What is Culture?
Culture. It’s one of those abstract ideas that we all understand in conversation, but can’t for the life of us define. When someone refers to, say, cultural exchange between two countries, we know rather specifically what that means: getting each group exposed to the other’s way of life, customs, foods, political and social issues, and so on. It’s a way of exchanging not just lifestyles, but something like another nation’s way of being. Likewise, when we talk about cultural discourse, we know basically what the term means: something like talking about the social structures and way of life of our or another social group.
But when you try to get more specific, things get a bit murky. What elements compose culture, exactly? What is the relationship between culture and the individual? How does one judge cultures, and change them if one finds reason for change? This blog is to be a blog that discusses theses questions and possible answers; in short, it is a blog about cultural discourse. It is semi-academic in nature, working with commonplace ideas about humanity rather than sticking with scholarly standards, but still within the realm of logical argument and judgment based on merit rather than mere opinion. Thus, what I will be doing here is discussing our culture and its manifestations in society, what these manifestations mean, and what we should do if there is a need to take action. But first, we need to know what we are talking about. We need to define culture.
So let’s follow the method I describe above. Instead of looking for scholarly pursuits of culture, let’s see if we can peruse our intuitions for the start of our answer, and then refine it through evidence and argument into something consistent and usable.
The first thing we can note is that culture is not something determined just by the individual. One person alone in the woods does not a culture make. Nor does a nuclear family. A nation, on the other hand, certainly has a culture (in fact, it can have man within it). Regional groups, such as Native American tribes or other indigenous groups, have their own cultures. It’s not clear whether a town or city can have a culture; it seems like a big city, such as New York, certainly has a culture of its own, but we usually think that small towns have their identity as part of a larger culture.
Which brings us to our next point: culture is not restricted by area, nation, or people. Cultures can move: a section of Chicago has several cultures, with Chinese, Indian, Irish, and other parts of the cities each having a unique culture that they brought from their respective countries. Cultures are also not necessarily rigid: they influence each other, with, for instance, the movement of colonists in history bringing their cultures to bear on indigenous peoples. Yet that does not guarantee cultural dominance. Looking at Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism, we can see that, rather than being carriers of the cultures of their places of origin, they tended by be incorporated into the cultures of the areas in which they appeared, giving them a “local flavor.” Tibetan Buddhism, for example, talks of spirits and reincarnation, whereas Japanese Zen places the emphasis on balance, control, and tranquility, and the more spiritual ideas of Tibet have no place.
Culture is thus definitely a social thing, and it is not part of a particular social element or force, such as nation or religion. It’s more fluid than that. Let us next ask what culture “does.” What things make up culture?
Culture is thus definitely a social thing, and it is not part of a particular social element or force, such as nation or religion. It’s more fluid than that. Let us next ask what culture “does.” What things make up culture?
For some reason, the first thing that jumps to my mind is food. Each culture has its dishes. And they’re not random choices, either; you can generally place a dish without knowing beforehand what culture it came form by its ingredients, method of cooking, and so on. While this may seem to be a regional aspect (i.e. Indian or Chinese food), I think we must allow first, that region and culture are often though not always closely linked, and second, that other factors can influence “cultural” cuisine, like religion or history. So, in short, each culture has a particular “taste” which it develops in its food. It does so in part because of what it has at hands: what sort of crops, animals, spices, and special food items, such as berries with flavor-altering properties, it has at its disposal. From this certain particular methods of food-making are developed, which generally follow throughout the cultural cuisine: Mexican food has its tendencies and basic ingredients, as does Chinese, as do different African cultures.
I think the food analogy is helpful here, because it’s an unusually clear one that shows how other elements that we associate with culture develop. Take, for example, closeness of community. While America has a largely individualistic social ideal, different parts of America place vastly different emphasis on the role and necessity of close familial and community ties; broadly speaking, small communities place a greater emphasis on personal contacts and close families, on knowing people personally, whereas in the cities the situation is more individualistic, and impersonal contacts are not just common but expected. In both cases it seems that the social structure has built itself up to deal with its conditions; the close ‘tribal’ structures usually play a role in smaller and more localized societies, where you are always in contact with everyone and good relations are important, whereas the expansion of the social space to city-size paradoxically leads to an increasing individualization, as one has to deal with more and more people whom one will never know in depth, and local ties become less of a predominating fact of life. Like with food, there is a sort of localized development of structure and tendencies (cooking methods) based on the situation (the ingredients, if you will). It develops into its own unique system which has its own way of dealing with its situation. Once a system has been defined, it can be moved while remaining intact; thus, like Irish dishes, Irish culture is capable of being moved while maintaining its distinct nature. But it can also incorporate new elements; a lack of ingredients or local factors leads to compromise; the dishes may have to change somewhat, as do the methods, and eventually a totally new culture can develop based on parts of what was brought over and the situation it found itself in.
This, roughly speaking, is the way cultures grow. But we should point out some more elements as well. Cultures, we have said, include a unique cuisine and a social structure. They also have their heroes; that is, their major figures, whether military, political, literary, or otherwise. Likewise, there is a canon; the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document on par with the Constitution, yet in America it has equal if not greater importance, because it defines what America should be. There is a shared history; the greatest example of this is Judaism, a culture that has defined itself against its oppression, dispersion, and destruction for thousands of years. This leads us to what might be most important about culture; it is a source of identity.
Judaism is an instructive example, because of its will to survive over the centuries. Israel was never a large state in its heyday, and it was sandwiched between larger ones. Eventually, as most small states are, it was broken apart and consumed, and many of the people were physically removed and imprisoned. Yet in spite of this they survived. How? Through identity. The Jewish people had several things. First, they had a history: they had memories of their power and then their destruction which they shared as important events. They had a canon and heroes: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses were remembered as great men to be thanked and admired, and over time a single compiled work, the Hebrew Bible, came to be the definitive canon of history, heroes, and literature. They had those particulars by which a culture is more easily defined: they had a cuisine, customs, particular social habits (such as circumcision), and a religion. All of these factors, brought together in the Hebrew Bible, became a complete and singular source for what it means to be a Jew, for where you are in the world historically, for how you identify yourself and who to identify yourself with, and even the smallest regulations for how a Jew lives her life. As Nietzsche proclaimed: “every respect for the Old Testament! I find in it great men, heroic landscape and something of utmost rarity on earth, the incomparable naivety of the strong heart; even more, I find a people.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality III:22)
I think that this finally gets us to what a culture is. It is, above all, how one becomes part of a people. When we talk of cultural exchange, we mean the interaction of different peoples with different histories, customs, and foods. When we talk of cultural discourse, we mean the social and political institutions that shape the way we make our way through the world. Culture, then is the set of factors, including institutions, traditions, history, values, and symbols, that has developed into the defining background for a group’s identity, into the means through which the members of the group make sense of their situation and make decisions about how to live. Culture is the way in which humanity as a group determines the nature of the human individual. It is everything social which determines what we think ourselves to be; only innate characteristics and those developed in complete isolation from outside human influence can be said to not have been affected by culture. Given the rise in consideration of the role of the social in philosophy today, and the importance of identity in politics, there is, therefore, both a theoretical and practical impetus to consider more deeply how culture shapes us and what particular cultures have done, how a culture grows and how it can be altered. In short, there is a need for cultural discourse, and it is my intention here to start the conversation.
But when you try to get more specific, things get a bit murky. What elements compose culture, exactly? What is the relationship between culture and the individual? How does one judge cultures, and change them if one finds reason for change? This blog is to be a blog that discusses theses questions and possible answers; in short, it is a blog about cultural discourse. It is semi-academic in nature, working with commonplace ideas about humanity rather than sticking with scholarly standards, but still within the realm of logical argument and judgment based on merit rather than mere opinion. Thus, what I will be doing here is discussing our culture and its manifestations in society, what these manifestations mean, and what we should do if there is a need to take action. But first, we need to know what we are talking about. We need to define culture.
So let’s follow the method I describe above. Instead of looking for scholarly pursuits of culture, let’s see if we can peruse our intuitions for the start of our answer, and then refine it through evidence and argument into something consistent and usable.
The first thing we can note is that culture is not something determined just by the individual. One person alone in the woods does not a culture make. Nor does a nuclear family. A nation, on the other hand, certainly has a culture (in fact, it can have man within it). Regional groups, such as Native American tribes or other indigenous groups, have their own cultures. It’s not clear whether a town or city can have a culture; it seems like a big city, such as New York, certainly has a culture of its own, but we usually think that small towns have their identity as part of a larger culture.
Which brings us to our next point: culture is not restricted by area, nation, or people. Cultures can move: a section of Chicago has several cultures, with Chinese, Indian, Irish, and other parts of the cities each having a unique culture that they brought from their respective countries. Cultures are also not necessarily rigid: they influence each other, with, for instance, the movement of colonists in history bringing their cultures to bear on indigenous peoples. Yet that does not guarantee cultural dominance. Looking at Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism, we can see that, rather than being carriers of the cultures of their places of origin, they tended by be incorporated into the cultures of the areas in which they appeared, giving them a “local flavor.” Tibetan Buddhism, for example, talks of spirits and reincarnation, whereas Japanese Zen places the emphasis on balance, control, and tranquility, and the more spiritual ideas of Tibet have no place.
Culture is thus definitely a social thing, and it is not part of a particular social element or force, such as nation or religion. It’s more fluid than that. Let us next ask what culture “does.” What things make up culture?
Culture is thus definitely a social thing, and it is not part of a particular social element or force, such as nation or religion. It’s more fluid than that. Let us next ask what culture “does.” What things make up culture?
For some reason, the first thing that jumps to my mind is food. Each culture has its dishes. And they’re not random choices, either; you can generally place a dish without knowing beforehand what culture it came form by its ingredients, method of cooking, and so on. While this may seem to be a regional aspect (i.e. Indian or Chinese food), I think we must allow first, that region and culture are often though not always closely linked, and second, that other factors can influence “cultural” cuisine, like religion or history. So, in short, each culture has a particular “taste” which it develops in its food. It does so in part because of what it has at hands: what sort of crops, animals, spices, and special food items, such as berries with flavor-altering properties, it has at its disposal. From this certain particular methods of food-making are developed, which generally follow throughout the cultural cuisine: Mexican food has its tendencies and basic ingredients, as does Chinese, as do different African cultures.
I think the food analogy is helpful here, because it’s an unusually clear one that shows how other elements that we associate with culture develop. Take, for example, closeness of community. While America has a largely individualistic social ideal, different parts of America place vastly different emphasis on the role and necessity of close familial and community ties; broadly speaking, small communities place a greater emphasis on personal contacts and close families, on knowing people personally, whereas in the cities the situation is more individualistic, and impersonal contacts are not just common but expected. In both cases it seems that the social structure has built itself up to deal with its conditions; the close ‘tribal’ structures usually play a role in smaller and more localized societies, where you are always in contact with everyone and good relations are important, whereas the expansion of the social space to city-size paradoxically leads to an increasing individualization, as one has to deal with more and more people whom one will never know in depth, and local ties become less of a predominating fact of life. Like with food, there is a sort of localized development of structure and tendencies (cooking methods) based on the situation (the ingredients, if you will). It develops into its own unique system which has its own way of dealing with its situation. Once a system has been defined, it can be moved while remaining intact; thus, like Irish dishes, Irish culture is capable of being moved while maintaining its distinct nature. But it can also incorporate new elements; a lack of ingredients or local factors leads to compromise; the dishes may have to change somewhat, as do the methods, and eventually a totally new culture can develop based on parts of what was brought over and the situation it found itself in.
This, roughly speaking, is the way cultures grow. But we should point out some more elements as well. Cultures, we have said, include a unique cuisine and a social structure. They also have their heroes; that is, their major figures, whether military, political, literary, or otherwise. Likewise, there is a canon; the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document on par with the Constitution, yet in America it has equal if not greater importance, because it defines what America should be. There is a shared history; the greatest example of this is Judaism, a culture that has defined itself against its oppression, dispersion, and destruction for thousands of years. This leads us to what might be most important about culture; it is a source of identity.
Judaism is an instructive example, because of its will to survive over the centuries. Israel was never a large state in its heyday, and it was sandwiched between larger ones. Eventually, as most small states are, it was broken apart and consumed, and many of the people were physically removed and imprisoned. Yet in spite of this they survived. How? Through identity. The Jewish people had several things. First, they had a history: they had memories of their power and then their destruction which they shared as important events. They had a canon and heroes: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses were remembered as great men to be thanked and admired, and over time a single compiled work, the Hebrew Bible, came to be the definitive canon of history, heroes, and literature. They had those particulars by which a culture is more easily defined: they had a cuisine, customs, particular social habits (such as circumcision), and a religion. All of these factors, brought together in the Hebrew Bible, became a complete and singular source for what it means to be a Jew, for where you are in the world historically, for how you identify yourself and who to identify yourself with, and even the smallest regulations for how a Jew lives her life. As Nietzsche proclaimed: “every respect for the Old Testament! I find in it great men, heroic landscape and something of utmost rarity on earth, the incomparable naivety of the strong heart; even more, I find a people.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality III:22)
I think that this finally gets us to what a culture is. It is, above all, how one becomes part of a people. When we talk of cultural exchange, we mean the interaction of different peoples with different histories, customs, and foods. When we talk of cultural discourse, we mean the social and political institutions that shape the way we make our way through the world. Culture, then is the set of factors, including institutions, traditions, history, values, and symbols, that has developed into the defining background for a group’s identity, into the means through which the members of the group make sense of their situation and make decisions about how to live. Culture is the way in which humanity as a group determines the nature of the human individual. It is everything social which determines what we think ourselves to be; only innate characteristics and those developed in complete isolation from outside human influence can be said to not have been affected by culture. Given the rise in consideration of the role of the social in philosophy today, and the importance of identity in politics, there is, therefore, both a theoretical and practical impetus to consider more deeply how culture shapes us and what particular cultures have done, how a culture grows and how it can be altered. In short, there is a need for cultural discourse, and it is my intention here to start the conversation.
posted by Derek at 11:38 PM
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