the case for a culturally fit society
A couple of weeks ago, I finally put into words something I’ve been circling since I started writing this newsletter: cultural fitness. The discipline of staying grounded, principled, and useful inside modern life. If you missed it, you can read the full case here.
I made the case for what cultural fitness is and why individuals need it. The next logical step is to address the second-order effects: how a culturally fit society is better than what we have now.
Because cultural fitness isn’t self-improvement for its own sake, it’s about contribution. About what you bring into the system. This week, we explore what that looks like. What happens if fluency, discernment, capacity, and conviction become fundamental rather than rarities? Here’s what that might look like.
fluency
A fluent society:
Sees the incentives beneath behaviors before pointing fingers — opening up space for actual solutions
Puts energy where it’ll actually move things — stops spinning wheels on surface-level fixes and finds where intervention has the most impact
Knows where they’re uniquely positioned to make a difference — reads the terrain well enough to spot the gaps only they can fill
discernment
A discerning society:
Gives attention to what actually moves things forward — doesn’t let genuine problems drown in the noise of the daily crisis
Protects what matters most — keeps family, community, spiritual health, and work at the forefront
Invests in information hygiene — treats bad information like pollution, something to actively filter out of the shared environment
capacity
A capable society:
Absorbs shocks instead of amplifying them — when pressure hits, more people stay regulated rather than adding volatility to the system
Sustains effort over time — doesn’t burn out in bursts of unsustainable intensity, which allows for the long-game work that actually creates change
conviction
A society of conviction:
Takes ownership of their positions — doesn’t farm out their thinking to authorities or tribes, actually does the work to know what they believe
Makes room for disagreement — treats friction across perspectives as valuable to sharpening thinking and getting the best outcome
Funds the infrastructure of diverse thought — treats arts, books, and education as critical to a functional society
what makes this different from past civic ideals:
These are specific responses to specific pressures. Previous generations didn’t need to train discernment against algorithmic feeds or build capacity for constant nervous-system activation.
Cultural fitness acknowledges that our environment has fundamentally changed, and we need new training for the specific ways modern systems weaken our capacity to think and act effectively.
The outcome probably isn’t utopia, but instead a society where more people can function well enough to address the problems in front of us – rather than spending their energy just staying afloat.
j