Character, Culture, and Creation

These three components are self-reinforced in a never-ending feedback loop.

Our character, represented at the individual level, is shaped by culture. Our culture influences the things we make. Those things, in turn, change our culture which then affects our character, whether we know it or not.

We are not only a product of our culture but also the ones inadvertently producing it.

This conundrum is likened to the chicken and the egg, except more complex. Regardless of which comes first, neither the egg nor the chicken have much influence after the fact.

In this trifecta, a change in one influences the other two. In effect, the equation is not A + B = C but rather A = B = C.

Put another way, they are all the same measurement, expressed at different levels (or distances). A change cannot happen in one without consequence for another.

One’s relationship with oneself is the foundation for any engagement, external or internal. It’s the person you are when no one’s looking.

But how does this come about in the first place? How is one’s character ever formed?

My character is shaped by my environment. And while I may be able to “choose” the environment, I can’t necessarily choose my character. In part, a conscious solution is piecemeal but in whole, we cannot honestly claim the credit.

There’s no real way to know the true starting point of our choices. Yuval Harrari puts it succinctly:

I feel a particular wish welling up within me because this is the feeling created by the biochemical processes in my brain. These processes might be deterministic or random, but not free.

Any choice I make, then, will have roots in some former societal conditioning. Culturally or biologically, our character is a function of things outside of our control.

All of this alludes to the fact that there is no single moment we can point to as the defining reason for the totality of who we are as an individual.

Why is college the thing to do after high school? Because society tells us so.

Why are we attracted to certain people and not others? Because we’ve been taught what’s attractive and what’s not.

This is culture.

Why do I prefer green tea over black? Because of my experience with other options.

Why do entrepreneurs start businesses that already exist? Because they see an opportunity to solve an old problem in a new way.

This is creation.

The two, culture and creation, are both within and without my control. Similar to the two-party system: I have the freedom to choose A or B but I’m not free to choose X, Y, or Z.

If character is representative of who we are on an individual level, culture represents who we are on a group level.

Groups are a breeding ground for novelty and innovation. The group can be defined on any number of levels but mostly revolve around a measure of numbers: “where two or more are gathered.”

Families. Friends. Student classes. Community projects. Meet-ups. Churches. Rallies. A workplace. A neighborhood, town, or city.

When an individual interacts with another, culture collides.

We meet in a place of two and whatever cultural baggage my character is derived from collides with yours. The unique blend of culture arising from the two becomes a product of its own. And this product scales to the nth degree.

With every new individual added to the equation, the collective culture is warped. Perhaps strengthened—or weakened—in a particular direction but nonetheless changed.

Culture then becomes the basis for agreement: Christianity, the Bill of Rights, Black Lives Matter.

And also for disagreement: politics, jihad, nationalism.

Within a broader context, culture is just a pattern that’s historically observed and socially accepted.

Reality is a socially agreed-upon hallucination.
—Terrence McKenna

But culture is also a container for something greater: creation. We create things whether we agree or not.

The things we create are a product of culture. And since culture is an inherent part of character, it’s present in anything and everything we create whether on the individual or group level.

Our buildings and businesses. Our products and services. Whatever we create—socially or individually—has traces of culture and character.

Not only on the front side but on the back, too. The things we make, make us.

Character shaped the media through celebrities like Marilyn and Heffner, and human rights through orators like Douglas and MLK.

Culture influenced the creation of language, cuisine, and entertainment. And on a global scale, things like the internet and the iPhone.

Marilyn gave us women’s empowerment. Smartphones gave us social media.

It’s a perpetual loop: we make stuff and our stuff makes us. This is non-linear phenomena. There’s no single progression you can chart out; no starting point to find; no conclusive logic that brings order to the chaos.

The economist might point to supply and demand.

The developer may reference user-centricity.

The designer could allude to history.

In any and every case, though, one cannot escape the inseparable nature of these three elements. Follow the rainbow all you want but there’s nothing at the end. Rather the rainbow is a function of water and light, the same way creation is a function of character and culture.

Creation invites the notions of good and bad, useful and wasteful, valuable and worthless. Yet it’s this sobering, neutral theme—what we create, creates us—that supersedes the dualistic nature of our collective offspring.

Anything we think, say, make, or do can be linked to one of these three functions of society.

They are neither the starting point nor the ending point, but rather “entry” points into the conversation of change. Each of them is a fulcrum affecting the balance of what we want and what we have.

How does this relate to cities?

Imagine a newborn child born into a white room. Instead of parents, she gets scientists and scholars. They program her mind through childhood, shaping her character to spec. Then she attends a school akin to The Meadows, where the culture has been engineered to complement the goal of the character.

Everything she does in life thereafter revolves around the center point of what she’s been convinced is important. She could be a spy whose creations cause countries to implode. Or she could be a technologist that enables humans to become a multi-planetary species.

While it might be possible to align the stars like this on a small scale, it’s certainly not an option en masse. She will invariably be crushed under the weight of numbers.

That’s why character is shaped over decades; it takes years. And why culture takes centuries; it takes millions of people creating millions of different things in a big game of trial and error.

Right now, our cities are made of chaos, unknowingly entangled in the mess of the these three functions. But what if character, culture, and creation were all well-defined, pre-meditated, and clearly articulated?

Could we not build a city around the primary points of intersection?

If we knew a million people who all valued the same character traits, adopted the same beliefs, and enjoyed doing and making similar things, would that be a happy society?

What are the chances they would get along vs., say, a randomly assembled suburb in L.A.?

Instead of unknown neighbors, they’d be friends, colleagues, and classmates. They could trade competition for collaboration and wouldn’t have to choose between the individual and the group.

Who would they be? What could they create? And how would those creations shape their culture?

We’re starting to see a glimpse of what this looks like with interest-based Facebook groups as well as purpose-oriented groups like DAOs. The culture and character are present, but what will they create?