Quotes About Culture

Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people's collective imagination.

Maybe one of our biggest problems is that different human groups have completely different futures.

This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.

The Hindu caste system and its attendant laws of purity became deeply embedded in Indian culture. Long after the Indo-Aryan invasion was forgotten, Indians continued to believe in the caste system and to abhor the pollution caused by caste mixing.

Unlike the laws of physics, which are free of inconsistencies, every man-made order is packed with internal contradictions. Cultures are constantly trying to reconcile these contradictions, and this process fuels change.

For the average American or European, Coca-Cola poses a far deadlier threat then al-Qaeda.

Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not steal" were well known in the legal and ethical codes of Sumerian city-states, pharaonic Egypt, and the Babylonian Empire.

In Homers Ilias scheint Thetis jedenfalls keine Einwände gegen die Beziehung ihres Sohnes Achilles zu Patrokles gehabt zu haben. Und Königin Olympias von Makedonien (eine der mächtigsten Frauen der Antike, die angeblich ihren Mann ermorden ließ) hatte offenbar nichts dagegen, als ihr Sohn Alexander der Große seinen Geliebten Hephaestion zum Essen nach Hause brachte.

distortions of ancient traditions characterize all religions.

In illiterate societies people make all calculations and decisions in their heads. In literate societies people are organised into networks, so that each person is only a small step in a huge algorithm, and it is the algorithm as a whole that makes the important decisions. This is the essence of bureaucracy. Think

Today most of us speak, think and dream in imperial languages that were forced upon our ancestors by the sword.

We believe in a particular order not because it is objectively true, but because believing in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society. Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively.

The economic game was rigged by legal restrictions and unofficial glass ceilings. When the peasant brother made his way to the Beijing market with his torn clothes, rough manners and incomprehensible dialect, he would quickly have discovered that in the business world, manners and connections often speak far louder than genes.

Today all humans are, to a much greater extent than they usually want to admit, European in dress, thought and taste. They may be fiercely anti-European in their rhetoric, but almost everyone on the planet views politics, medicine, war and economics through European eyes, and listens to music written in European modes with words in European languages.

monotheists practiced human sacrifice on a much larger scale than most polytheistic cults. Christianity and Islam have killed far more people in the name of God than did the followers of Ba'al or Huitzilopochtli.

Nuestro lenguaje evolucionó como una variante de chismorreo.

ethical perspective, monotheism was arguably one of the worst ideas in human history.

being born into an African American family in an African American neighborhood meant that he was surrounded by people like him who taught him what he needed to know in order to survive and flourish

La Biblia decreta que «si un hombre encuentra a una joven virgen no desposada, la agarra y yace con ella y fueren sorprendidos, el hombre que yació con ella dará al padre de la joven cincuenta siclos de plata y ella será su mujer» (Deuteronomio, 22, 28-29). Los antiguos hebreos consideraban que este era un arreglo razonable.

the mind is an object that is being shaped by history and biology.

There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.

Accordingly, Herodotus showed keen interest in understanding Persian politics, while Sima Qian was very concerned about the culture and religion of barbarous steppe people.

Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural.

It therefore makes absolutely no sense to credit Judaism and its Christian and Muslim offspring with the creation of human morality.