Culture

[Rumfrd]

One of the paradoxes of human nature is that while people crave and enjoy the

novelty of the foreign, the alien, they would rather not live immersed in novelty. However interesting a strange culture is in the short term, in the long term, one’s own culture is a more predictable and understood environment, one comfortable enough to work, rest, and raise children in.

 

When we encounter each other, given the context and nature of the encounter, we

need a general understanding of the likely reactions, of the social conventions

governing the encounter, and of the expectations which apply. We need this

understanding to be like programming, fast, automatic and effortless, so that we

can relate freely each day, living our lives amid familiarity.

 

Day to day, we need a recovery kind of environment, the predictability, the comfort

of people around us who look at things in a similar way, and who generally react

in ways that are understandable.

 

We like nested spheres of familiarity around us: family, city, state, nation, with

One’s self, secure at the center. And we need those familiar, nested institutions, to

reflect, what is to us, a reasonable world view, in their rules and in their

functioning.

 

We also need the ideas embodied in our institutions to agree. Disagreement

between institutions would be uncomfortable. We would be forced to deal with

conflict, and resolve it somehow. But there is little conflict or contradiction

left among our institutions here in America, or in other mature cultures.

 

In a mature culture, the institutions have adapted to each other. And if they do not

necessarily embody pure truth, they do work well together. They cooperate, and

they keep their stories straight.

 

What we must realize about cultures and the institutions they evolve, is that while

they do contain selected truths, they are not primarily bodies of truth; they are bodies of agreement. Cultures are essentially the consensus of a group of people about many diverse topics, but they are a Human consensus, not a Scientific one.

 

 

Culture develops as the evolutionary result of a huge number of individual

encounters. As it evolves, it develops expectations and traditions which

incrementally improve interactions to become more productive and more satisfying.

This enables people more easily to work together, and to enjoy each other while

working.

 

Over time, culture adapts, as opinions adapt. People adapt to change, and so their

consensus also adapts. But, once formed, it is very difficult to change opinions.

It takes time for one person to change an opinion, and it takes even more time for

a change in opinion to propagate through a group of people.

 

Opinion has great inertia, so the current consensus of opinion, the current culture,

always lags behind the set of conditions it faces. The target is always ahead of the

point of aim.

 

Culture is a rolling agreement, an adapting expectation for Human behavior.

It has many other aspects to it’s people, since it is a consensus, and a consensus

can address many disparate things: myths, aspirations, dreams and a particular

interpretation of history.

 

Culture is also a consensus on the way a group of people regard themselves, just

as each individual regards him or herself. It is a story, a group story, which, like an

individual’s life story, is a recounting of events in terms of their human meaning.

And like an individual’s story, a culture’s story has been edited.

 

The dictionary definition of culture is “The shape or form of a civilization.” This

description says nothing about the function of culture. A more pertinent definition

of culture, describing its function would be: The culture of a group of people, is

that consensus which enables and promotes their collective action.

 

But as people develop a culture, they also develop a society. Primogeniture is

moot. Culture and society evolve together. They are two aspects of the same

activity, namely, collective action.

 

Culture is an agreement on intangibles, a point of view, a take on things. It consists

of attitudes and generalities held in common, and as all generalities must be, culture is an abstraction, or rather, a collection of abstractions.

 

 

Society is concerned with the concrete, not the abstract. Society is a practical

arrangement; who does what, and when they should do it. It is a system of specializations and working relationships. It is a chain of command, a set of incentives and sanctions. It is a political system and an economic system. All of these are elucidated in its body of law. Society is the machinery of collective action. Culture is the design philosophy of that machinery, its guidance and its inspiration.

 

Culture is abstract and general. Society is concrete and particular. Culture is

theory, society is practice. In this essay, I will address only culture. I will discuss

not the machinery of collective action, but the culture informing that machinery.

 

A given culture, and its society, are the end result of the prolonged trial and

error of multitudes, and the inspiration of a few. Culture is the raison d’etre for

human intelligence. It enables collective action, which, in all its power for good

or ill, has given Humanity dominance over this planet.

 

But, powerful as cultures are, they have flaws. The way a culture views resources,

is skewed, by which resources happen to be abundant, and which happen to be

scarce. A culture’s particular profile of abundance shifts what it values and hence,

it’s world view.

 

Also, because of the seamless nature of its world view, there are doors of opportunity a culture may not open. It does not see them because its world view looks in other directions.

 

The culture which a particular people have evolved, and are immersed in, is a

kind of comfortable tautology, free of contradictions, since its viewpoint,

institutions, and expectations all agree with each other.

 

Perhaps it is a kind of circular boredom that gives an alien artifact its appeal. An

alien artifact is interesting because it discloses novel possibilities. Possibilities

which one culture missed, but another culture, did not miss.

 

In genetics, hybrid vitality appears in the cross breeding of two isolated gene

pools. When two gene pools of the same species are isolated from each other,

each has, by Darwinian adaptation, weeded out its own set of unfavorable genes

and reinforced its own set of favorable genes.

 

 

Cross breeding between these isolated gene pools results in individuals who have

drawn upon a larger pool of favorable genes, from which more unfavorable genes

have been eliminated. The benefit of cross breeding isolated gene pools is called

Hybrid Vitality.

 

Different cultures have different priorities and perspectives, but the evolution of

a culture, in the formation of its institutions, weeds out bad ideas, and reinforces

good ones.

 

Ideas in an isolated culture are thus analogous to genes in an isolated gene pool.

Both are improved informational products of the evolutionary process.

In a culture, institutions embodying its successful ideas prevail. In a gene pool,

individuals embodying its successful genes prevail.

History has shown Civilization's seminal progress when isolated cultures merge.

In both genetic and cultural encounters, new strengths and new structures emerge.

Lesser truths, both genetic and ideological, are subsumed in a fusion which produces a stronger people, possessed of a greater truth.

 

In the 21^st century Humanity is changing, profoundly. The historic isolation of gene

pools and cultures is coming to its end. A broader fusion has begun and will not

stop. A global culture is evolving, a layer of universal commonality, of consensus,

limited in scope, but global in scale, destined to guide Humanity at large.

 

The ideas labeled as: International Law, Human Rights, Self-government, and

Rogue State, all express consensual expectations, but these expectations are not the consensus of any single culture, nor of any single nation. They are expectations reaching for, and winning, the consensus of the Human Race.

 

The genesis of global culture, and global society, are changes of a type and a

magnitude, never before encountered by Humanity. But, viewed as problems, they

are not beyond the power of our species, not beyond the power of seven billion of us, parallel processors communicating at the speed of light.

 

Our descendants will see the management of the ecology, of global resources and

population, regarded consensually by all of Humanity, and when that consensus

finally does exist, there will be action, collective action, on a planetary scale.

 

 

 

 

Every sane Human, loves this world. And if it’s many cultures have created the power to damage it, one culture, one sane, global, human culture, will have the power to heal it.

[Strange]

6 hours ago, Rumfrd said:

One of the paradoxes of human nature is that while people crave and enjoy the

novelty of the foreign, the alien, they would rather not live immersed in novelty.

What evidence do you have for this?

Or, should I say: What evidence do you have for this?

Edited February 16, 2018 by Strange

[StringJunky]

 

5 hours ago, Rumfrd said:

Blah...blah

And your talking point is... ?

Edited February 16, 2018 by StringJunky

[Area54]

Some observations, in no particular order:

• It is an interesting essay, but as StringJunk said, and? It might work better as a blog.
• Your suggestion that insitutions in mature societies have reached agreement appears valid only if you ignore the facts. A single example will suffice: the Exuctive branch and the Judicial branch do not seem to be in agreement in the US.
• You stated that "Society is concerned with the concrete, not the abstract". This is nonsense. If this is the case we would not have museums, concert orchestras, poetry and similar.
• You stated that "Culture is the raison d'etre for human intelligence". Surely you have misspoken! You seriously mean that human intelligence arose in order to generate culture?
• You stated that "History has shown Civilisation's seminal progress when isolated cultures merge. In both genetic and cultural encounters and new structures emerge." Unfortunately, in most instance, the cultures don't merge, but one overwhelms and practically destroys the weaker.

 

[Rumfrd]

Yes, the branches are at odds, and it is an uncomfortable situation, is it not?  But, does not the consensus persist?  Is it not a consensual expectation that tells us the Executive and Judicial branches are behaving inappropiatly?  Cultures do evolve, usually by learning from wrong turnings.

I think Art is not the machinery of society.  I consider it more of a cultural activity.

Yes, I meant exactly that.  Collective action requires consensus,.  Consensus requires language.  All of these require intelligence, but the power for us tool users comes from collective action.  I consider Science and Law collective actions, perhaps our most powerful ones.

As to your last point, I agree.  But is not someone exposed to a novel truth forever changed by it, regardless of circumstances

23 hours ago, Strange said:

What evidence do you have for this?

Or, should I say: What evidence do you have for this?

Well, there's the old saying:  There's no place like home.  Also, I've tried it.  But there are no doubt exceptions.  So, I commited a generality.

I thank you for the complement of rational opposition.

[Ten oz]

On 2/17/2018 at 2:49 AM, Rumfrd said:

Well, there's the old saying:  There's no place like home.

There are many sayings. Each resonates differently with different individuals based on their preferences and beliefs. 

On 2/17/2018 at 2:49 AM, Rumfrd said:

Also, I've tried it. 

Seldom ever a good standard. 

On 2/17/2018 at 2:49 AM, Rumfrd said:

But there are no doubt exceptions.  So, I commited a generality

 How did Humans become dispersed all over the globe if people generally seek to stay in or nearly their home of origin? 

[Rumfrd]

Cultures are a consensus.  Many cultures have a regard for conquest and expansion.  A nomadic culture is also a consensus which adapts its members to their circumstances.  Home could be a tribe in constant motion.  One of the points I tried to make is that home is the consensus in which an individual was raised, not a spot on a map, but an agreement on a particular set of expectations held in common.