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Culture cultivates. What does it cultivate? Proximately, we can say culture cultivates that which is valued by the people from whom the culture arose, be it songs or smart phones. But these are phenotypes -- not replicators as are memes and genes. It is a popular cowardice to deny responsibility for the evolutionary consequences of our cultural choices -- to, in effect, declare all that happens is "natural" selection. This puerile denial of responsibility for consequences of our cultural choices results in phenomena such as "Being on the right side of history." when all that is promoted is the entropic indulgence of high time preference. They may as well say, "Being on the right side of entropy." But every choice we make that impacts the evolutionary viability of people in society is a consequence for which we bear moral responsibility. So what does culture ultimately cultivate? A race of people. It is in this sense that the cultural determinists are correct but for the wrong reasons and on the wrong time scale. Moreover, it is in this sense that cultural determinists lay claim to the moral high ground that belongs, not to them, but to the morally responsible adults in the room they accuse of being evil.
