Really interesting questions. How does an umbrella culture come into existence? An umbrella culture is perhaps a bit like Franchising in business: someone defines a code, a set of rules and a certain strategy (including business strategy, marketing strategy and operations strategy), and the rest is implementing it while remaining largely independent.
So one way is to invent a code that connects the agents in the system without bringing them together physically (for example a Franchising system, a language like English combined with traditional media as television or radio, or a modern Web 2.0 community with certain customs and standard rules, etc.), so that you have unity in diversity. The physical barrier is important to maintain the diversity, the shared code is necessary for unity. The complexity of a culture in this case is a result of imposing unity (the shared culture) on diversity (the diverse population). Basic models about diversity in culture are Axelrod's model for dissemination of culture (based on local convergence and global polarization).. http://ifisc.uib.es/research_topics/socio/culture.html ..and Schelling's segregation model. Both are very good. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Segregation Diversity is important for any group, especially if the famous "wisdom of crowds" is needed. However, the "wisdom of crowds" depends of the type of the crowd: is it a crowd of teenagers, or a crowd of colleagues? If you want more women or youth in your community, it is of course useful to make the community more attractive for them. Sensibilities of single members should be ignored as long as they don't impair the code of the umbrella culture. What can be changed and what not is usually well known in most groups, it is the classic distinction between the sacred/holy on the one side and the secular/profance on the other. Sacred or holy things affect the group integrity and may not be changed by ordinary members of the group. Ways to mediate inevitable conflicts are subject of politics. That's what politicians do all the time, trying to balance interests and needs of the population. Common sense says that one possibility is to keep agents with different sensibilities apart from each other. If they don't know what the others are doing, they won't care. -J. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
