The Purpose of Culture

Who are we as human beings?  This is the big picture question, the real question.

I believe that literature teaches us that we are all basically the same - there is something called the human condition, and we all deal with it.  No matter our culture, or even, really, who we are, there is something that makes us human.  Some essential beingness that we all share.  There is great variety, of course.  But there is also great possibility - who we are is not who we must be.  My life, my values, my beliefs, are all contingent.  This means that who we are is really undefined.  I am not like anything in particular, I might tend more in one direction or another, but I am all things.  And you are too.  

This works, as well, on the group level.  Cultures are fundamentally the same and fulfill the same human needs.  As individuals, we have a need to define - to label and identify.  It creates order and allows us to navigate.  So cultures define us and define the rest of the world.  On the most basic level, they tell us who's in and who's out.  They define potential allies and potential enemies.  This is the danger.  The joy of culture is that in order to define ourselves as a group we get creative and the creativity is beautiful - both in terms of cultural artifacts, but also the beauty of people in relationship with each other.

My bigger question, though, is: is it possible to create a culture of the whole?  Can we define the "in" by what is at root our common humanity?  Can we define a culture that permits no other?  That is the world I aim to build.