Cultural Software · A Theory of Ideology

In this book J. M. Balkin offers original theory of cultural evolution, a theory that explains shared understandings, disagreement, and diversity within cultures. 

Drawing on many fields of study - including anthropology, evolutionary theory, cognitive science, linguistics, sociology, political theory, philosophy, social psychology, and law - the author explores how cultures grow and spread, how shared understandings arise, and how people of different cultures can understand and evaluate each other's views. Balkin presents numerous examples that illuminate the sources of ideological effects and their contributions to injustice. He also enters the current debate over multiculturalism, applying his theory to problems of mutual understanding between people who hold different worldviews. He argues that cultural understanding presupposes transcendent ideals and shows how both ideological analysis of others and ideological self-criticism are possible.

"A brilliant and daring job of examining law in the light of new

thought in the human sciences and vice versa. This is contemporary legal

scholarship at its most thoughtful." —Jerome Bruner, Research

Professor of Psychology at New York University and Senior Research

Fellow in Law at New York University School of Law.

"Balkin takes

the hot button words of current intellectual debate— culture,

ideology, transcendence, pragmatism, historicism— and manages the

considerable feat of making them usable again. He avoids final judgment

while at the same time redeeming the vocabulary of final judgment so

that it is once again available to those who have learned the lessons of

various postmodernisms. An impressive and truly helpful book." —Stanley Fish, Duke University

"Balkin argues ingeniously that meme theory replaces more familiar

critical theories of ideology, because it alone explains how people come

to believe the things they believe, without reference to dubious

assumptions about 'false consciousness' or 'hegemony.' Once we can

understand this, we can act to change cultural beliefs for the better. .

. . [Balkin] writes with lucid balance. . . . Balkin's account is the

most nuanced and convincing on the question of what we actually gain

from meme theory." —Mark Kingwell, Harper's 

"After 250 years of writing

about ideology, it is difficult to have something new to say that

advances our understanding of this elusive concept, and yet Cultural

Software: A Theory of Ideology by J. M. Balkin manages to do just that. .

. . Cultural Software is a remarkable work that will be usefully read

by a broad audience." —Susan Silbey, American Journal of Sociology

"Balkin's book is a path-breaking effort to rethink legal critique using

these biological and cybernetic models; the scope of its ambition and

the subtlety of its execution are likely to make it a definitive

work." —David Charny, University of Michigan Law Review 

"Balkin's book is

intelligent and extremely well crafted. Not the least of his

accomplishments is a wonderfully clear presentation of the major strands

of postmodern thought. Theories of social psychology, narrative,

semiotics, metaphor, and metonym are discussed sympathetically but also

sensibly and in understandable terms. For anyone interested in

intelligible discussion of the work of Elster, Ricouer, Geertz, Goffman,

Chomsky, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, and the like, this book is an

excellent source." —Emily Sherwin, Philosophy in Review

J. M. Balkin is Lafayette S. Foster Professor and director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.