A Foot in the River

This book about change in human cultures draws on a huge range of disciplines across the sciences, social science, history and linguistics, bringing evidence to bear on the author's thesis that human cultures are not in fact subject to evolution in the normal sense. There are no fully predictable determinants to our behaviour so that we are free to create or recreate our worlds through the free use of the imagination. His argument is that 'cultures do not evolve, develop, progress, nor follow any linear, predictable or regular trajectory. They just change: sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.' This contrasts, for instance, with the orderly organic process of Spengler and the cyclical ideas of Toynbee, who is only mentioned in passing. When the idea of evolution is so culturally pervasive, it is tempting to impose this on society, which the author strenuously resists. However, he does argue that ideas are the main motors of change in human cultures and one can see that as a driver behind technological innovation beginning in the human mind.

His analysis of change goes back to the Greeks with Heraclitus and Parmenides, then looking at the thought of Augustine and more recently of Bergson, Marx and Darwin. There is a chapter on culture in other species such as chimpanzees, elephants and dolphins. The author covers very thoroughly the variety of cultural evolution models on offer, pointing out the shortcomings in each. One can appreciate his observation that cultures can make self-destructive adjustments in their relationships with the environment, as we are currently doing - which hardly represents an evolutionary advance. The chapter on the imaginative animal contains the essence of his argument, that we draw on memory and anticipation as well as imagination in framing new possibilities. The current acceleration of change results from the enormous exchange of ideas that is now possible. It is also clear that we will need new and serviceable ideas applied to the unprecedented challenges that we now face. This is a stimulating and wide-ranging read.