[extropy-chat] Re: John C. Wright finds god

[ben]

Natasha Vita-More wrote:

"Society is one thing, culture is another.  Society may want to
view women as dumb so that it can foster the vicious cycle of male
dominance, but culture does not see it that way.  Culture works as a
catalyst to make social changes"

I'm confused by this.

I understood 'culture' to be a *product* of 'society', and i don't see 
how they can be at odds in the way described.

I do agree that there is no typical product of 'culture' as a whole, 
mainly because there is such a huge variety in our (i mean western) 
society. In fact, i think it's all but meaningless. There is no coherent 
culture, only sub-cultures. Society produces many different cultural 
groups, some of them with wildly different bases and behaviours. What, 
culturally, do a woman who lives in, say, Salt Lake City and one who 
lives in New York City have in common (assuming they are both 
stereotypical inhabitants of those places)?

The culture of one may well include catalysts for social change, but i 
very much doubt if the other would.

Btw, I've never been to either place, so my examples may be bad ones (if 
so, blame TV!), but i'm sure you know what i'm getting at.

ben