You don’t matter to the world. You may matter to the small group of people who know you, but odds are you’re insignificant
All culture is downstream of state action.
What does this mean? All culture is influenced by government?
Not quite, more than that. All cultural artifacts are created either deliberately or not by a state or state like institution.
Think about what a state is. Is it a government? Well, basically the two are the same thing, but not quite, a state is more than that. A state is a set of institutions that exercise sovereignty to some degree over a population. It can be as complex as the EU, or as simple as a shaman and a war chief.
We have this democratic idea that we institute states to govern us to our liking, but this is a lie, not one single person alive today voluntarily subjected themselves to state sovereignty as a choice, and almost every state that exists or has existed governs or has governed unwilling people. All “nations” were created by states, fabricated, maybe using cultural artifacts that already existed when the state came into existence, artifacts that were fabricated by a previous state, in just about every case.
Corporate action is a more significant upstream to culture these days than state.
Youre wrong, although I’d say corporate structures, especially big ones, are more like states than not.
Do you know why you have a last name? Because some government a long time ago decided it would be easier to collect taxes from you and your family if you did. It worked, and so a lot more governments did it. Now people get them tattooed on themselves. Imagine something as fundamental to the culture of your society as surnames, that’s how big of an impact I’m talking about. All culture is downstream of state action, your nation and identity was created by a state.
Well I wasn’t talking about the sum of past influences that have shaped what it is, but the ongoing shaping. Of course it’s arguable and hard to measure, but the influence of new technologies, how they are marketed and fit into people’s lives, and of popular culture and media is making huge changes to our culture.
Popular culture and media are propaganda used by states deliberately to modify the culture of their constituents.
New technologies usually occur when a state makes an environment conducive to the creation of them. That doesn’t mean they are always the ones a state wants invented, mind you, some culture is not deliberate, often enough it’s more like blowback or fallout that a state then has to manage, but all of it is the consequence of state action.
victors write history.
I find it hard to believe they’re ALL named Victor.
The climate change crisis is well beyond any possible rescue.
In the end, we all die