You Make the Culture: Why I Dislike Cultural Critics and Prefer Substack
Why I Dislike “Cultural Critics” and Prefer Substack, Where We Build Culture Ourselves
On April 11, 2025, The New York Times published a review of the new film The Amateur, written by Alissa Wilkinson. I had just seen the movie the day before, escaping the unseasonably hot 90-degree weather in St. George—a troubling sign for the desert. The newly renovated theater, with its leather-like reclining seats, almost made the eye-watering price of popcorn and soda worth it.
But Wilkinson’s review missed something critical.
Curious, I checked out her profile. She’s certainly qualified—her stated aim is to “help readers think better about the culture around them.” With academic credentials and a professorship in cultural criticism, she’s more than fit for The Times.
So why did she reduce a beautifully made, deeply relevant film to what she called a “nothingburger”?
I think the answer lies in an unacknowledged blind spot. Wilkinson’s approach is rooted in traditional critical analysis—strong on narrative structure, production quality, and genre context—but it lacks the deeper psychological and philosophical insight that’s urgently needed in our cultural commentary today.
You Make the Culture
This is where my perspective diverges. In my work, I center the idea that you make the culture—that our inner resonance and our shared explorations are the real sources of meaning.
So let me offer an alternate lens.
The Amateur is not a forgettable thriller. It captures a profound cultural and evolutionary shift that deserves far more attention. And Rami Malek’s performance brings that shift to life with subtle brilliance.
A New Archetype Emerges
We are living in a moment of rapid change. Environmental crises, technological disruption, and rising awareness of neurodiversity are reshaping what it means to be human. More and more, we are seeing what used to be called “spectrum” behaviors not as anomalies but as integral variations in human experience.
Malek’s character embodies this new human archetype: high intellectual focus (what we traditionally call “IQ”) combined with reduced emotional or coping capacity.
His early scenes with his wife are not just “poignant,” as Wilkinson claims—they are an emotional landscape. A quiet but powerful portrait of love formed in the space between two people who see and accept each other fully.
That space of mutual recognition is the foundation of trust—and love that can weather anything. Malek portrays this complex, morally driven character with an almost anonymous humility, yet it radiates depth.
Philosophy Woven into the Plot
The film doesn’t stop at emotional resonance. It subtly asks deeper philosophical questions:
What is goodness?
What is truth?
What is a worthy strategy in pursuit of either?
In a pivotal moment, Malek’s character tells the villains:
“I just want you to feel what my wife felt as you terrorized her.”
That line is not about revenge. It’s about moral re-alignment. It’s a plea to reconnect to our shared humanity—the ultimate emotional thread criminals (and, often, politicians) seem to have severed.
Malek’s character is quietly screaming: “We are all human—how can you not feel this?”
If that’s not a call to action in our current world, then perhaps we’ve gone deaf.
The Wrong Comparison
Wilkinson compares The Amateur to standard spy or sci-fi thrillers and finds it lacking. But that’s the wrong frame. More appropriate cultural references might be:
Netflix’s Lucy, which offers a visually visceral meditation on human evolution and consciousness.
The series Lost, which explores “non-form”—a concept rooted in Buddhist and contemplative philosophy.
Both point toward a rising interest in mind, energy, and the invisible architectures shaping our lives. This deserves far more cultural reflection—and even adoption.
From Film to Neuroscience
This shift isn’t just philosophical or cinematic. It’s grounded in science, too.
Take Jeff Hawkins’ A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence. Hawkins, the inventor of the Palm Pilot, proposes that our neocortex is made up of roughly 150,000 cortical columns—independent processors constantly updating their models of the world through sensory movement and experience.
Hawkins argues that real Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) won’t emerge from current large language models (LLMs), but from mimicking this highly dynamic structure.
This isn’t just a theory about AI—it’s a window into our own evolutionary process.
And it matches what we’re seeing in cultural storytelling. We are evolving now. Our media reflects that—when we have the eyes to see it.
Becoming Better “Minders”
Hawkins sees the neocortex as the brain’s seat of intellect and conscious choice—rising above our primitive drives for fight, flight, freeze (and yes, I like to add, f*). If we follow Daniel Siegel’s definition of mind as:
“The regulation of energy and information,”
—then films like The Amateur deserve viral attention. They hold the keys to helping us regulate better, think better, and live better in an increasingly unstable world.
We can become better minders.
Critics Tell Us What to Think. I’d Rather Ask How.
Too often, cultural critics act as arbiters of taste and truth. They tell us what to think, rather than asking us how to think.
That’s why I prefer Substack. Here, we’re not just consuming culture—we’re constructing it together.
We make the culture through resonance, inquiry, and reflection.
We build it in real-time, as a living conversation.
And that, to me, is far more powerful than any critique in The Times.
Want more? Subscribe and join the conversation. Let’s make the culture—on purpose.