Abstract
This paper is a philosophical reflection around the concept of a cultural trait. A trait is any perceptible or intangible characteristic aspect. In addition, to be cultural, a trait must not be intentional or part of a plan, and its diffusion and repetition – even when initially intentional – must elude control. Traits are inseparable from a cultural space and power relations that are the source of their value, and that govern their spread. Consequently, cultural traits – like “the style of a period” – can only be recognized a posteriori and at distance. Traits can be mapped in different ways, but a map is no simple object. Maps can vary along two dimensions: dynamic-static and conceptual – perceptual. Some maps are schemas or diagrams. Classifying the maps used by Zenni to illustrate the history of jazz, and comparing them with analog maps from the 1970s, I show how maps depend from the observer's (cultural) ideas. Some maps evidently express a search for hierarchy and origins. But, in contemporary philosophy, the question of the origins constitutes a problem. For Michel Foucault, history is not a search for the origin, on the contrary, it must “dispel the chimera of the origin”, because passion for the origin is functional to reassurance or self-reassurance, and there are no single origins.
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Notes
- 1.
Connection: Stefano Zenni presents some of the arguments of the cited book in Chap. 8, where some other figures can be found.
- 2.
Connection: See Chap. 3 for a discussion of the retrospective creation of origins and the construction of ethnic identity from the point of view of cultural anthropology.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
Connection: On a notion of trait as related to the unconscious in psychoanalytic thinking, see Chap. 6, which also agrees with the a-posteriori recognition of culture.
- 6.
Connection: To have an idea about how cultural transmission of traits is linked to epidemiological models, refer to models of diffusion of traits as diffusion of diseases in networks as in Sect. 12.5.
- 7.
Connection: Chapter 4 analyzes a science exhibit which is also an object of design and the expression of a stylistic period in a particular national context.
- 8.
Connection: Some further links to the concept of exaptation can be found in the Connection in the introduction of Chap. 3.
- 9.
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Carmagnola, F. (2016). Maps, Diagrams and Charts: Making the Cultural Trait Visible. In: Panebianco, F., Serrelli, E. (eds) Understanding Cultural Traits. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24349-8_10
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