#86: Don't save the world, create culture

3 question to create healthy culture for your community today

It is a false starting point. The notion that we can somehow save the world. I may be erring on the side of nihilism here but the trajectory of humankind is not pretty. Think WW1. WW2. Think further back to the start of farming which Noah Huval Harai calls the great lie and the origion of global inequality. Think on the 1st Industrial Revolution which almost killed the whales. The 2nd and 3rd which killed the planet. And now the 4th which has unleashed the second singularity - AI. Saving the world assumes we can somehow influence that trajectory. Knock it off course. Point it in the right direction, and that is a truly, truly foolish idea.

The most accepted solution to this problem is to fall asleep to it. Embide the dominant culture like a cocktail and drift along merrily toward the end of the world. And it’s not a terrible strategy. It works for billions.

Bit dark on Thursday morning? I am going to lift the nose, promise. Israel. Palestine. Ukraine, Russia. Conservative and liberal Americans. Crumbling confidence in the West. ANC’s miraculous recovery from 100 million Rand of debt perfectly timed with SA’s lawsuit against Israel. These are the noticeable markers of our decay which are surprisingly easy to ignore. You just do it. The harder ones are the small signs we’re in trouble. A close friend’s suicide. A parent on anxiety meds. Someone we know suffering from adrenial burnout. What our kids say and think. These things squirm in our minds like maggots. Because they signal something. There, just out of sight, just out of reach, growing like a shadow beyond our control is an unsustainable global culture we just cannot control. ¹

The beautiful thing about culture is how micro it can go. I am pushing the boundaries of culture studies here a bit but there is an argument to be made that it can be reduced down to an individual (although it is not defined as culture). Norms. Practices. Narratives. Ideas. These are things inside us. Inside our minds. We either conform or create to form a culture that becomes dominant in our lives and those around us. The crucial question we need to be asking ourselves in this fascinating time in human history is whether are we awake to our conformity or creation or blissfully asleep in a darkening dream?

Here are three questions to sense-check ourselves and our cultural direction today:

One: What stories do we love to listen to? For me, and this is embarrassing, it is Marvel. Eeek, hide my head in shame. Shocking, I know. They have a monopoly on candy floss for good reason. Their stories taste good and leave you on a big high. If I am tired, anxious, or sad what do I turn to? Marvel and KFC.

The combination is the tell. As a once-a-month Friday night treat it is a fun event. As a weekly, or bi-weekly occurrence and you are hurtling your way toward a heart attack. Put into the South African context when was the last time we visited a township? Not out of pity, or superiority, but to engage with a friend’s story? Or have lunch with a colleague at a shabeen. Or serve a domestic worker who needs a lift home. When was the last time we listened to the DA’s ranting about how bad it really is? Last month? Last year? Five years ago.

It is a difficult time to be alive, especially if you are sensitive. But culture is either created or conformed to by the stories we submit ourselves to. Marvel/Friends/New Girl/How I Met Your Mother/Bing Bang Theory etc as a staple-story-diet is an obvious sign of unhealthy conforming.

Two: What stories do we love to tell? This is a fun one. Audit the stories you told in the last seven days now. Not to your wife/husband/partner if you are close. Or your close friends that you feel safe enough to be fully yourself. Audit the ones you say in ‘public’. When you have that mask on we all wear it. Audit the stories you tell in a group at a braai. A dinner party with more than four people. A staff meeting where you feel slightly uncomfortable.

I am in no position to tell you how to audit them. That is up to you to decide. But what I am sure of is that if you honestly review what came out of your mouth when it is your turn in conversation you will quickly be able to tell what culture you are confirming to or creating.

Finally, what story dominates your head? What is that cannonball that rolls around in there that you just cannot control? Mine used to be that money kept me safe. That story smashed around upstairs and did all kinds of damage inside and out. Recently with the help of therapy to recover from some deep trauma, I’ve picked up that a core belief for me is I am only safe if I am special. I’m slowly working on letting that one go too. Those lies (and truths) bound me to irrational cultural conformity I wasn’t even aware of. An impeachable, self-erected blindspot I was unable to destroy without the help of friends and a bit of reflection. What are yours?²

All of this has a point. And surprisingly it is beautiful, like culture. Only culture provides the lubricant to create human connection, esteem, and meaning. Those three precious things the human endocrine system really needs to generate lasting happiness (above Maslow’s first two layers). But, and this is a big BUT, to share culture we must share stories. The stories we watch, tell, and think about reveal accurately our culture and therefore what we believe about esteem, relationships, and the meaning of life. Naturally, we orientate to others like us to affirm those stories. It makes it easier. The danger of this is our slumber becomes collective. Where this bites us in the ass is it is often only regret our elders express when they are finally forced to audit the narratives of their lives because they see too late they swallowed the wrong story along with all there mates. There’s something to be learned by that for those awake enough to hope for better.

Thank Beautiful Jesus we are not squids. Or cockroaches. Culture is created too, not just conformed to³. Our parents narratives don’t have to be our own. Or our societies. The problem is we often think about culture at such a macro level that even a town seems too small a place to start trying. But here is the good news - culture is in us, it is our individual choices. Like whether we wake up in the morning and take a run. Or have a raw-oat smoothie rather than a chocolate croissant. It is like choosing to eat a salad once a week because you know you are overweight and your trajectory is wrong. Culture is atomic. Mirco. Small and minute. It is choices we make over time that start tilting us in a direction that aligns with our ideals of meaning, esteem, and human connection which means today we can all start creating a healthy culture inside us.

As South Africans of course there’s hope in Siya Kolisi holding the Wiliam Web Ellis trophy on a bus with his mates. There’s hope in Dricus beating Sean Strickland and our plucky ascent in the African Cup of Nations. There’s galvanizing hope there. Glorious hope that slips too quickly through our fingers like the sea sand because of our collective decay. We must wake up to see lasting hope will only be found for us in our individual battles for renewed culture. Love for our neighbors. Meaning in service not money. Esteem for leaders who give, not buy Bentleys or homes at the beach. And the good news is we are already pregnant with these ideals, we just have to be awake and brave enough to bring them to full term.

Final thought: For teachers and parents cultural awareness is especially important. If you want a refresher why read Paulo Freire. We don’t have the luxury of being casual about our culture. Our trajectory becomes or influences those around us severely. My habit was a bottle of whiskey a week. It was fun but toxic. I don’t want that trajectory for my kids so we don’t drink at home anymore. Awareness was the start of that decision and just being honest enough to accept what we were doing was bordering on irresponsibility of the gross kind. The emphasis we place on meaning, esteem, and relationships will become our children’s story. The difference with drinking is that these ideas are seen as less obviously toxic. More ‘normal’. Slower to mature brewers of our children’s pain often only seen in hindsight or regret which gives us a grave but powerful responsibility to steward our own culture now if we are awake.

Hope you have the most blessed week.

1. Scorsese’s point in making Wolf of Wall Street was transparency. As a child, he wanted to be a priest. Moving images was his calling. In this piece he wanted the world to look full in the eyes of what our culture of hedonism looked like unbridled so the ‘shadow’ was revealed for what it is. Now that is pretty dark? And awesome in a brave kind of way

2. The final season of Ted Lassao is the most telling. They place the nuclear family above global success as the high point of human life. A brave and costly move with a billion-dollar franchise in the making but an inspiring example to meditate on what it looks like to readjust our personal culture on meaning and esteem

3. I am assuming cultural uniformity or cultural dominance here. Like Western cultural ideals driven by mass media. I’m not trying to be fancy, those are powerful, destructive forces. Read Noah Chompsky. Obviously, it is impossible to create culture truly because we are always learning stories from somewhere else (like family, community, mentor, church, book or friendship circle). It is only when we start to cut across the grain of our cultural dominance do we begin to see how truly deep those ideas go to the psyche. And so even though we are not truly creating culture, not conforming to cultural dominance is an act of very, very courageous creation only a few are capable of.