Aaron Wildavsky, along with Mary Douglas, identified what they
called grid-group theory. Wildavsky began calling this "cultural
theory," and applied it to an astounding array of subjects. The
essays in this volume exemplify the theory's potential
contributions to three seemingly disparate, but related, areas: the
social construction of meaning, normative/analytic political
philosophy, and a theory of rational choices. This book is the
first in a series of Aaron Wildavsky's collected writings being
published posthumously by Transaction. Wildavsky selected,
sequenced, and grouped all but three of the essays included in
Culture and Social Theory prior to his death. Some are presented
here for the first time. Wildavsky's cultural theory provides ways
to organize and interpret the world. In the first section, he shows
how social scientists, particularly economists and sociologists,
apply the theory. Wildavsky argues that concepts such as
externalities, public goods, altruism, and even risk and rape are
tools of rival, ubiquitous cultures engaged in perpetual struggle
with one another. The second section deals with cultural theory as
a way to interpret the works of normative and analytic political
philosophers, including Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill, on
competing human objectives. Wildavsky argues that particular types
of interaction among a society's cultures are necessary for
effective realization of basic concepts such as democracy. In the
third section, Wildavsky applies cultural theory in conjunction
with instrumental rationality, the former as a theory of preference
formation, the latter as a device for realizing preferences
efficiently. High-priority objectives, and thus the character of
norms and rational action, shift across cultures. The world and its
various elements comprise a complex, frequently changing, and thus
ambiguous reality, nowhere more so than in the dynamic contours of
the United States. For cultural theory, individualistic,
hierarchical, and egalitarian interpretations of the world are the
only ones capable of forming and sustaining institutions and
related patterns of social relations that will support human social
groups. Wildavsky's central objective is to strip away the
camouflage and to reveal varying domains of social life as fields
of cultural competition. Culture and Social Theory will be a
necessary addition to the libraries of political scientists,
economists, and policymakers, not to mention all those who admire
Aaron Wildavsky and his work.
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