Becoming Culture

Becoming Culture taps in on Charles Sanders Peirce's occasional allusion to a vague, flexible form of 'logic'. Although unfortunately he did not fully develop this idea, his concept of signs and pragmatic philosophy play a chief role in this book. It offers an alternative 'style of logic' with which to understand cultural processes, their complexities, oddities, and paradoxes. The key phrase is: complementary coalescence. Complementarity emerges from certain aspects of twentieth-century physics-especially Niels Bohr's 'Complementary Principle'. Coalescence assimilates process philosophy and scientific notions of chaos and complexity. Thus, a sense of process pervades the quest toward an understanding of the strange twists and turns humans never cease encountering within their culture. In line with the overriding notion of process, Becoming Culture offers a cultural 'logic' whose principle theme is complementary coalescence. It illustrates this theme principally through the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe's merging with the ancient Aztec (Mexica) goddess, Tonantzín, in the hearts, minds, words and actions among some of Mexico's indigenous people.