Most immediate to each of us are the micro-cultures of our immediate family, closest friends, and romantic relationships. Going against the current of all the larger communities combined tends to be easier than violating the unwritten rules of the most intimate mini cultures in someone’s life.

The good news is the third dimension is something we already became familiar with early on in the series: Emergence Tower.

Inside of the broadest cultures are thousands of smaller communities—each with their own cultural vibe that exerts influence on its members.

Culture is the collection of unwritten rules, norms, and values around “how we do things here.” Every human environment—from the two-person couples to the 20-person classrooms to the 20,000-person companies—is embedded with its own culture. We can visualize a group’s culture as a kind of gas cloud that fills the room when the group is together.

This is our full “loaf” of human thinking and behavior. And like a loaf of bread, we can cut it into slices.

The visuals can get a little complicated here, especially when I’m the graphic designer, but try to bear with me. Emergence Tower is kind of like a z-axis we can flip on its side and add onto our x-y graph:

In a negatively charged culture, the Primitive Mind is on its home turf. Conversations are pettier, values are more superficial, conformity beats individuality, and things tend to feel a lot like middle school. A culture like this speaks directly to the Primitive Minds in the heads of its members, continually stoking their fires and forcing their... See more

Seeing in 3D

So far, we’ve been focusing on the relationship between culture and individuals. In that realm, culture functions as the rules of engagement. But when we move up to higher levels of emergence, where groups of people function like giant organisms, a group’s culture becomes the giant’s personality.