Picking a Culture

I heard someone once ask, “Why would you limit yourself to one culture, to identify with that solely and exclude all other cultural influences?” The fact that value has a lot to do with exclusivity aside, picking just one and sticking to it relieves you of the burden of having to pick any others. One does not have to choose between cultural practices and traditions when one adopts a particular lifestyle. One can devote oneself exclusively to the traditions and rituals of the chosen culture. Now this is seen by contemporary liberals as kind of icky, because so many people have historically been forced to conform to a particular cultural tradition when a mix and match approach of various cultural elements is what is best for them. There are still many people, however, who identify with one monolithic cultural canon and wish to stick with it. Often these people are simply ignorant of what other cultures have to offer, but there do exist people who devote themselves to one culture because they identify with it more than they do any other set of practices, rather than because they don't know any better.