What Culture Is and How It Spreads
We must first understand what culture is and how it spreads.
Ultimately a society’s culture is the fuzzy set of behavioral patterns that each individual in that society emulates when they act.
For example, many Germans will mix curry powder with tomato sauce to eat with chips and sausage and call it currywurst. Many Nigerians from the Yoruba people will not do this. They will blend a mix of red peppers together to make a versatile sauce that is often eaten with chicken, called Obe Ata.
Within this there might be variation, hence why the set is fuzzy. Some Nigerians may eat Obe Ata with fish instead of chicken. Some Germans may use Weißwurst instead of traditional Bratwurst for their currywurst. Societies will generally follow strong patterns in what they eat, and more importantly in how they behave.
So how does culture arise, and how do such patterns come about? Fundamentally this comes about from mimesis: the imitation of the behaviors and patterns of others that we are exposed to.
The very existence of cultures is itself a visible proof of an innate mimetic drive in humans. To see this, consider that for it to be otherwise, the behavior of each individual, if not mimetic and not predetermined by biology, could only be either completely determined by the logical/rational thought (imperfect) of the individual, or completely random, precluding the formation of any pattern.
Experiments such as the Asch Conformity Experiments showed how people will often act against their own logical reasoning to conform with others. Participants were asked to judge the length of lines. When surrounded by actors giving false answers, they often abandoned their own judgment to align with the group.
Furthermore, there are many cultural behaviors that cannot arise from the application of logic by the individual. A first-generation Nigerian living in modern-day Germany probably still prefers Obe Ata to Currywurst, even though neither dish can be shown to be objectively better.
There are no societies without any cultures. Even within our own multicultural society, fuzzy sub-groups can be identified whose members enact similar behaviors. Even non-conformism, which is often presented as high-status in contemporary western society, is generally disguised conformism.
The lack of a completely random non-conformist society is, thus, proof of the innate human behavior to conform. It would be an absurdity to argue that a society has a culture of non-conformity because everybody chooses not to conform. Everybody making the same choice is, most probably, itself a sign of conformity.
Perhaps it could be argued that it could come about as a result of everybody coming to the same logical conclusion through reason. Such a society would disadvantage itself by preventing the imitation and rapid learning of successful behaviors.
Clearly, then, a society’s cultures are brought about by the imitation of the behaviors of others by each individual in that society. But how does it spread?
To answer this, let’s observe the cultural dynamics of a much more slow-moving society, with much less sophisticated mass media machinery than our own. In Ian Mortimer’s The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England he discusses the spread of new clothing fashions in Medieval England:
“[M]embers of the royal family tend to be trailblazers for fashion. What they are wearing today, the nobility will be wearing in a few weeks’ time, and the burghers of the provincial towns and cities will be wearing in the years to come, albeit in cheaper versions. Thus the king is at least partly responsible for the whole escalation in competitive fashion among the lower classes.”
In the same way that fashion trends filter down from elites in medieval England, so they do in all other human societies.
Previous: Thinking Is Slow. Copying Is Fast.
Next week I will write about the advantages of culture.