Cultural Fidelity
Cultural fidelity represents a group’s rate of cultural “bleed:” How many people raised in Culture X stay in Culture X and raise their own kids within it? Fighting cultural attrition is a uniquely difficult challenge in a post-internet age that has compromised many previously effective tactics.
Tactics that worked better pre-internet:
- Threats of shunning: This is only very effective when (1) a culture is geographically isolated, leaving shunned members with no other group to join, (2) a culture is so unique a person will have trouble integrating in wider society (or the culture intentionally prevents a person from acquiring skills that would allow them to integrate into wider society), or (3) a culture provides copious social services on which members rely in everyday life.
- Warnings about not-quite-true consequences: These cultures tell people things like, “You will be punished with a terrible life and no one will ever love you if you leave our culture.” This does not work well any more because threats like this can be easily undermined by a few simple internet searches.
At present, the most effective way to impart cultural fidelity is by creating a culture that fosters pride, strategic advantages, and human flourishing. If people are clearly better off thanks to their culture, they are more likely to raise their children within it and remain loyal adherents themselves. For this reason, the cultures with the highest cultural fidelity are typically either tough to convert into (to ensure a level of quality / exclusivity among members) or require rigorous lifestyle adjustments demanding more willpower than most people have (which naturally weeds out weak-willed applicants).
Granting this level of strategic advantage to a culture requires a certain amount of flexibility. A culture that granted tactical advantages in feudal Japan is different from a culture that grants tactical advantages in Japan’s modern mega cities. If a single culture is to become a throughline between many successive generations, it must be capable of adapting.