The Case for Complementarities

Abstract

My presentation discusses the current circumstances and intellectual mission of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research. Our society examines both those qualities of humanity that are shared across cultures and those behavioral and cultural elements that are peculiar to certain traditions. I try to make a strong case that our multidisciplinary nature makes us particularly well suited to such research and to an inclusive strategy that embraces different levels of analysis rather than eschewing them. This is the import of what we do. This is the utility of what we do. In the first section entitled “Of Visigoths and Monasteries,” I also address the current challenges to scientific efforts to study humanity stemming from postmodernists.