"Culturism"

Rich Nikoley is a culturist.

I get it. I am, too. I know exactly what he's talking about, and I've had easily enough experience to understand it and agree. He's right. This is a perfectly clear concept that he's laid out, although, these days, I could see any number of people losing their minds behind it.

I might pick at one aspect of it. To "judge that all cultures on Earth are to varying degrees inferior to the idealized American culture" is simply to endorse observable facts, and I would not call that a "prejudice".

The crucial thing about all this is whether any given individual subscribes and actively endorses any given culture. The free will of an individual always implies the possibility of theoretical and practical dissent from the prevailing ethics of his time. It should be pointed out that this is profoundly American, and one of its greatest manifestions is one that Rich points out: America is "capable of absorbing the best from all other cultures". It's not for nothin' that individuals from around the world came here with their very best. Cultures are won or lost, flourish or languish, one person at a time. Sometimes, there are large numbers of them making roughly the same sorts of value decisions at the same time -- concurrently, not collectively -- but it is nonetheless the responsibility of every individual to see to their own convictions.