CS - the degree of logical consistency (Cultural System integration)

ix The problem of structure and agency has rightly come to be seen as the basic issue in modern social theory.

xiii Fundamentally what is wrong with conflationary theorizing is that it prevents the interplay between 'parts' and 'people' from being the foundation of cultural dynamics. [JLJ - from Wikipedia, conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, seem to be a single identity - the differences appear to become lost.]

xxii As a process 'morphogenesis' refers to the complex interchanges that produce change in a System's given form, structure or state ('morphostasis' is the reverse)... when morphogenesis results, then subsequent interaction will be different from earlier action precisely because it is now conditioned by the elaborated consequences of that prior action. Hence the morphogenetic perspective is not only dualistic but sequential, dealing in endless three-part cycles of Structural Conditioning → Social interaction → Structural Elaboration. The suggestion is that this framework be transferred to the cultural field, using equivalent analytical phases (i.e. Cultural Conditioning → Socio-Cultural interaction → Cultural Elaboration), in order to unravel the dialectical interplay of culture and agency over time. [JLJ - implications for game theory]

xxv All that is being signalled here is that the morphogenetic perspective will provide a helpful framework for understanding the structuring of culture over time and one which enables specific forms of Cultural Elaboration to be explained.

p.16 The existence of alternatives at the Systemic level, or the presence of variety as it is termed in information theory, is essential for adaptive Systems.

p.18 As a generalization, it does seem to be the case that there is roughly parity between the available variety and active variety of cultural elements in such societies and that they are pretty equally distributed.

p.90-91 there is a range of cultural factors, which limit freedom of action... Certainly these features are the results of anterior social actions... and in all likelihood they will be modified by posterior interaction, but in the present, wherever it is situated historically, they constitute an objective if temporary limitation on degrees of freedom. Yet an examination of this interplay over time, of how our open future is the next generation's constraints, just as the things restricting us are the product of the previous generation's use of its degrees of freedom, is precisely what the 'duality' approach prevents... temporal relations between institutional structure and strategic action logically cannot be examined... In short this means that the concept of duality can never... theoretically incorporate the two most important dualistic assumptions: (i) that Systemic features (CS) logically predate the action(s) (S-C) which transforms them; (ii) that elaboration of the Cultural System logically post-dates those actions at the Socio-Cultural level. Yet recognition of both points is fundamental to any theory of Cultural Elaboration as a process occurring over time.

p.207 All protagonists of competitive contradictions... come up against attempts to still their oppositional voice... Confronted with a contradiction which has achieved some degree of social prominence, the basic reaction of those adhering to A is indeed to seek the elimination of opposition.

p.216 Since access to some source of variety (new information, signals, symbols, messages) is essential to cultural innovation, then if power strategies prevent it from being generated internally or imported from outside they indeed succeed in protecting the status quo in the CS.

p.216-217 In sum, the successful use of cultural power can protect the CS in basically unchanged form, for long periods of time

p.247 The dynamics of differentiation are indeed the starting point of competition proper in both science and ideology... In science the source of a contradiction often originates from internal criticism of a particular theory - from the uneasy feeling that something is wrong and the germ of an alternative approach to the problem. Confrontation does not take place immediately because the new and undeveloped theory confronts a sea of anomalies at least as vast as that in which it was felt the old theory was busy drowning.

p.253 it is impossible to 'kill' an idea whilst there are some committed enough and ingenious enough to defend it.