本文作者提出了一种新的视角，将文化视为第四权力部门，与行政、立法、司法并列。作者认为，文化在塑造社会规范和价值观方面发挥着至关重要的作用，就像政府其他部门一样，它具有强制性的力量。作者通过分析历史和社会现象，指出文化在国家建设和社会治理中的重要性，并探讨了文化在不同社会体系中的作用。

🤔 文化作为第四权力部门：作者提出将文化视为与行政、立法、司法并列的第四权力部门，认为文化在塑造社会规范和价值观方面发挥着至关重要的作用，并具有强制性的力量。文化就像政府其他部门一样，能够通过社会压力、传统习俗、道德规范等方式来影响人们的行为和选择。

🏛️ 文化在国家建设中的作用：作者认为，文化在国家建设和社会治理中起着至关重要的作用。忽视文化因素可能会导致国家建设失败，例如，美国在伊拉克和阿富汗的 nation-building 失败，可能是因为忽视了当地文化的影响。作者认为，文化是国家建设的基石，需要与其他权力部门相辅相成。

⚖️ 文化与不同社会体系：作者通过分析不同社会体系，例如猎人和采集者、农民、独裁政权等，指出文化在不同社会体系中发挥着不同的作用。作者认为，文化是社会体系的核心，它决定了社会规范、价值观和行为模式。例如，在一些文化中，社会规范由宗教或传统习俗决定，而在另一些文化中，社会规范由法律或政府政策决定。

💪 文化与自由主义：作者认为，真正的自由主义者应该反对所有形式的强制，包括文化强制。作者指出，有些人虽然反对政府干预，但仍然支持强烈的文化规范，例如一些宗教保守主义者。作者认为，这些观点与真正的自由主义理念相悖，因为真正的自由主义者应该反对任何形式的强制，无论这种强制来自政府还是文化。

🚀 文化的未来：作者认为，文化在现代社会中面临着新的挑战，例如全球化、科技发展等。作者认为，文化需要不断适应变化，并与其他权力部门协调发展。只有这样，才能确保社会和谐发展，并为每个人提供自由和公平的机会。

Ribbonfarm likes to talk about refactoring, a conceptual change in how you see the world. I’m not totally sure I understand it, but I think it means things like memetics – where you go from the usual model of people deciding what ideas they want, to a weird and inside-out (but not objectively wrong) model of ideas competing to colonize people.

Here is a refactoring I think about a lot: imagine a world where people considered culture the fourth branch of government. Imagine that civics textbook writers taught high school students that the US government had four branches: executive, legislative, judicial, and cultural.

I think about this because I have a bias to ignore anything that isn’t nailed down and explicit. Culture isn’t nailed down. But if it were in the Constitution in nice calligraphy right beside the Presidency and the Supreme Court, why, then it would be as explicit as it gets.

Like many other people, I was hopeful that nation-building Iraq (or Afghanistan, or…) would quickly turn it into a liberal democracy (in my defense, I was eighteen at the time). Like many other people, I was disappointed and confused when it didn’t. The people in the world that considers culture the fourth branch of government weren’t confused. Bush forgot to nation-build an entire branch of government. If he’d given Iraq a western-style Supreme Court, marble facade and all, but left their executive and legislature exactly how they were before, that would be a recipe for conflict, confusion, and eventually nothing getting done. So why should westernizing their executive, legislature, and courts – but not their culture – work any better?

The world that considers culture the fourth branch of government doesn’t get all confused calling hunter-gatherers or peasant villagers “primitive communism” or “anarchism” or “ruled by elders” or things like that. Those people’s governments have a cultural branch but not much else. Why should we be surprised? Medieval Iceland had onlylegislative and judicial branches; medieval Somalia only had a judiciary; some dictatorships run off just an executive.

Each branch of government enforces rules in its own way. The legislature passes laws. The executive makes executive orders. The judiciary rules on cases. And the culture sets norms. In our hypothetical world, true libertarians are people who want less of all of these. There are people who want less of the first three branches but want to keep strong cultural norms about what is or isn’t acceptable – think Lew Rockwell and other paleoconservatives who hope that the retreat of central government will create strong church-based communities of virtuous citizens. These people aren’t considered libertarians. They might be considered principled constitutionalists, the same way as people who worry about the “imperial presidency” and its use of executive orders. But in the end, what they want to strengthen some branches of government at the expense of others. The real libertarians also believe that cultural norms enforced by shame and ostracism are impositions on freedom, and fight to make these as circumscribed as possible.