The classical view of what culture is, very simply, that which is transmitted in a population by non-genetic means: by communication, imitation, and all forms of interaction. In the human case, imitation is an important factor which has been overplayed. Humans imitate better than any other animal, (except maybe parrots, but parrots have a narrow range of things that they imitate).
Later,
to explain the success of bits of culture, of practices, of rituals, of techniques, of ideologies, and so on, the question was not how do they benefit the population in which they evolve; the question was how do they benefit their own propagation? Dawkins was saying that much better than I could have done at the time.
He argues against the System 1, System 2 framework of Kahneman.
[Humans] exploit reasons in our cognitive work. This is not a second system; it’s just an ordinary cognitive capacity among others, which has important implications for interaction because that’s what drove its very evolution. It’s an ability to understand others, to justify ourselves in the eyes of others, to convince them of our ideas, to accept and to evaluate the justifications and arguments that others give and be convinced by them or not.
…the basic functions of reason are social. They have to do with the fact that we interact with each other’s bodies and with each other’s minds. And to interact with other’s minds is to be able to represent a representation that others have, and to have them represent our representations, and also to act on the representation of others and, in some cases, to let others act on our own representations.
“…the basic functions of reason are social. They have to do with the fact that we interact with each other’s bodies and with each other’s minds. They have to do with the fact that we interact with each other’s bodies and with each other’s minds. And to interact with other’s minds is to be able to represent a representation that others have, and to have them represent our representations, and also to act on the representation of others and, in some cases, to let others act on our own representations.”
A couple of reservations. Yes. Reason is social, but certainly not only that. All of our tools and technologies result from reason being applied to the physical world, not just society. Second, reason my be a poor choice of terms here. We’re not talking just about rationality. Many other species build mental models of their environment and of fellow group members and their relationships without resorting to language or rationality. Some have even been shown to track what their fellows do and do not know and use that information for purposes of deception. Kahneman’s (slow, reflective) ‘system 2’ is beyond all of that.