Nehaveigur

Deep Culture: The truths we hold to be self-evident

There are truths we have can articulate and justify, and then there are the truths we hold to be self-evident. We often struggle to explain why those truths are supposed self-evident. This doesn’t diminish their importance. On the contrary: Those truths define our culture, whether they are stated explicitly (that all men are created equal) or not. They’re the water we swim in.

When a direct question confuses someone because they don’t see it as a choice—certainly not something to be adjudicated in a spreadsheet—then you have discovered an epistemologically foundational belief. It rises from a small-g good (directional, but not intrinsic) to a capital-G Good (directional and an intrinsic part of life).

As an aside, this distinction is why I believe global birth rates are dropping. Having children used to be a capital-G Good, but in the last few decades it’s been eroded to a small-g good, so couples now weigh having children as a utilitarian decision, and when placed under that type of scrutiny, the literal costs can outstrip the harder-to-quantify non-material benefits (meaning, transcendence, creating a human).

Place is still a capital-G Good for a large percentage of Americans, especially those in the back-row (low-educational attainment).

That’s from Chris Arnade’s blog, Walking the World. Later on in the same post, Arnade makes another distinction, this time between thick and thin culture.

Culture has two components, thin and thick.

Thin culture is the surface stuff—fashion, food, music. Thick culture is deeper: What is the Good? What makes life worth living? What should we aspire to become?

Most people when talking about culture are only thinking about the thin. When people travel, and say they want to see another culture, that is primarily what they mean. They want to experience different foods, fashions, and built environments […] Thin culture dominates the debate because it is easier to see […] Thick culture is harder to see, and rarely acknowledged, even by those living in it, because it is the water we swim in […] Thick culture is the plot we follow, while thin culture is the stage settings.

Later in the post, Arnade argues that what holds America together is its deep culture, rather than its thin culture. This argument connects directly to the Declaration of Independence, which declares that there are certain truths we hold to be self-evident.

I wonder if the relative lack of importance of America’s thin culture in defining the country is also what makes it so appealing globally. McDonald’s is everywhere.

Here‘s more on Arnade. Here‘s David Foster Wallace on the water we swim in.