It seems you are less of a conscientious objector to the culture wars than you say you are ;-)
I didn’t say I was agnostic to culture.
Conscientious objectors to “real” war don’t pretend the wars aren’t happening. :)
I think the idea that cultures are things that have an existence on their own (rather than being subsistent on the humans believing in them) or could have even have interests, or have intrinsic value that needs to be defended, beyond the functionality they have for the people who enjoy a common cultural background and the practical advantages that brings, is a fiction that probably was invented to give young men a reason to die on battlefields for.
I think you and I have more common ground in our thought processes than it may at first appear.
I view “cultures” as nested layers of behavioral indoctrinations. But I don’t think the fact that everyone spends most of their lives acting out these indoctrinations instead of thinking deeply about their actions is necessarily bad. I think these indoctrinations are necessary to keep the ant hill running. And I think that our current “culture war” is simply people arguing over which programming to install.
I think most modern cultures are similar because cultural darwinism has rubbed most of the highly divergent ones out. Some discussion on that is here, with which you may or may not agree, but it will at least better explain my thinking on the subject. It will at least clarify our semantic differences regarding the word “culture.”
