Symbolic Variety and Cultural Integration, AIS National Conference Keynote Address, October 6, 2006

A unique combination of historical and cultural circumstances has contributed to two profound phenomena arising out of the early modern age: the emergence of cultural fragmentation and the revolutionary transition in symbolic structures to those in which the human subject has become the sole constituent principle of meaning and value. The creative impact of rich cultural diversity continues to this day, but cultural dispersion also exacts a toll in the absence of understanding of the relationships among symbol systems, the lack of a probing comprehension of cultural plurality, and inattention or indifference to the importance of integrative and synthetic impulses. Interdisciplinary studies may provide some of the critical understandings and processes for reducing vulnerability to excesses of cultural relativism and ideological absolutes.