> > And culture is, by and large, random, arbitrary, and self-reinforcing.

Culture, by and large, isn't random nor arbitrary. Culture is obviously influenced by the past and the environment, but it's mostly artificially created by the elites. Once established it is self-reinforcing.

> Of course, why and how we converge on those norms is mysterious, and the anthropologists, the psychologists, and etc. can have a go at explaining those parts. I can't.

It's not mysterious. Monkey see, monkey do. We see the higher ups do it and we mimic. Or we are told this is how we do things and we obey. This applies to nations, corporations and families.

This is the kind of half-baked stuff the parent is talking about. You're vaguely guesturing at the same ideas as Bourdieu, but missing most of the nuance behind his conception of capital.