Apparently "culture" is a construct that is no longer acceptable to explain the similarities and differences between people.
This may sound surprising but the explanation makes sense.
The word first came into English from German as a way of explaining that someone had good taste -- for example, they liked to listen to opera and lieder, and go to museums. We still use it that way, someone is "cultured."
About the same time, it became popular among social scientists to use the word "race" to mean things we no longer mean by that, if you recall discussions of the "English race" vs. the "Irish race" and the "French race."
"Race" fell out of favor for these discussions and explanations, because racism was a bad thing, so "culture" was substituted.
It's a lot of fun to say things like "the British have a dry sense of humor" and "the French wave their hands around a lot" and "heaven has British cops, French chefs, Italian lovers and German mechanics and it's run by the Swiss, while hell has German cops, British chefs, French mechanics, Swiss lovers, and it's run by the Italians."
Fun, but meaningless. Exactly the type of thing that Brooks specializes in. He really is a lot of fun, but still, it's no longer a respectable field of inquiry. Not because of PC, but because it's silly. |
