Debates about worldviews, materialist vs cultural, always seem to me
to get lost in "time and space." If one is talking to the person
next door, then questions of cognition and differing cultural
definitions of reality are immediately important determinants of the
course and form of interaction, independent from its content. That is,
did your neighbor understand your message? Specific issues of
cultural context, such as language, gender, perceptions, values, and
worldviews, are paramount for answering this question.
Move in time and space away from interpersonal interaction, and
issues of cultural context fade in relevance for determing
interactions. For a world-systemic process to operate over
hundreds of years, it must produce relatively similar outcomes in
an enormous variety of specific cultural contexts (otherwise, it is
not the same process over the entire time and space in question).
Only the most basic material relations tend to qualify -- food,
shelter, death, fertility. The more one's basic material needs are
determined by the world economic and interstate system, the more
integrated the system --and vice versa.
At the mid-range between specific cultural contexts and the long
history of the world-system are institutions, such as corporations,
states, and churches. Insititutions bundle together sets of cultural
contexts and back up their definitions of reality with powerful
material resources. Agreement among the world's most potent
institutions can create a worldview that defines the cultural
context for most of the world's inhabitants (i.e., a hegemonic
worldview).
It is at the mid-range institutional level that I think world-system
theory has something to offer about worldviews. People like
John Meyer, John Boli, George Thomas, and Francisco Ramirez argue
that extremely potent "world polity" of cultural institutions
constitutes the actors in the system. Political scientists like
Krasner and Holsti temper such views with realist concerns about
differing interests among states, and argue that comparatively weak
"world orders" set the parametes of common interests among powerful
actors. My own interest is in the variation between the two -- when
do you get one versus the other?
Comments, criticisms, refutations and rejections are welcomed.
TB
Terry Boswell
Department of Sociology
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322