The Culture of Being Rude

By Rob Dunn in Smithsonian

"Cultures differ in all sorts of ways—their greetings, clothing, expectations about how children should behave, coming-of-age rituals, expressions of sexuality, numbers of husbands or wives, beliefs in god, gods, or lack thereof. People celebrate but also wage wars about these differences. Usually such variety is attributed to the vagaries of history and chance. Some things, like religious expression and differences or, say, the fleeting popularity of tube socks, seem simply beyond the realm of explanation. And yet haven’t you ever wondered whether there is some reason we are all so different, some underlying cause to our great cultural diversity?"

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