I think that two issues to be carefully distinguished between are culture versus power. The two are not the same, by any means, and having or not having power can be -- as you know -- very decisive in terms of what happens to you.
For instance, like many defeated enemies in historical tradition, I have also been subjected to the treatment of defeated enemies -- a relentless but milder version of the Aztecs' torturing of the defeated warriors' bodies following by their rolling down the steps of the shrine: an image designed to boost the sense of local power. That is the collective nature of power (or the lack thereof) at work.
Now there are those who consider that because I was treated this way, (and I have been mistaken on this matter too), that I must have said or done something overt that somehow betrayed a negative aspect of "my culture" in order to have deserved it. But I had not and did not. That is a huge misunderstanding that assumes that people are basically moral and will only call you out if there is indeed something to call you out about.
It would be good if we all lived at this transcendent level of culture, but the majority do not. And intellectuals, I think, tend to misunderstand them and presume that they do.
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