Cultural Identity and Global Process

Jonathan Friedman's brilliant Cultural Identity and Global Process, among other things, calls attention to the essentialistic use of such words as "culture" and "civilization". He presupposew that no eternal essence of actual entities exist. Of course "culture" in the abstract does not exist: no Platonic separated form (Idea). He never veers from this "axiom." For he constantly refers to cultural or civilization events in term of "identity space," "self identity," "citizen," etc. all such phrases referring to individual persons. He is the only world systems analyst I know of who brings the unconscious into his idea of culture. His approach is Freudian. He adroitly ovoids using the word unconscious in his fine remarks on narcissitic behavior at the social level. But what is important: he underscores an anthropological recognition of divers mental events in the citizens of a culture. He could have gone further using C.G. Jung's psychological types. Then, he could have discussed _scientifically_ how specific subliminal events shape culture. But his book is a great tour de force. A first class mind at work.