Culture!

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

The left is all up in their own heads about culture, partly because they have no idea what culture means. But they’re sure they love it.

Mostly, of course, they confuse culture for race. This is why they insist school kids do essays about their “culture” by which they mean the kids’ ancestry, as though culture were passed on in the DNA. Oh, sure, families have cultures. Sort of. To be absolutely honest since the advent of mass media, public schooling and, particularly, two working parents that is a lot less important/prevalent than it used to be. In fact, unless the parents make a great deal of effort to pass on SOMETHING, the kids mostly absorb the zeitgeist. (Remember to fight for your kids. It’s important.)

But what they want on that essay is stuff like where your ancestors came from. And let’s be honest, after three to four generations, no one cares, except for the special dish grandma does for Christmas, (if an as yet hypothetical and possibly improbable grand-kid revives the Portuguese tradition of bacalhau for Christmas, my sons will lame them.) But the left doesn’t know. The left thinks culture is the same as race.

Language? Religion? All indelibly written in your chromosomes, which must be the left’s excuse for having absolutely no idea how to teach (or learn) foreign languages, and also for screaming at us when we say something about Islam, and calling us “racist.”

It is a complete puzzle how they can believe this since if culture were imprinted on our genes we’d be roaming the planet hunting and gathering. (If that.)

Their second definition of “culture” is food, clothing, dances and maybe a dozen words. “I enjoy other cultures” culture. “Don’t appropriate my culture” culture. “We had multicultural day at school” culture. It is under that definition that they’re convinced all cultures are equally valid. Because well, you might not like crispy octopus balls, but you really shouldn’t tell people they can’t eat crispy octopus balls.

Then there’s the idea of culture they imbibed in kindergarten and nursed all along with the praise of their teachers and professors, their friends, their “cool” group. The “culture” is colorful, preferably dirty and random stuff done by anyone and everyone who kind of walks by.

Culture is not, in point of fact, in their heads any great achievement. But it is super-important anyway. It’s…. well, it’s “cultural”. It’s like their idea of art froze at the level of kindergarten finger painting. But for it to be authentic and important, it must be stupid, covered in dirt and generally worthless. Like…. a public fixture covered in random stickers and graffiti.

In fact, this is why they’re convinced “white people don’t have culture” and the west doesn’t have culture, and the middle class doesn’t have culture and–

Sorry, guys, you don’t have enough ground-in dirt. And you’re not vandalizing public objects. So, you’re obviously and logically uncultured.

Of course, in that sense of culture, of worthy cultural objects, we have that definition also. It’s just I refuse to admit that their having two different definitions of culture makes any sense just because culture means two things for us too? When they think graffiti and dirt is good culture but pulp science fiction isn’t? Bah. They’re idiots anyway.

So, “culture” in the sense of “good cultural product”… of things wroth preserving, I can’t tell you what that is. i can’t tell you because your opinion is ultimately something different from mine (at least minutely.) And in fact the only thing I think should be considered “important” or “culture” are things that have survived the test of time and outlived their original culture. And still speaks to you.

But aside from that, what is culture? Culture is the software humans get installed in their heads. It supplies for us a lot of the things animals get from instincts. Things like how to communicate, how to act in certain circumstances. That type of thing.

Yes, language is part of culture and the assumptions in any given language are part of culture. For instance, if you language lacks a word for orange, you will not even see orange. you will see dark yellow or yellowish red, or whatever. But it’s deeper than that. Body language is part of culture. Your food preferences is culture. And yes, what you believe about your property or other’s property, your right to defend yourself, the rights of others, all of that is culture.

Which is why changing cultures is so difficult. Acculturation requires you to be aware of all the little things that make you and of what is out of tune with the new culture.

Oh, of course some acculturation happens naturally. Humans adapt to the environment they’re in. For me the five year mark was really important. When we visited after five years, I found myself fitting in less there than here. But ti think you end up stuck betwixt and between when leaving your birth culture, unless you make a conscious effort.

But you can most definitely change cultures. And if you come into another country and intend to live there the rest of your life, a decent respect for the people in whose home you wish to live requires you out of pure decency to try to speak the language and fit in as much as it’s possible to fit in. (About 90% and the 10% could be vagaries of your nervous system as well as anything else.) Because it’s possible. Because it’s not built in to your genes. Because you’re human and have will power and the ability to choose. You’re not a robot or an animal with everything encoded in your genes. (And even some animals — Indy! — I’m not sure about.)

And as for high culture. Well, you create what you can. You’ll never have enough ground-in dirt for the left. And that’s fine by me. Life produces enough dirt and random without any special meaning. We don’t need to contribute to the dirt and the random.

If you chose to contribute to the cultural discourse? Make it special. Make it intentional. Make it you.

Why bother otherwise?

65 thoughts on “Culture!”

  1. Language? Religion? All indelibly written in your chromosomes, which must be the left’s excuse for having absolutely no idea how to teach (or learn) foreign languages, and also for screaming at us when we say something about Islam, and calling us “racist.”

    That…that actually would explain why liberal arts colleges keep dropping their language courses. It makes no sense otherwise. Language helps you talk to people and exchange ideas; if you can’t do that, then you can’t innovate or fit in. You also can’t…uh-oh.

    If you can’t communicate, you can’t tell when you caused offense, agreed to be the main course at dinner, or a dozen similar nightmare scenarios that you would have avoided if you could speak the language. Preventing someone from learning a language sets them up for a world of hurt, starting with their native tongue and moving on from there.

    Brr. I’m going to go read something warm now….

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    1. In the name of ‘Diversity’ and ‘Equity’ the Experts! of education advocate for minorities to saddle themselves with crippled half-languages, pidgin dialects that render them unable to communicate effectively. Because it’s racist and discriminatory for everybody to speak the same ‘Dominant English’. The fact that this leaves those minorities at a severe disadvantage in education and employment does not seem to matter.

      You can be sure that the Experts! have their own children instructed in that Eeevul Dominant English.

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    2. The People’s Democratic Republic of California is all about languages. They’re pushing a new language initiative for the schools, which totally isn’t Ebonics under a new name. Because being taught to communicate in ghetto rap is *important*…

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  2. The “white people have no culture” meme–I first noticed it when the series AlienNation came out. It puzzled me, how the human main character was always *surprised* by how meaningful and deep the alien customs were. Until I realized he never countered them with his own. God forbid, for example, that he invite the alien family to HIS house for a holiday dinner and show that “we have so much in common despite our differences!”

    Nope, can’t show the (white) human character having anything to contribute to that discussion. Earth was a refuge and economic zone for the stranded aliens; the people there were just meat robots to serve them.

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  4. I remember Queen Hiliary talking “Women’s Rights” in Africa and claiming that she didn’t want to “change the African Cultures”.

    She didn’t want to realize that “how African men treated women” was part of the African Cultures. 😦

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  5. My family had culture until the raccoons ate it. TINS: MomRed made a batch of sourdough and set it on the back patio to rise. Then we got distracted and she forgot it. That evening, DadRed looked out and saw three big raccoons eating the dough out of the bowl. That was the end of the sourdough starter. We have been pretty much uncultured ever since.

    OK, now to go read the essay.

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      1. So I’m not th only person who saw the title and thought, “yogurt!” even before I saw the picture?

        And I don’t even like yogurt.

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    2. When I first started working at redacted semiconductor manufacturer waaay back when semiconductors were still fabbed in the US, I used to joke that our corporate culture was in an abandoned lunch bag at the back of the cafeteria fridge.

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  6. I was just thinking about Irish car bombs (non-alcoholic version), and the role that these play in American democracy.

    They don’t play a role, historically speaking.

    I think it is interesting to think about why these might not be traditional forms of American democracy.

    One obvious reason is simply because the Irish so called republicans were communists, and hence murder of humans was a way to stick their thumbs in God’s eye, and deny His claims that humans are His children, created in his image. The dedication the communists have to human sacrifice is one element of arguing that the communists are apostates and blasphemers.

    Another reason why they are not traditional forms of American democracy is the tendency to require more discriminate methods of killing, due to the bottom up and individual to individual nature of the peace consensus in America.

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    1. Plus we kicked the British out without needing to shoot mortars at airports or blow up customers at department stores. Mind you, I do understand the French helped us more than they or the Germans helped the Irish…

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      1. One does not read of US revolutionary freedom fighters slaughtering, burning out their Tory neighbors. Tar and feathering the patriarch and putting the entire family on the next boat to England, especially early on before fighting broke out. But there are stories the other way. (True. History is written by the victors. Any reverse happenings may have been left out.)

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        1. The Reader notes that a reading of the history of the Revolutionary War in the South (NC, SC and GA) shows that both Revolutionaries and Loyalists (Tories) repeatedly burned out and slaughtered their opposition. Admittedly, this was well after the war started but it was extraordinarily ugly on both sides. The Reader recommends https://www.amazon.com/This-Fierce-People-Americas-Revolutionary-ebook/dp/B0CK86VRJ3/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XA8mP5u5-QPnKErpMi8tzLIFmPXp8x7jVaolpafADv_8pBmFgcsM6WndgupliaW-F9RuKkt7Z-rvRbEdmZKgg4FSuBkwec9CiHxZL039JP3TTWxKJv-bX-8cIb5vQ85MTRe8D8iZswoKZzWMjbYP6AxGL7cxdb7TCd9fWbjGqUl4YWbq1NIGC91MXhl8VtWE.RACrML7hqZwVttrfvqKg8VzSwIzGlkzeMwLzNZmvkoI&qid=1784240975&sr=8-1

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          1. And also against the 5 Nations tribes who sided with the English. George Washington got the name “Town Destroyer” among them. Some accounts say he first got it during the French and Indian War, but he seems to have confirmed it during the Revolution.

            The Fort William Henry Massacre was the French and Indian War event “Last of the Mohicans” was based on, and apparently fairly accurately; plenty of viciousness to go around.

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          2. I’ve always wondered if the re-ignition of the Regulators really should count as specific to the American Revolution, or as “Regulators II: The Sequel” that happened to coincide with the actual war.

            *Shrug* Some maternal ancestors and possibly paternal might have been involved, on the edges, but no one is really sure and some of the paternal records were lost to Hurricane Katrina.

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          3. New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont spent more time fighting over territorial disputes than against the British. The Republic of Vermont sent a delegation to Quebec seeking to be admitted as an extension of the province; with the quid pro quo of some assistance against their ongoing wars with New York and New Hampshire. Quebec agreed, but the Vermonters changed their mind when Washington’s troops finally managed to make progress evicting the British from New York, which was complicated by the problem that despite political finagling, a big portion of the population viewed the British as the legitimate government and didn’t like Washington’s revolutionaries all that much.

            NY, NH, and VT were a big problem for the revolutionaries; they were more focused on their own conflicts than the revolution in general, and NY and VT had already tried changing sides. The commitment of some of the other northern states was also uncertain enough that it had to be taken into consideration when planning.

            When the New Hamsters weren’t immediately occupied with fighting the the Vermonters and New Yorkers, they were fighting in the French and Indian War up north, and various other conflicts. One might suspect that the “territorial disputes” between NH and its neighbors were just a convenient excuse for more fighting.

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  7. My wife’s Italian Side of her family has Baccalat which is dried codfish soaked and then poached in something usually served on New Years Eve rather than Christmas Eve though some Italians do use it as part of the Christmas Eve food. I do not foresee my daughters (or progeny if any) will take up that habit. My English side has plum pudding which is mostly a fire hazard (although never was as Grandma’s side were teetotalers) it was edible but not my thing. The Swede side with its Lutefisk is best not mentioned. Should that smoked creamed fish based monstrosity appear on Christmas eve in ANY of my descendants homes I will haunt them so severely they will be begging for the Ghost of Christmas yet to come…

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  8. Culture is something like the habits of mind that discriminate one people from another, and (this is important) persist over generational time, I think. Less than a generation is a fad and will drop into the well of history with nary a ripple save for some eccentric academic historians and weirdos that fixate on the obscure and irrelevant.

    The culture of America and, to a lesser extent, the West in general is something like rule of law and follow the rules, social rules (natural conversation distance, greeting etiquette, responses to disaster, ceremonial guidelines for religious/civil events, treatment of in/outgroup individuals, transition between social groupings, etc), property rights, and way down the list we have food (which we steal from every culture so long as it’s tasty), and clothing, which everybody copies us if their climate zone is anywhere close.

    The main thing that America contributes to the global idea of culture is the primacy of the individual. Nobody else gets that. Not from what I can tell. We have more distinct cultures within the overculture than most others have in their own, singular culture if that makes sense.

    Which reminds me, in a way of the Gamergate/Gamestahp shenanigans of yesteryear. Gamers as a whole got pissed off. And acted that way as one group, rather than the eleventy billion groups that actually argue and dunk on each other on the daily.

    And now I’ve lost the thread of what I was going to say, so I should probably eat something. Oops.

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      1. I mean, in this crowd that’s like trying to skip a stone across a pond and expecting to not hit water. It may not have been precisely targeted because most of us tend to go that way because ooh shiny.

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  9. My very favorite part of “culture” discourse is seeing someone (almost invariably a brown woman) chirp about how “In MY culture, food and family are SO important,” because I’m always left ashamed of the fact that, as a white (Scottish/Cherokee) woman, I spent my early years alone in a cave, sucking on flavorless stones and wondering where my progenitors went when I hatched from that clutch of eggs. See, as a fair skinned individual, food and family aren’t important in my non-existent culture. That’s just for brown people.

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    1. My favorite part is how the nuclear family is an enemy institution to be destroyed…you white Americans, with your patriarchy and casseroles and mom jeans and your going to some icky, not-inclusive-enough church on Sundays and your having-of-more-than-3-kids, ewww…until they want to appropriate some warmth and caring for the current darlings of the Oppression Olympics, and then it’s “look at MY culture’s uniquely loving traditions.”

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    2. I’ve found that, frequently, “food and family are important” means “you are enslaved to both.”

      Mom’s family narrowly avoided war by mom moving to a different state so she didn’t have to fight over who would be bringing Mom’s Potluck Salad.

      There’s also the cultural gap on “do relatives have to pay you for goods and services” that contribute to how often folks in those cultures are really successful in business… as long as there aren’t any relatives in a day’s travel.

      The ties of obligations that don’t match what they assume are normal are what they notice.

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    4. My dad claimed he was laid on a fence post by a flying saucer and hatched by a buzzard.

      Really. That’s the story that nearly got me put in, “adaptive,” PE in junior high. He told me to use it to get the mean girls to lay off.

      I do believe Dad was an Odd.

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  10. We don’t see our own culture because to us, “That’s just how life is.” The way fish don’t see water. We only see the different. The exotic. Even when it’s toxic and destructive.

    Our culture is expressed in the Declaration Of Independence and the Constitution. A society in which the government, and other authorities, are the property of the people, rather than the people being property of the elitists. That’s why nobody else understands our culture, and how it sets us apart from all the rest. Far too many here don’t understand it either, because they can’t see it.
    ———————————
    Under capitalism, man exploits man.
    Under communism, it’s the other way around.

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  11. I believe that almost every culture – with the possible exception of steppe nomads – has some version of dried and salted fish in their history.

    It is the best way to preserve the bounty – fish are migratory and have “seasons” when they can be harvested. I will therefore, if my descendants have lost the benefits of refrigeration, give them a pass.

    What I will absolutely not forgive them for is if they reinvent haggis. That is just beyond the pale.

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      2. Have had haggis, since beloved took a Scottish cooking class. He got to wash out the sheep stomach they stuffed it in.

        It had oatmeal in addtion to the other stuff. Edible, barely.

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        1. Local restaurant celebrates Burns’ Night, and serves haggis.

          I’ve had it there, and in Scotland. It’s OK, just a weird sausage, but it is much improved by seasoning with Scotch in the stomach, before and after each bite.

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        2. I had haggis whenever I could in Scotland. I really liked the flavor.

          It often appeared at breakfast as a sort of patty. Put that on a fresh bap (white bun) and I’m a happy person. OK, the eggs, bacon, sausage, kippers/herring, occasional roll, grilled tomatoes (catering to the English, that one), and black tea also helped.

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        1. I keep thinking that you could probably power every data center in Britain if you installed a turbine on Robert Burns’ grave……

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        2. Old oatmeal was already a Scottish dish.

          I forget what it was called, but you cooked it and then let it sit in a covered jar (ceramic) for a couple of weeks. It was sort of an oatmeal yogurt, and it had a tad bit of sweetness from the natural oatmeal.

          The guy who talked about his grandma making it was pretty persuasive, but I kinda doubt many people make it now.

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          1. Sowans. (Subhan, pronounced soo-an.)

            Made from oat husks, water, and some oatmeal.

            You could eat it after about a week, dry it into a paste that you could reconstitute later, or keep pouring off the liquid (swats) and add fresh water to keep it a moist food year round.

            You could eat it with lots of butter, or after making it into scones.

            You could drink it warm, maybe with treacle.

            Everybody ate it. It was a big thing. And now nobody eats it, pretty much.

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            1. And then there’s Athel Brose, https://scottishscran.com/atholl-brose-recipe/

              Atholl Brose is a Scottish cocktail that’s made from a combination of oatmeal, water, whisky, honey, and, if you want to be a bit more decadent, some cream. It’s a bit like the Scottish version of Baileys.

              Made it, once. Makes a LOT. Well, it does if your recipe calls for 750 ml of scotch. Tasty, but one Tires Of It Every Day For A Week.

              But a dram (you pick the definition of ‘dram’!) of scotch or Irish in your oatmeal is an interesting way to start your breakfast.

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  12. Mostly, of course, they confuse culture for race. This is why they insist school kids do essays about their “culture” by which they mean the kids’ ancestry, as though culture were passed on in the DNA. 

    I bet that started when people decided that “culture” was an acceptable euphemism for “race” back when it was still socially acceptable to judge people by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin.

    Which largely involved meant not mentioning “race”.

    Because Heaven forfend they use an accurate word like “Ancestry”.

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  13. I’ve observed on something that I call “family culture” but it’s mostly little things, like habits you don’t realize are not how other families do it. Whether you eat most dinners at the kitchen table, or whether dirty dishes go in the sink or on the counter, or whether your family tends to talk over one another in a gradual crescendo until EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE IS SHOUTING and you have forgotten how it got there.

    Compare this to language, and we’re describing sub-dialects that are so subtly different from one another that you don’t notice you’re talking past one another until it comes up. And it mostly comes up when you marry someone who you think comes from mostly the same cultural background as yourself, only to realize that you have different expectations for home life and have been accidentally stepping on one another.

    But I have a feeling that’s not what your kids’ teachers were looking for, and that you’d probably be summoned to a parent-teacher conference with the school psych if they did.

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  14. “The left is all up in their own heads about culture, partly because they have no idea what culture means. But they’re sure they love it.”

    I’ve thought about this a bit over the years, since university really, which for me was the 1970s. Since then we’ve seen the Lefties turn on a dime and disavow the thing/person/notion they were willing to die for a week earlier. We’ve seen them do it about every five years, if I’m not being too picky.

    Culture particularly is a thing they love to profess one minute and then denigrate the next. The current uproar regarding the Odyssey movie by Christopher Nolan as a frank perversion of Homer (following close on the heels of the Super Girl uproar, the frank perversion of super hero culture, following the Dr. Who uproar and etc.) is a little nutshell version of the greater argument.

    The Left does not care about culture. Look no further than their set design, clothing design and dialogue for the Odyssey. It’s crap! You don’t need to see any more than the trailer, the dialog alone will make you wince. The entire history of Hollywood and Greece to chose from, and we are given that. Because they don’t CARE about it. It’s a vehicle to move propaganda, and that’s all.

    We can look at Sad Puppies the same way. The Left screams “QUALITY!!!!” and then champions… garbage. But it’s garbage written by [insert popular minority cause/group/fetish here] and therefore awesome and superb. To the point that really nobody cares a damn about the issue anymore. We’ve moved on, we can’t even hear them screaming anymore.

    There’s really no point in even engaging with them in any way, current year 2026. They’ll just lie, or pretend not to understand, or sea-lion, or maybe reeeee and take a swing at your head.

    Sorry Lefties, the joke is over. Everybody can see you are not wearing pants. And we all wish you were.

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  15. I’m reminded of that show ‘Modern Family’, when the two gay guys took the Vietnamese kid they’d adopted as an infant and were shocked when they took her to Little Saigon and she didn’t think much of it: “We want her to know her culture!”

    Hey, dumbasses, her CULTURE is Southern California, which is all she’s ever known! Or do you think she’d somehow, magically, inherit that different culture in her blood?

    And if you do, do you realize just how racist that makes you? I didn’t know you were National Socialists!

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    3. Which is precisely why unchecked birthright citizenship is such a threat. Those kids won’t even have a chance to be American….. but they can be President.

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        1. Yep. Which is why I’m not a ray of sunshine about our current situation. We’re a minimum of 20 years behind, and the recent SCOTUS decision all but guarantees the operations success.

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