Monday, January 15, 2007
Passing the Time
Glassie says that the people of Ballymenone "pass the time" whether or not they are doing what Westerners would consider working or just having free time. To me this suggests that their way of life is so traditional and so ingrained in their DNA (trust me, research has shown that there is a genetic link b/t place and lifestyle) that each activity is just expected, just comes naturally. What do y'all think?
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6 comments:
what does the research say about the link b/t the two? how did they determine it?.... i thought it was very interesting and am glad that you posted it!
I will have to get the paper- the phenomenon is called biophilia, and the main idea is that early, early sensations first felt at the onset of the development of a new "human" trait, such as upright walking, color eyesite, agility, ect, is linked, in a genetic memory, to the place it first occured, i haven't read the whole thing, but I'll get it soon!
I'll play devil's advocate: although I don't doubt the influence of shared genetic make-up of people groups because of close living proximity and reproduction, culture is a learned phenomenon. Plenty of people in this country have been adopted as babies from overseas from completely "foreign" DNA sources yet act in a completely American way because of growing up here in the states becoming enculturated by learning. Your thoughts?
The Biophilia Hypothesis, by Stephen Kellert (currently check out in the TTU University Library. \
Jeremy- I agree completely, that culture is learned. The biophilia is assocaited more closely with sensation development and subconcious recognition of place and common themes to a place (flatness, trees, animals,height, water), and the physical and emotional sensations felt at the onset of the experience and the genetic memory of those experiences. Granted, its a very abstract idea, one that I don't really understand. I'm looking forward to getting the book.
Interestingly, there is also biophobia, which tries to explain human's instinctive fear of things in nature that aren't nearly as dangerous as things we have created during our current consiousness as a human race (spiders, snakes vs. cars, guns.
Interesting. So really biophilia is a theory on the human association with place (cognitive and physical) not ways of living (cultural).
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