While I tend to agree, I think on a practical level it IS a culture, if culture is defined as the way a company operates and a set of principles around that. In essence the culture becomes the way, and so it's a very useful abstraction for thinking about how to influence or lead a movement towards the ways of DevOps.

Would be very interested in your feedback on an article I wrote recently dealing with this issue: https://calebfornari.com/2019/05/31/leading-a-devops-movemen...