My interview with Ross Douthat on his provocative book will be posted soon. Stay tuned…
For now, consider some of my thoughts on culture:
When one speaks of “culture” it is easy to use that as shorthand for some kind of monolith. But culture is hardly monolithic. I like to ask, “What culture are you talking about?” Take “business” culture. Again, more accurate to say business cultures. Every business has its own philosophy and set of practices. Those make that particular business culture distinct. That separation is what marketers want. We are different and better than everyone else. Sameness is bad. The differences flush out in practical ways as well. So some business cultures are better for family life, some not so much. Business culture is just one type of category of culture and it is diverse as is every culture, whether that be the church or education.
Too many, including Christians, like to speak of a monolithic Culture because it makes it much easier to use sweeping, lacking in nuance statements. Nuance is not sexy. Too complex. Sound bites of general ideas is much easier to makes sense of. And since we all desperately want to make sense of the world, we love the general statements that give us a mental shortcut.