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Imitation

With humanity’s drive to imitate each other and the advent of global communications, are we creating one global culture to the detriment of the individual and the indigenous?

Imitation can be essential to human learning and advancement but is there a danger, especially in an era of instant communication and global capital, of us mindlessly copying the latest popular phenomenon or creating a monotonous look to our cities? And why in classical music, imitation wasn’t always a dirty word. Presenter Zeinab Badawi talks to anthropologist Alex Bentley, musicologist Jan Smaczny and architect Robert Adam.

Available now

41 minutes

Last on

Sun 6 Jan 2013 02:05GMT
BBC World Service Online

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Plant and flower shapes

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Chapters

  • Alex Bentley

    Alex Bentley

    Duration: 13:45

  • Jan Smaczny

    Jan Smaczny

    Duration: 09:15

  • 60 second idea: Buzzword Censorship App.

    60 second idea: Buzzword Censorship App.

    Duration: 04:58

  • Robert Adam

    Robert Adam

    Duration: 12:32

Alex Bentley

Alex Bentley
Alex Bentley is Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology at Bristol University who has been studying how imitation spreads in large groups of people.  He argues that as we are being forced to make ever quicker decisions from among a dizzy array of options, we would be wise to often rely on the knowledge of the crowd.

Jan Smaczny

Jan Smaczny
Jan Smaczny is Professor of Music at Queens University Belfast, and an authority on Czech music.  He believes that imitation plays an important role in classical music: for many centuries, emulating someone else’s compositional style, or even adapting someone else’s music, has been a perfectly legitimate part of a composer’s toolbox.

Robert Adam

Robert Adam

British architect Robert Adam is a visiting professor of urban design at Strathclyde University and a leading advocate of traditional architecture. He believes that the desire to attract international capital has led to business districts all over the globe looking almost identical.  But perhaps this homogeneity will soon be challenged with the rise of Chinese power.

Sixty second Idea to Change the World

Anthropologist Alex Bentley suggests an app that would intelligently filter overused buzz phrases. When watching TV or reading a newspaper, blank time or paper would replace viral, “of the moment” phrases. This would provide an incentive for people to say things in an original way, and help the audience understand the true meaning.

In Next Week’s Programme

Shapes. How do plants achieve all those varied and wonderful forms of leaf and flower, and how do we – and pollinating insects such as bees – perceive them?

Broadcasts

  • Sat 5 Jan 2013 13:05GMT
    BBC World Service Online
  • Sat 5 Jan 2013 23:05GMT
    BBC World Service Online
  • Sun 6 Jan 2013 02:05GMT
    BBC World Service Online

Podcast

  • The Forum

    The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

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