“The idea that some cultures are better than others and that some are worse than others was the most common Christian thing until our brains were broken and we were forced to pretend not to know things.”
Dr. Stephen Wolfe
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Bret responds
The above is true but it is more true than Wolfe might even like to admit. Culture is not something that drops out of the sky. Culture is the result of a particular set of beliefs as embraced and lived out be a particular ethnic people group. This is why we can say that culture is theology externalized. When we say that culture is theology externalized we are noting that a particular ethnic group have owned a particular theology and they are, as a particular people living out that particular theology. This is why it can also be said that culture is the outward manifestation of a particular people groups inward beliefs.
Because culture is one part genetics and one part plausibility structure as owned by that genetic grouping it is the case that should either of those two factors be changed out, the result will be a different culture. So, if one changes either the people group who are doing the believing or if one changes out the set of beliefs that the particular people group believe the consequence will be a different culture. This explains why if you have different races occupying the same geographic space that there will be conflict even if those different races hold the same beliefs. There will be conflict because genetics matter and genetics are one of the two factors that comprise culture. The same is true if you flip the scenario. If you have the same racial/ethnic people group occupying the same geographic area but some of the people in that people group own a different religion there will be conflict that rises up between the varying belief systems. For example, White people who embrace Marxism, living cheek by jowl with white people who embrace Biblical Christianity will not get along.
Now, imagine what we are trying to do now in the West. We are trying to put together in the same geographic space different peoples groups with different religious beliefs. We are trying to place alien Mooselimbs, Jews, and Indians (dot not feather) Hindus, etc. together with white Christians into one living space and we are expecting that there is going to be harmonious culture. It is as rational as to geld a horse and then expect it to be fruitful.
Let us add to what was said above; since cultures are a combination of particular people and their particular beliefs this necessitates thinking that some particular people(s) and beliefs are better than other particular peoples and/or beliefs. If one culture is superior to another culture or if one culture is inferior to another the reason for that superiority or inferiority is going to be found in one of the two realities that comprise culture. Culture A is going to be superior to culture B either because the people themselves are a superior people or the beliefs of the people in culture A or superior to the beliefs of people in culture B or some combination of the two.
We cannot argue that cultures are superior or inferior to other cultures without arguing also that the reason this is so is because a combination of distinct ethnic/racial people groups and their beliefs are at the same time superior and/or inferior to another.
Now, because of the West’s revolutionary egalitarianism we don’t like saying or observing these truths that used to be accepted as a matter of fact. In America the civil rights legislation of the 1960s prohibited us from thinking the obvious. But the denial of the obvious doesn’t make the obvious go away. Peoples are different and different peoples build different cultures. Beliefs are different and different belief systems build different cultures. Different peoples with the same belief system will build different cultures. People who are the same with different belief systems will build different cultures.
This really isn’t that difficult… unless you’re an egalitarian.
