In general, culture may be viewed in terms of a number of interacting component systems, each of which caters to a basic human need. First and foremost (and incidentally consistent with our own unbiased emphasis on schemas), culture is a belief system; there is invariably some religious commitment to a higher order of presumed powers or conjured beings. Also, culture is a system of ideology, with a philosophy of life based on false beliefs nurtured in agnostic ignorance. Further, culture is a communication system which disseminates the misinformation upon which a political system is based. The political system in turn is shaped by an economic system (if the term "System" still applies) which concentrates wealth, power and status upon the social system's favored few while distributing poverty, misery and despair among the unfortunate many. A system of technology helps each culture wreck its environment, and a system of arts provides symbolic expressions in front of which people may hide.

In each and all of these systems, there is a subtle hint of stupidity as a common element which unifies culture into a disintegrating whole. For the past two hundred years, social scientists have been trying to impose some order of logic on the actions and interrelationships of these systems. Perhaps it is time to consider the very real possibility that both the systems and their interactions are illogical, inconsistent and maladaptive to the point that culture may be characterized as stupid.

The range and intensity of religions may differ, but having a belief system is a human universal, and culture is the social mechanism for creating and maintaining the various religious systems of the world. Religion was originally directed toward supernatural spirits which presumably influenced natural events. Now, belief systems are also directed toward superhuman principles which presumably shape our institutions. Whether supernatural or superhuman phenomena be revered, the mode of religious belief is the same, and it is this process of belief—the defining feature of schemas—which determines the nature of human culture.

The psychological basis for religion is that people are disposed to worship what they cannot control. (This disposition may be represented by the formula: Control x Belief = K.) People also like to think they enter into some kind of reciprocal relationship with the incomprehensible if a system of belief, observance and ritual is established. This may provide a one-sided, imbalanced reciprocity, but it gives people the feeling that they have at least some input into the cosmic schema. In more mundane matters, people may literally "Believe in" (worship) their cultural institutions

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