your whole "the only thing one man owes another is rational thought" is also a cultural expectation. I.e. collectivist thought.
It's an individual expectation since it's the only one you can control. It's similar to saying that the market is a collectivist phenomenon since there's many people acting toward more expansive ends, but the mechanism are individual actors pursuing their own interests.
The problem being it doesn't work hence why you live in a society with laws and other cultural expectations...
Laws should reflect morals that are grounded on reason, but in practice this is not always the case. An example of this is where members of US congress are lawfully allowed to do insider trading but this practice is illegal for everyone else.
...and other cultural expectations.
"culture" is an authoritative device used to usurp the production of people so that a relative handful of people don't have to work for a living. You want a "culture" because you want other people to take care of you. The solution is just to interact with people and teach them how to treat you. That's it.
But if you did this exact thing in another culture and time, they'd just cut your head off. It's kind of ridiculous when you actually think about it.
Yeah they're called sh!tholes. There's places right now that are like that. Would you care to live in any of them?
