“The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently…” – David Graeber
Many years ago I had a sort of epiphany about what culture is, and how it works. At the time I chose to not write it down, in part due to my own laziness, and in part to see if it was a genuinely good idea. I often have ideas that fail to make it the full light of day before imploding. Such is the nature of creativity. The impulse is kind, but its offspring are not always lasting or well-thought.
Over the years my little analogy grew to reflect changes in the outside world. I saw arguments in politics over the culture wars (which, far from being a recent phenomena, dates back to the beginnings of recorded history), I saw massive changes in the media that artists use (from vinyl to CDs, from DVDs to streaming, and from AOL to the targeted social media we have today), and I saw every day recommendations (over books or screen time, or the value of letting a child play outdoors), and they all struck me as somehow being connected.
The question remained: How? How are these seemingly disparate elements connected? My answer is the stone.
The evidence for my analogy comes mostly in the form of observation. I have no formal education into the nature of culture, and in fact have barely scratched the surface in terms of research. All of what you read comes from a simple yet central idea. What if all the things that humanity argues about were just variations on the same thing? What if this thing was something that grew over time, evolved as it were. Ideas battling it out with other ideas until eventually one was the victor. After all, we no longer argue over the divine right of kings, or assume that mental illness comes about from demon possession. Why is that? What made those changes happen? It was cultural, sure, but how? How does culture work? How does it evolve?
It was in attempting to answer those questions that this analogy came into being.
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The Stone
Imagine if you will, a massive wheel of stone that is hundreds of miles wide and perhaps equally as large in diameter. The stone travels slowly over a large flat plain, completing a single revolution once per year, so that the part which is currently at the very top will be on the top again in precisely 365 days. The weight of this stone is crushing, destroying everything in its path. Behind it is a transformed landscape marking its passage that goes back for millennia. The stone is almost inconceivably large, and is unstoppable in its rotation.
Upon the face of this stone are people. We will call them sculptors, though they go by many different names: Artists, writers, painters, dancers, singers, songwriters, chefs, architects, musicians, scientists, etc. They are of all shape, sizes, color, nationality, and religion. Each day these sculptors work upon the surface of the stone, battering and hammering into the hard face with their tools. Their goal is to affect the stone in such a way that when it reaches soil below it will use its massive weight to stamp an impression into the dirt that will last year after year beyond its passage. Some sculptors work singularly, some work in large groups. The work is hot, heavy, and dangerous. The very top is the safest place to work, and that is where you’ll find most of the sculptors, but the stone remains underneath that area for only a short time. Those that wish to influence a particular section beyond that short moment, must invent ropes and pulleys and other contraptions to hold themselves to the ever rotating surface while they work. If you start too early you’ll discover that the stone, fresh from compacting the soil, is embedded in a thick layer of dirt. If you stay too late upon the other side you risk the very real chance of being crushed by your own work. Every year the stone in its undying rotation creates hundreds if not thousands of casualties. The price for inattention is high.
All of humanity is deeply interested in what the sculptors do, but the vast majority do not live upon the stone. Either they find the work disinteresting, too dangerous, or perhaps they have some other reason. Instead, most people live in the impressions left behind by the passage of the stone, for as the stone moves it leaves behind vast buildings made of compressed soil, some so large they become massive unending cities. Also left behind are sculptures, and trees, comfortably shaded benches to sit upon, toys for children and adults, pools, and roads, auditoriums, and churches, and cathedrals, cars and trains, musical instruments of every style, and vast platforms that twist and swirl for dancers to perform upon. All that is needed is a little bit of scrubbing, and a little bit of digging, and the impressions from the stone can be made livable. Don’t like the house you’re in? Wait a year and try the next version. Hopefully, the architect up on the stone will listen to your requests. Of course, you can always pay them, for many of the sculptors are paid by the people below to create things for their use. Not all sculptors are paid. Some work for the joy, or desire. Some for the notoriety. It is said that one sculptor, by the name of Jesus, hit a crack in the face at just the right moment that it caused a massive avalanche of stone to fall. You can still see the impression of his work today. Some claim this Jesus was buried in the rubble of his own creation, and popped up, alive and healthy, three days later on the other side. His own work sheltering him from the weight of the stone. Alas, no one can travel back that far in the stone’s wake and check.
This, then, is our culture. The stone. It is both something that concerns us all, and yet is something we can also contribute to. It is the most democratic of mediums, although some groups do in fact limit who among them can work its surface. Some people by hammering away find great success, but the vast majority of sculptors do not. Most know of the stone only by the impression it leaves behind. Some live so far from the stone that they have never seen its motion. By now, the entire surface of the stone has been marked by humanity, much of it for thousands of rotations. That doesn’t mean one cannot go in and try to reshape any area they desire, but the stone is hard, and the work is difficult, and there might be just as many sculptors wishing to carve the stone in the entirely opposite direction. The battle is the work, and the work is the battle, and all of us, all of humanity, are affected by the outcome.