There are also positive aspects of culture. Art is an expression of culture. The art of one culture is difficult to understand for people of another, because it's a form of language, and the art communicates an idea through that language.
The key is that culture is every aspect of the human condition. It is the fabric of who we are. You have to take the good with the bad. Hopefully, people aspire to be better.
To extend on what you've said here, I think we can only be a member of one culture at a time. I think we have agency over that membership, but you just can't be in two places at the same time.
So when our employers talk about the company's "culture", what I hear is "make your existence, make the fabric of your being, about work." And that's absolutely no place that I ever want to be, regardless of where I could possibly be working.
"I think we can only be a member of one culture at a time."
Children of immigrants can live within their country's culture while having strong ties to their parents' culture. For example, when they attend public schools, they're immersed in the local culture, but when they go home, they live with the behavioral norms, language, foods, etc. of their parents' home country.
That's subculture. They will really be experiencing "second-gen immigrant" subculture. It will be a completely third thing different from the culture their parents experienced as children, or of what their peers at school are experiencing. So children of immigrants still only experience one culture, one that is distinctly theirs. It will have similarities and overlap with the others, being influenced by them, and it will start to grow its own behavioral norms, language, foods, etc.
What I mean by "we can only be a member of one culture at a time" is that "it is physically impossible to have an experience other than the one you're having". That at first sounds tautological, but it suggests the fractal nature of culture and subculture.
I don't think you're addressing the meaning of the immigrant example. If an immigrant can successfully experience one culture at school and another at home, it's also possible to experience one culture at work and another culture the rest of your life. Whether or not you group both cultures into a greater "working man" culture is kind if irrelevant to your original point that a company culture would invade the rest of your life.
There are also positive aspects of culture. Art is an expression of culture. The art of one culture is difficult to understand for people of another, because it's a form of language, and the art communicates an idea through that language.
So when our employers talk about the company's "culture", what I hear is "make your existence, make the fabric of your being, about work."
Both excellent points. You're right that there is good in culture as well.
My objection isn't so much with culture in general as with forced culture. Culture is emergent, except when under totalitarian or clerical control.
The key is that culture is every aspect of the human condition. It is the fabric of who we are. You have to take the good with the bad. Hopefully, people aspire to be better.
To extend on what you've said here, I think we can only be a member of one culture at a time. I think we have agency over that membership, but you just can't be in two places at the same time.
So when our employers talk about the company's "culture", what I hear is "make your existence, make the fabric of your being, about work." And that's absolutely no place that I ever want to be, regardless of where I could possibly be working.