Towards theoretical unification: structure, culture and morphogenesis

Abstract

An introduction Significantly when the morphogenetic perspective was elaborated within general systems theory, it was intended to apply to what Buckley termed ‘socio-cultural systems’. Hence the direct implication that structure and culture could share the same theoretical umbrella – the framework of which is provided by the morphogenetic perspective, although the actual cultural fabric had still to be attached to it. This has been the task of the last four chapters. Perhaps however, we should pause to spell out just why it is so desirable to unify the ways in which we theorize about structure and culture. The crucial point about theoretical unification is that it would foster a balanced view of the respective importance of structure and culture at any given time. Thus a unified theory would have an important deterrent effect by discouraging both the inflated importance assigned to culture, presented as society's bandmaster, or its relegation to a reflective role as society's looking-glass. Of course, both these distorted views of the place of culture in social life entail equal but opposite distortions of the part played by structure, for as the importance of culture is inflated or deflated it is structure which diminishes or dominates at its expense. Effectively much of social theory has treated structure and culture as partners in a zero-sum relationship The main alternative has been to represent their partnership as one of such tight mutual constitution that neither has any degree of autonomy from the other.