Abstract

Arguments for the preservation of culture are based on an extremely problematic essentialist conception of culture as a fixed entity. The inadequacy of the essentialist conception has received increasing recognition, but an adequate positive conception has yet to take its place. This essay reframes the debate about cultural preservation by proposing a new conception of culture as conversation. The new conception acknowledges the fluidity and internal contestation that occurs within actual cultures, and the agency of a culture’s members in creating, transmitting and revising that culture. We make this new conception our basis for proposing that a proper concern for the value of a culture should be realized in enabling its members to sustain it, not to preserve some pre-existing essence. Adopting this more viable notion of culture also changes our conception of what needs to be done to sustain it, and allows us to acknowledge and better deal with the complex arguments for and against sustaining culture.