not the narrow post-19th century western practice you seem to be referencing.
I don't know where you got this from, I made no reference to the exclusive (and supposedly) monogamous form of marriage (which nonetheless has come to be the dominant form of the concept around the world) - of course I'm well aware of polygamy, harems etc., I was referring to the
concept of marriage: a public declaration, usually accompanied by a ceremony of some sort, in which people make a pledge to each other. As far as I am aware, something like this is known in just about every human culture.
Also, your mention of homosexuality in Ancient Greece just goes to prove my point: homosexual behaviour is found in
all human cultures, it's just the level of tolerance for it and the corresponding openness (or otherwise) of homosexual behaviour that varies. It's a natural feature of animal behaviour and humans, being animals, are no exception.
Religion: yes, but again such a vast and elastic term that to say 'religion is universal to all human cultures throughout history' is meaningless.
How is it meaningless? Basically you want to disagree with me but can't think of a way to refute my argument so you call it 'meaningless'.
Authority: again, authority has evidenced itself in a such a multi-faceted manner that you simply can't generalise in such a sweeping manner because your statement is meaningless. Authority amongst who? To what aims? The 'authority' in, say, a kin group of Australian aboriginals is so entirely different to that in, say, a totalitarian police state that the two cannot be considered to be in any way similar. It's the same with law and punishment.
I disagree. Whereas the actual form one of these concepts, memes or whatever finally takes, it's the instinct or tendency leading to it that I'm interested in, and nothing in what you've said denies the universality of this. The differences you point out are controlled by all sort of other factors, too: a police state, for example, is
pretty impossible without fairly advanced technology, which is not available in traditional Aboriginal society.
What I'm getting at is that there is no culture which has
no form of authority - be it tribal elders, a king or a government - and (again, AFAIC) no culture with
no form of law and punishment.
What there is, is many different responses to the same underlying tendencies.
The idea that civilisation and/or culture must be a projection of an innate 'humaness' is untenable: if it were, then all civilisations at all times would be identitical. After all, one pack of dogs (to use your example) behaves very like another pack of dogs doesn't it? Yet this is not the case with human societies. Humans have language, dogs do not. Language is construct of relations and relationships, as are human societies. Thus a dynamic is involved, a shifting construct in which individuals articulate and are articulated. There's nothing 'innate' in the process at all.
Again, you misunderstand my argument. Any two packs of dogs may act very differently, depending on whether they've been bred to keep out intruders, aid hunters, for racing or simply as pets. Human societies act very differently because they have reached different levels of technological achievement, have evolved in different environment and happen to have had different philosophies and world-views dominant at key stages in their evolution. Of course there's a huge difference between a horse-drawn cart and a car, but they're both solutions to the age-old problem of "I'm over
here and I want to get over
there and it's too far to walk". OK, so that's an almost trivially simple example, but you get what I'm saying - that the huge diversity of cultures has arisen from the mutation and interplay of cultural elements that have arisen because of the
same urges, problems and desires that have arisen naturally over and over again?
I think this post-modern concept that "nothing is natural, everything is a construct" seems to place human beings on some kind of pedestal of perfect mental uniqueness untainted by the evolutionary pressures that act on 'lower' animals, whereas I think that as we learn more and more about ourselves and other animals the exact opposite appears to be true.
Edit: and what's wrong with memes? I think it's a fascinating and useful idea. Could it have something to do with the fact they were postulated by Dawkins, prime anathema to the lovers of Baudrillard
et al?