Culture, the Smokescreen

Why doesn’t democracy work in some areas? Why are women treated as equals in others? Why are some societies tolerant? There is a tendency to attribute all such differences among people to “culture”.

But that really doesn’t explain anything. It just means that’s how things have been for a long time. But the culture answer doesn’t explain why things continue to stay that way. Or even how things got to be that way. So is the c-word just a fancy way of saying we don’t know?

When used to describe others, is culture just a euphemism that means another set of people is too primitive to be any different (better)? And when used to describe ourselves, is culture just a form of ancestor worship? A way to say that our ancestors came up with the best set of rules and conventions and we couldn’t possibly improve anything? Are culture and inertia two sides of the same coin?

Or is culture a part of the snob mindset?

Or did Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek, get it right when he wrote:

“Culture is hot. By culture I don’t mean Wagner and Abstract Expressionism – they’ve always been hot – but rather culture as an explanation for social phenomena… Cultural explanations persist because intellectuals like them. They make valuable the detailed knowledge of countries’ histories, which intellectuals have in great supply. They add an air of mystery and complexity to the study of societies… But culture itself can be shaped and changed. Behind so many cultural attitudes, tastes, and preferences lie the political and economic forces that shaped them.”

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