My experience is that nurture culture is far more common than combat culture (possible exceptions: Law, science?).
This means that almost everyone has experienced nurture culture at some point. They know how to act within it and have common knowledge of how to interpret each other. Even if they prefer combat culture they at least understand the rules of the game.
I think there is a significant minority of people who have no experience of combat culture and so are left confused when they come into contact with it. Over and above being upset at being told “You’re absolutely wrong”, such a person may not understand how anyone could ever say such a thing to another human being. They don’t even understand that such a game can exist.
Maybe others have a different experience, I can imagine people who only know combat getting very confused when they first enter a nurture environment—“Why is everyone getting offended at me?”. Probably this happens relatively early in life if nurture culture is dominant in the wider culture.
My experience is that nurture culture is far more common than combat culture
This is the diametric opposite of my experience. I have seen “Nurture Culture” much more rarely than “Combat Culture”. (Which is, to be clear, something I consider very much a good thing!)
I should note that the default, as far as I can see, is neither of these “cultures”, but rather a different sort of “culture”: a near-total absence of any drive toward “collaborative truthseeking” or “mutual support”, but rather an emphasis on avoiding confrontation. This is the “culture” one experiences with strangers, at dinner parties with distant acquaintances, at formal gatherings, in many corporate contexts, at Thanksgiving dinner with your extended family whom you don’t really have much in common with, etc. In such cases, if your interlocutor says something you disagree with, or even something you consider to be an absolutely idiotic, totally brain-dead view, you’re going to smile politely, nod, say “oh, hm, interesting”, and gently change the subject. You are not going to argue with them; neither are you going to invest effort into making them understand they’re wrong while assuring them that you respect them, etc. etc.
Social contexts where either of these “cultures” even come into play, are rare.
(And among those, my experience is that “Combat Culture” predominates.)
I guess I was including that default in the “nurture culture” box rather than a separate entity—I had it mentally listed as “nurture culture at its worst”. Maybe this is an unhelpful categorisation as you’re right that often there is no underlying truth-seeking goal.
(My experience in purely social circumstances is often the same as yours, in the workplace I’d say I find semi-functional nurture culture quite often, as the default gets somewhat modified to actually get stuff done)
I think the original point stands that many people are not used to being involved in a combat culture and will simply not know how to react when exposed to it. A functional combat culture may make the uninitiated think the culture is just rude, a functional nurture culture will not seem that far removed from a normal conversation without a truth-seeking goal. As such a combat culture will tend to exclude people who are not used to it and has an optics problem.
If I grant that combat culture at its best is the ideal for efficient truth seeking (which I would agree with) there is still the problem of getting from here to there which seems like a co-ordination problem. Possibly a functioning nurture culture is a good start which then allows the culture to move towards combat as people become more comfortable (similarly to your second point here?). But that leaves a problem when you have moved to a combat culture and want other people to join.
(This is not purely theoretical. I encourage a relatively combative approach in my department and it does often make newcomers a little uneasy. Going full combat would likely be even more difficult)
It may be that scaring away those who are not used to combat culture is worth it for the benefits of a good combat culture. It might also be arguable that exposure to combat culture would help people understand it, although I think there’s a danger of this going the opposite way and putting people off combat culture completely.
I think that nurture culture also doesn’t interact well with ‘typical culture’. If someone expresses an idea that I disagree with, and I start offering them things like “Huh, I’m curious what’s the cause of your belief that x?” or “Interesting, I disagree. Here’s a picture of what it’s like to be me in relation to that claim, does any of it resonate with you?” in many of the above situations the other person is just getting weirded out and not really sure what I’m doing. They were just saying words, they’re not sure what game I’m trying to play, and they’ll try to change the topic.
Loosely define nurture and combat culture as different truth seeking methods and typical culture as the absence of truth seeking. Then using nurture or combat won’t work in typical culture as only one of you is truth-seeking. If the other person is “just making conversation” then any attempt to change their mind will be seen as weird.
My hypothesis is that when someone who defaults to typical culture realises that truth seeking is required, nurture culture will seem less weird to them.
This is only based on my own experience of applying nurture and combat. In my work I often have to get people willing to seek for the truth together and be willing to disagree. Nurture is generally easier for newbies to cope with.
Getting people interested in seeking the truth in the first place is an even harder problem.
My experience is that nurture culture is far more common than combat culture (possible exceptions: Law, science?).
This means that almost everyone has experienced nurture culture at some point. They know how to act within it and have common knowledge of how to interpret each other. Even if they prefer combat culture they at least understand the rules of the game.
I think there is a significant minority of people who have no experience of combat culture and so are left confused when they come into contact with it. Over and above being upset at being told “You’re absolutely wrong”, such a person may not understand how anyone could ever say such a thing to another human being. They don’t even understand that such a game can exist.
Maybe others have a different experience, I can imagine people who only know combat getting very confused when they first enter a nurture environment—“Why is everyone getting offended at me?”. Probably this happens relatively early in life if nurture culture is dominant in the wider culture.
This is the diametric opposite of my experience. I have seen “Nurture Culture” much more rarely than “Combat Culture”. (Which is, to be clear, something I consider very much a good thing!)
I should note that the default, as far as I can see, is neither of these “cultures”, but rather a different sort of “culture”: a near-total absence of any drive toward “collaborative truthseeking” or “mutual support”, but rather an emphasis on avoiding confrontation. This is the “culture” one experiences with strangers, at dinner parties with distant acquaintances, at formal gatherings, in many corporate contexts, at Thanksgiving dinner with your extended family whom you don’t really have much in common with, etc. In such cases, if your interlocutor says something you disagree with, or even something you consider to be an absolutely idiotic, totally brain-dead view, you’re going to smile politely, nod, say “oh, hm, interesting”, and gently change the subject. You are not going to argue with them; neither are you going to invest effort into making them understand they’re wrong while assuring them that you respect them, etc. etc.
Social contexts where either of these “cultures” even come into play, are rare.
(And among those, my experience is that “Combat Culture” predominates.)
Edit: Fixed wording bug.
I guess I was including that default in the “nurture culture” box rather than a separate entity—I had it mentally listed as “nurture culture at its worst”. Maybe this is an unhelpful categorisation as you’re right that often there is no underlying truth-seeking goal.
(My experience in purely social circumstances is often the same as yours, in the workplace I’d say I find semi-functional nurture culture quite often, as the default gets somewhat modified to actually get stuff done)
I think the original point stands that many people are not used to being involved in a combat culture and will simply not know how to react when exposed to it. A functional combat culture may make the uninitiated think the culture is just rude, a functional nurture culture will not seem that far removed from a normal conversation without a truth-seeking goal. As such a combat culture will tend to exclude people who are not used to it and has an optics problem.
If I grant that combat culture at its best is the ideal for efficient truth seeking (which I would agree with) there is still the problem of getting from here to there which seems like a co-ordination problem. Possibly a functioning nurture culture is a good start which then allows the culture to move towards combat as people become more comfortable (similarly to your second point here?). But that leaves a problem when you have moved to a combat culture and want other people to join.
(This is not purely theoretical. I encourage a relatively combative approach in my department and it does often make newcomers a little uneasy. Going full combat would likely be even more difficult)
It may be that scaring away those who are not used to combat culture is worth it for the benefits of a good combat culture. It might also be arguable that exposure to combat culture would help people understand it, although I think there’s a danger of this going the opposite way and putting people off combat culture completely.
I think that nurture culture also doesn’t interact well with ‘typical culture’. If someone expresses an idea that I disagree with, and I start offering them things like “Huh, I’m curious what’s the cause of your belief that x?” or “Interesting, I disagree. Here’s a picture of what it’s like to be me in relation to that claim, does any of it resonate with you?” in many of the above situations the other person is just getting weirded out and not really sure what I’m doing. They were just saying words, they’re not sure what game I’m trying to play, and they’ll try to change the topic.
Loosely define nurture and combat culture as different truth seeking methods and typical culture as the absence of truth seeking. Then using nurture or combat won’t work in typical culture as only one of you is truth-seeking. If the other person is “just making conversation” then any attempt to change their mind will be seen as weird.
My hypothesis is that when someone who defaults to typical culture realises that truth seeking is required, nurture culture will seem less weird to them.
This is only based on my own experience of applying nurture and combat. In my work I often have to get people willing to seek for the truth together and be willing to disagree. Nurture is generally easier for newbies to cope with.
Getting people interested in seeking the truth in the first place is an even harder problem.