Culture also allows us not to die young of pneumonia, to not have to suffer from dracunculus worms painfully migrating through our muscle tissue, to get enough to eat when we are hungry, to not be killed and eaten by bears or large cats...

Culture is a double-edged sword in relation to the individual, but overall the benefits far outweigh the issues. Psychedelics were probably there at the birth of culture, and may probably have played a core role in it.

Culture is just having to deal with other humans, instead of being alone. Looking at it like that, it's really not ALL bad.

We have to stop CONSUMING our culture. We have to CREATE culture. DON'T watch TV, DON'T read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your OWN roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are — NOW — is the most immediate sector of your universe. And if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered. You're giving it all away to ICONS. Icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that, you want to dress like X or have lips like Y... This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion. What is real is you, and your friends, your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And, we are told No, you're unimportant, you're peripheral — get a degree, get a job, get a this, get that, and then you're a player. You don't even want to play that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world." -terence McKenna