Why are CSS selectors inherited?

CSS selectors are not inherited. Inheritance in CSS refers to the passing of certain properties from a parent element to its descendants. Selectors are patterns that choose elements to which styles are applied.

Inheritance can mean that styles applied with one selector can be overridden (re-inherited) by styles applied with another selector. This is not related to inheritance but to the CSS cascade mechanism, which determines which styles are applied to an element when multiple CSS rules set a value for the same property.

Factors affecting the cascade and "overriding" styles:

1. Specificity: Selectors with higher specificity have more weight.
2. Order: When specificity is equal, the last declared rule applies.
3. Importance (!important): Declarations marked with !important have the highest priority (except for user agent styles with !important).
4. Style sources (Origin): Styles come from different sources (browser, user, author).

Example of specificity:

/* Low specificity */
p {
  color: blue;
}

/* High specificity - will override the color */
.text-section p {
  color: red;
}