Agapetes: Culture, Identity and Love, Peaceable Practices, Nonviolence

I think these nearly 500 blog entries make a case for culture vis-a-vis identity, which isn't often made in the anthropological literature these days. Perhaps I conflate the terms at times, and I don't think I question an anthropological assumption that identity is constructed. To distinguish the terms in one way, I think, however, that 'culture' as identity is very richly confused than simply identity. For example, Scots' culture is very richly nuanced, and quite old, compared, in my mind with Scots' identity.


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If culture plays such a rich role in our lives (as I think it does), and anthropological literature these days doesn't engage the concept that much (perhaps Jim Clifford is an exception), then how might we begin to engage it to elicit or cultivate loving bliss, for example. If culture, as identity, is richly confused, how to tease out those strands as >practice< which one can then build on to actively create something. For example, if hearing, or playing, great piping music (and the experience of celidh [kaylee], i.e. Scottish parties, as well) leads to flow experience, some of which can be akin to experiences of loving bliss, then how can one build on this as practice, to cultivate loving bliss?


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And what about peaceable practices, that culture gives rise to. There's been almost no violence among Quakers in the past 350 years. How to build on this example? And Bonobo chimps? And the 1960s and 70s?













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Agapetes serpens

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Agapetes Lugdvan Cross flower










(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/09/agapetes-culture-identity-and-love.html - September 16, 2009)