The “Cult” of Culture

A Social Guide to Thought Development

“Non nobis solum nati sumus. (Not for ourselves alone are we born.)”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

Circa 45 BC, in response to his daughters death, Cicero devoted himself to philosophical study, attempting to teach the Greeks and Romans insights on the contempt of death, pain, and grief; about emotional disturbances, virtue, and happiness….

Cicero wrote a series of books called the Tusculanae Disputationes in which he developed the term “cultura animi”, which means cultivation of the philosophical soul; the highest ideal for the human spirit.

Cicero’s Cultura Animi is the origin of the modern term and concept of “culture”.

It was later that 18th century enlightenment thinkers (like Rousseau and Locke) adapted the ancient conception to the scale of civilizations and peoples….

Today’s usage of the term “culture” is much more specific and absolute: a unifiable social fabric, with various strands woven into one large quilt of human collective.

Poeple are more than just their meat. Everyone is a symbol representing their ideological niche. This is because it’s always been the case that however we act in relation to ourselves, and to our environment, constitutes our awareness; this informs our understanding, which effects how we feel, thus, causing us to take action; and so on….

So, it’s not truth, but how we feel that’s entangled with what we choose to believe.

Our individual identity is an infinite mirror of the collective opinions, feelings, and higher truths of the world around us….

“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”
― Cicero

When we relate to one another based on deeply personal and subjective things — like aesthetic and belief — we cultivate a reciprocal bond and trust; a unification between interdependent minds; one that grows in energy and changes in form.

“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons.”
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944–1947

“If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything is tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness…. ‘Isn’t there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?’ Joseph Knect said to his Music Master ‘there is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend rather, you should long for perfection in yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived not taught’”
― Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game: 1943

If we “eat the fruits” of our own culture without germinating its seed, we lose sight of its roots. When we lose sight of the origins of our own thoughts and beliefs, they become dogmatized by institutions with selfish agendas.

Culture itself can’t fail, as it’s an eternal and changing sphere of influence, but instead, people themselves will fail to cultivate common notions of good and evil, of right and wrong…. The challenge being: to cement truth and knowledge onto the surface of a sphere of influence that’s constantly spinning.

Our ideas are separated from empirical data, separated from truth, and from a strict semblance of objectivity. And culture is based entirely on ideas….

…..it creates itself from itself, which is why it’s infinite in power.

“The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

Culture resides in the minds of all people.

Therefore, it’s each of our responsibility to stay connected to the source of all knowledge and belief, which has not to do with truth, but a feeling of ultimate and eternal good, and the realization of total freedom….