Jeff Russell

"I wonder what might come of rigorously applying his "Culture as organism" metaphor here - are the societies of "Primitive Men" a "different species" or merely an early phase of the same organism as "Great Cultures"? What might we learn by assuming each?"

It strikes me that if an organism is a whole made up of parts, we have to observe what "parts" actually make them up. Perhaps some humans are part of bigger-than-human ecosystem organisms, in which the humans participate in that ecosystem organism as only one part of it, through their special strengths (such as, for eg, storytelling, tool-making). And perhaps, what Spengler is studying are the times when some humans breakaway with a specific story and/or a specific toolset, to form a separate organism with only human parts, or with only human stories, human tools and human beings as its component parts.

Perhaps "primitive" is a word Spengler and others use for a human who is still a component of an ecosystem organism, but not of a culturesystem organism. (Obviously I'm using language idiosyncratically here, just to get this speculation across).