Coffee with Chuck

What is the culture? In contemporary conversations, I am constantly hearing the phrase the culture. When I hear these conversations I am questioning how culture is being defined. Now, the way that I understand the idea of the culture probably differs from these contemporary conversations around the culture. For me, the culture is the borders of society. The culture establishes ideologies, laws, and rules. To not adhere to the culture or to challenge the culture an individual breaks the laws of mankind (and yes I am using mankind strategically here). To break the rules of mankind an individual is made a fugitive of the culture. Running away from the culture as a fugitive marks an individual as different. Ultimately, the marking of an individual as different they are then marked as marginalized. And, to be marginalized, means to be stripped of one’s power. The stripping of power leads an individual to disenfranchisement. To be disenfranchised creates the improbability for an individual to find equality and liberation.

Now, what is power? Is power strength? Is power the ability to make the heavy light? Or is power agency? I believe in it’s simplest understanding power is agency. Now everyone has some agency. Agency can simply be the idea of an individual’s free will to make decisions. However, agency cannot be simply understood as this because the culture makes agency more complex. So let’s be clear everyone has agency, yes, but everyone’s access to use their agency varies based on mankind’s laws which have been determined by the culture. Meaning, depending on the laws that the culture has established dictates how individuals have access to their ability to use their agency. This is to say if an individual’s ontological existence defies the culture then that individual is cast as a non-dominant individual of the culture.

Furthermore, if an individual can be damned as a non-dominant individual within the culture this must mean there is a dominant form of culture and a non-dominant form of culture. This realization of these two forms of culture is ultimately an acknowledgment that the culture works through a binary. Given the names of these two forms of culture which make up this binary directs us to see an imbalance. The imbalance gives the dominant form of culture more power or agency. Through this inheritance of more power received by the dominant form of the culture, inequality is created. In order for power to be sustained inequality must be present. The sustaining of inequality is the sustainment of the culture and the continuation of humanity falling apart. Therefore, the goal of an individual should not be to seek power, but rather their ambitions should be towards moving to the center. 

The center is the area of freedom from the culture. The freedom of the culture is an ontological space that is fluid and moves as the culture moves. In this ontological space, the individual is free of the cultural binary. The individual in the center ignores the titles of ideas that have been created by the culture. Ignoring the titles of the culture the individual does not give the culture power. Naming and giving titles to ideas give ideas power. Ideas with names are then able to be used to manufacture rules and laws. Names sustain the culture. To overcome or move past the culture an individual must move towards the center. 

To move towards the center is no easy task because it does not make sense. See what is great about the culture is that it makes sense. Believing in the center understands everything to be relative. Now the culture refutes relativity because it believes everything has meaning. Meaning is given through naming and defining ideas. Through making ideas have meaning the culture is able to make individuals comfortable and not question rules. Relativity makes individuals feel uneasy and that is why it is hard to move towards the center. However, if we want true liberation and true equality the move would be towards the center. 

So how do we move towards the center? We don’t. You see if we were to actually move towards the center it would take way too much work about 4.6 billion years of work. The Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years, and in those 4.6 billion years, the world has perfectly crafted the culture and has mastered inequality. Therefore to achieve equality and liberation there needs to be a reimagining of the center. And I have no what that means or what that looks like. But if I had to infer I would say a reconstructing or repurposing of the cultural systems in order for them to fit a more ideal center that is inclusive of every individual. Then, the next question would be how do we achieve this new vision?  I do not have the most concrete answer to this question at the moment but I believe the answer begins with strategic conversations with diversity.  But not, just diversity in terms of demographics, but rather diversity in thought. However, until these conversations take place nothing will change, and the culture will continue to do its evil work.