Lexington Books Explaining Culture: The Social Pursuit of Subjective Order

This provocative book offers a new theory of culture with a unique focus on our aesthetic response to order and meaningfulness. After first identifying the basic principles of aesthetic valuation, then describing the three dimensions of producing shared meaningfulness, it explains the appeal of such things as myth, ritual, symbol, humor, conversation, identity, stereotypes, change, religion, organizational culture, solidarity, and how all of those things vary according to positions within social structure.