between the sacred/holy
on the one side and the secular/profance on
the other. Sacred or holy things affect the
group integrity and may not be changed by ordinary
members of the group.
Ways to mediate inevitable conflicts are subject
of politics. That's what politicians do all the
time, trying to balance interests and needs of
the population. Common sense says that one possibility
is to keep agents with different sensibilities apart
from each other. If they don't know what the others
are doing, they won't care.
-J.