Perhaps the greatest folly possible for a culture is to try to pass
itself on by using principles of efficiency. When a culture is rich
enough and inherently complex enough to afford redundancy of nurturers,
but eliminates them as an extravagance or loses their cultural services
through heedlessness of what is being lost, the consequence is
self-inflicted cultural genocide.
-- Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead (2004). p160.