#7/15 What is culture?
How does planet Earth work?
Culture is the knowledge passed on between generations of animals. It teaches us how to behave and protect the biosphere.
First nations culture developed over tens of thousands of years through trial and error – through natural selection. The most successful behaviours were translated into songs, dances, stories and rituals that cast society as part of the world around them.
Culture is found in all animals. Rocky mountain sheep introduced into ancestral herds, are immediately better at finding food because they learn the foraging patterns and rituals of others in their flock. Culture is a means of survival and is necessary because we are among the most creative and destructive creatures to ever exist in the known universe.
The urge to continually modify the biosphere is built into our DNA, because we evolved to consume energy. That’s what animals do. We stabilise ecosystems. But it also creates a risk.
If we’re to be among the most likely animals to survive, we need the right culture to moderate the impact we have on ourselves. If we become too powerful, we produce too much waste and can’t survive. We succumb to the primeval urges of the ancient bacteria that live on inside us, and create a mass extinction. We become too abundant for our own good.
Remember, the modern ‘culture’ we recognise today is little more than a few hundred years old.
The most successful first nation’s cultures, such as Australian Aborigines, have existed for 65,000 years. We have a lot to relearn about where we fit into the pyramid of life on Earth.
