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We often talk about culture as if it were a list of traits: individualistic or collectivist, trusting or suspicious, risk-taking or risk-averse. But what if culture is better understood as a way of responding to a particular social game? What kinds of environments, incentives, fears, and expectations make certain norms feel rational? And when circumstances change, why do those norms often persist?

This discussion takes an analytical approach to culture—not to stereotype societies, but to ask what underlying beliefs, tradeoffs, and coordination problems might shape how people live. We will begin by asking what culture actually is, then explore why cultures differ, how they affect institutions and policy, why they endure, and how they may change in the decades ahead.

The aim is not to reach a final theory of culture, but to sharpen the questions. When we describe a cultural pattern, are we naming a value, a strategy, an inheritance, or a response to a game people feel they are in?

Discussion questions

  1. What is culture, exactly? Is it a set of values, a collection of habits, a survival strategy, a social script, or something else?
  • What differentiates a cultural difference from an economic or institutional one?
  1. What “games” might cultures be responding to? What recurring problems does culture help people solve—coordination, trust, survival, status, belonging, uncertainty, conflict, etc.?
  • Which cultural dimensions seem most illuminating: individualism vs collectivism, zero-sum thinking, shame vs guilt vs fear, etc.?
  • Which dimensions feel overused, and which important ones are missing?
  1. Why do cultural differences exist? If humans have similar needs and goals, why don’t societies converge on similar norms? Can different cultures be simultaneously rational?
  2. When culture and policy meet, what happens? How might the same law, reform, or company policy work differently in different cultural settings?
  • Should policy adapt to culture, or should policy try to change culture?
  • When does “respecting culture” become an excuse for avoiding reform?
  1. Why do cultural patterns persist even after environments change? On the other hand, what changes culture (e.g., natural phenomena, religious edicts, state policies, 6-month consulting transformation projects)?
  2. How do we expect culture to change in the next 10-20 years? Do you expect convergence, backlash, fragmentation, remixing, or something else? What forces matter most: migration, social media, AI, economic insecurity, religion, climate change, etc.? What changes look important now but may turn out to be red herrings?
  • Where do we expect tension or resistance to change?

Recommended reading / watching

  1. Q1-2 (roughly ordered from least to most academic)
  1. Q3 (1st and 2nd explore cultural differences; 3rd and 4th dispute cultural explanations)
  1. Q4-5

Related topics

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Humanism
Culture
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