The Dark Side of Culture (2): The origins of culture

'Chinese' horse, Lascaux cave (Source: here)

Culture, despite its general popularity, has very dark sides, which manifest themselves as ubiquitously, pervasively, and in ways that are at least as impactful as the positive sides of culture (see here). Given this ambiguity, why has has culture become so pervasive and influential in human societies? What function does culture serve, and why do cultures vary so much?

–––––

Culture first emerged as way for human beings to make sense of the world around them. In early human communities, there were no scientists to help people understand nature, so communities developed cultural practices, such as religion, to somehow endogenise what was going on around them, thereby imparting a limited (and unfounded) sense of agency. For example, the people who lived in the Lascaux caves of the Dordogne in France some 20,000 years ago - picture above - painted animals, people, and symbols to reflect what they saw, what they ate, and what ate them. This established a relationship with the outside world, which somehow made them feel more in control.

Early human communities lived in isolation in starkly different environments, which profoundly impacted their daily lives. In coastal zones, artists would therefore depict, say, the sea and coast lines, while the people would worship weather or ocean gods. By contrast, communities in mountainous regions would worship gods that were seen to influence, say, volcanoes. The enormous variety of distinct natural environments on Earth meant that spatially isolated groups of humans quickly developed a plethora of very different cultures practices.

You are (no longer) alone - human population (Source: here)

As the chart above shows, human populations begin to double regularly from around 3000-2000 BCE before exploding due to improvements in health care very recently. As populations grew, human communities increasingly came into contact with one another, which helped to spread dominant cultures. Take the expansion of the Hindu religion across South Asia, which happened some four thousand years ago. Hinduism soon assumed distinct expressions in Sri Lanka, Bali, and India, while it morphed into the entirely new religion of Buddhism in places like Myanmar, Thailand, and Bhutan.

–––––

As they increasingly came into contact with one another, people from different cultures began to require defence. The need for defence is evident from the bass relief below, which depicts how Ashurbanipal, the last great Assyrian King, treated members of the other cultures he conquered. Ashurbanipal died in 631BC. His empire was the largest in the world at the time, stretching from Cyprus to Iran and included, at one point, Egypt. Ashurbanipal was infamous for his extreme brutality. Not only would he impale prisoners, he would also steal their gods, which, at the time, was viewed as a kind of ethnic cleansing in the spiritual realm.

Vanquished and then impaled; victims of Ashurbanipal's cultural anxiety (Source: here)

To help defend against powerful external threats, culture began to assume a defensive role. This typically manifested itself in mechanisms that tied communities together to make them stronger and the adoption of value systems that gave priority to local culture and viewed members of other cultures with suspicion.

The Vikings are a good example. Scandinavian viking societies developed strong cultural mechanisms to help fortify themselves against Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, who dominated central and western Europe until his death in the year 814 (see here). Scandinavian culture became even more defensive after Charlemagne as powerful civilisations emerged in Russia, Germany, Britain, and France. Scandinavia cultures began to give priority to equality among their members, because by reducing internal divisions they were stronger in the face of powerful external threats. Equality was like a fist; far stronger clenched than with fingers outstretched. Equality, of course, remains a core value in Scandinavian cultures to this day.

As most Scandinavians know (although they may not admit it), the culture-based pressure on individuals to support a high degree of equality in society is not without cost. Inevitably, equality requires subjugation of individuality to some degree. In his 1933 novel, “En flyktning krysser sitt spor”, the Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose described the conflict between the individual and the community to which he belongs using the concept of the ‘Law of Jante’. According to the Law of Jante, no individual must think him or herself better than others or better than society as a whole, and society is justified in forcefully punish excessive displays of individuality. The rationale for strongly enforcing unity is defensive; without unity Scandinavia with its modest military and population would simply not survive against its larger and more powerful neighbours. Cultural anxiety, in other words, lies at the very heart of Scandinavian culture.

You are culturally anxious! Aksel Sandemose (Source: google images)

The Law of Jante remains as powerful today as it was in Viking times. Scandinavians welcome some aspects of foreign culture, including certain types of foreign music, food, and art, but they generally view people with alien cultures with suspicion and, occasionally, with overt hostility, particularly if members of alien cultures do not share their core values. This gives rise to a peculiar contradiction in Scandinavian culture, namely that Scandinavians are extremely liberal in certain respects, but also extremely intolerant in other regards. You can bathe topless on beaches and speak your mind about almost anything, but you preach, say, Islam or if you want to cover your face you are likely to encounter considerable opposition.

Given the strongly defensive features of Scandinavian culture, it is unsurprising that Scandinavians have generally found it difficult to deal with the rise in immigration in recent decades. Scandinavians used to pride themselves on their generous aid budgets and empathy and tolerance and open-mindedness, but these virtues have quickly fallen by the wayside following the arrival of people with very different cultural values. Today, Scandinavian countries, especially Denmark, maintain some of the most draconian anti-immigration policies in Europe, illustrating the central point that the anxiety arising from fear of losing unity can unleash a great sense of security, which then soon morphs into strong animosity towards foreigners.

–––––

That is not to say that culture always has to be defensive. Prolonged expose to people from other cultures tends to ease tensions. There are many examples of communities in which many cultures co-exist peacefully and prosperously. According to British anthropologist Anthony Giddens, multi-cultural societies are defined by “the coexistence of different cultures within a single society, and policies and practices that promote this coexistence. Multiculturalism involves not only tolerance of cultural diversity, but an active engagement with it, in order to promote social harmony and prevent conflict” (see here).

An early example of peaceful co-existence of many cultures is the ancient kingdom of run by Cyrus the Great, who died 530 BC. Cyrus the Great was a great public administrator, who realised that tolerance, human rights, inclusive politics, and humane treatment enemies was conducive to prosperity. Rather than vanquish other cultures, he allowed them to be practiced freely within his realm. This led to strong economic growth and spared the Treasury huge amounts in military expenditures.

Genghis Khan's old capital at Karakorum, Mongolia (Source: own photo from a 2018 road trip in Mongolia)

Typically, the most constructive interactions between different cultures take place within urban settings, because this is where relations between different cultures are most intimate, including in economic terms. The capitals of the early Roman Empire, Ancient Greece, and the Ottoman Empire all accepted peoples of different religions and cultures. Even Genghis Khan, known for his brutality against enemies on the battlefield was remarkably tolerant towards people of other cultures, who accepted his authority in his capital of Karakorum.

The same is true today. Large heterogenous cities continue to prove that cultural diversity is a major strength. Take London, the most culturally diverse city in the world. More than 300 languages are spoken in London. London is far more culturally tolerant than smaller culturally homogenous English towns (see here). This is because Londoners are exposed to other cultures every single day of their lives and they have learned that different cultures do not pose a threat. In fact, most Londoners will happily state that they view cultural diversity as strength rather than a threat. This openness is one of the main reasons London is able to attract some of the best talent in the world in business, finance, fashion, the arts, fine dining, and many other sectors. London's great diversity has also made London far wealthier than many smaller and less culturally diverse English towns. Having lived in London for nearly two decades, I firmly believe that London’s single most important source of prosperity is its cultural diversity.

London is the most culturally diverse city in the world (Source: own photo)

–––––

Unfortunately, most human communities have not advanced nearly as far as London in terms of overcoming the cultural anxieties that were embedded in value systems way back when they first came into contact with other cultures. During its heyday a hundred and twenty years ago, the pseudo-science of eugenics was the highest-regarded of all sciences and it was immediately pressed into the service of validating cultural biases. Eugenicists posited that differences in wealth and technology across human populations were due to differences in intelligence, which in turn derived from differences in brain size. Since men had larger brains than women, it followed than men were superior to women. Experiments, which have seen been proven to be deeply flawed - see here - also purported to show that white people’s brains were larger than those of other races. These bogus experiments were used as justification for great injustices, from European enslavement of Africans to Imperialism and Colonialism.

Many people still subscribe to eugenics ideas in modern times, which is why politicians repeatedly manage to convince large numbers of people that members of other cultures are sub-humans. Hutu leaders referred to Tutsis as "cockroaches” ahead of and during the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Adolf Hitler peddled all kinds of quasi-scientific ideas to justify his abysmal treatment of Slavs and especially Jews. Israeli leaders have convince large numbers of Israeli soldiers that Palestinians are less than human, paving the way for the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Yet, profound ignorance is required to 'fall for' ideas like eugenics. We have known for a hundred years that brain size is not correlated with intelligence. Differences in culture have no basis in genetics whatsoever. Since human beings are barely distinguishable from squid at genetic level, it follows that differences between human races and genders are even tinier. Indeed, the ultimate proof that all human beings are the same species is that men and women from any two populations on Earth – no matter how culturally distinct – can mate and produce viable offspring. Homo Sapiens is - and has been - the sole species of human on Earth for at least 15,000-40,000 years, which is far longer than any culture has survived.

–––––

The absence of a genetic basis for cultural differences means that cultural differences are ultimately social constructs, amenable to policy interventions. We should, in principle, be able to contain the dark side of culture. Whether we do so, however, boils down to how we organise power in our societies, i.e. politics. The interaction between culture and politics is the subject of the next instalment in this series on the dark side of culture (see here).

The End