Why Culture Matters Most, by David C. Rose.
I will have finished it by the time this post goes up. It is a valuable book on the whole. Let me state my initial reservations.
1. He makes the claim that culture matters more than institutions. But he doesn’t sharply delineate between the two. Early on, he says
Culture pertains to knowledge transmitted across generations through imitation and teaching rather than through genes.
Later, he writes
“institutions” refers to consistent patterns in how we do things
Still later, he writes
when someone says the word “culture,” for many the image that jumps to mind is some kind of consistent practice within a given society
Do you see my problem?
2. The crucial cultural issue for Rose comes down to trust, and the concept of a “high-trust society.” I am pretty sympathetic to the focus on what I would call cooperation and defection, but I worry that such a focus may be a bit too narrow.
3. There approach may owe too much to economics. This is related to point 2.
In the end, I may decide that (2) and (3) are virtues rather than bugs. But I expect to remain somewhat annoyed by (1).
Helmut Schoeck’s book Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior is excellent on this topic. Religion determines culture and culture determines institutions.
Helmut Schoeck’s book Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior is excellent on this topic. Religion determines culture and culture determines institutions. Culture is similar to what some call informal institutions.
There probably should be some book about the feedbacks between institutions and culture. Culture influences, and changes, institutions. Institutions codify culture, providing a big influence over the culture.
Culture can, and sometimes does, change very rapidly. Institutions change more slowly. In particular, institutions are very much driven by a “personnel is policy” dynamic, with those in power exerting some effort to maintain their culture, tho usually willing to compromise / take baby steps. Until they leave power / die off.
It’s well known that new science paradigms often take over NOT because they are more true, fitting the experimental data better, but because the older scientists give up control of the lab / research org.
Is “YouTube” and YouTube learning an “institution”, or only a “culture”. YouTube & FaceBook certainly refer to consistent patterns in how we do things. At least now. And Google is how we search, Amazon is how we buy, tho not yet as much as from WalMart.
Insofar as culture does matter more, its influence is most strongly felt when it is successful in changing a “cultural institution”. Like a college.
The culture that has allowed discrimination against hiring Republicans as professors, that culture has taken over at many colleges in an “open secret” way, that is the culture of demonization against those who are not PC.
It is when that culture has the power to get founders of orgs, like Firefox, fired; or bakers fired; or people wearing certain types of hats excluded from restaurants; the culture has blended into the institutions.
The cultural battle is between individual morality against group morality & guilt & responsibility, guilt due to membership in an organization. Those who support individual rights are losing that culture war, and have already lost many institutions.