What is culture?

Fluther culture, for one, is about welcoming newbies into the community – even before we know anything about them. Yes, this is a QandA site – but much more – as you may discover if you give us a try.

Our culture centers around the Gods, Mods and Broads of fluther – the lovely place under the (oft times murky) sea that is the internet.

I’m Zen. Welcome to fluther.

Princeton University defines culture as:

* a particular society at a particular time and place; “early Mayan civilization”
* the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group
*acculturation: all the knowledge and values shared by a society

@mammal have you ever even been here, or are you painting with a broad brush?

Traditions of design, forms of speech acts, rhetorical structure of text, social organisations and knowledge constructs. Also behaviours and attitudes within the group.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Yes and Yes, America has a culture industry. That is, it processes and markets culture as commodity and then exports it wholesale for profit. This is the overwhelming American approach to culture. Do i personally appreciate American literature and art? very, very much, but that is offset by America as overridingly hostile to culture. If you study the Frankfurt school of thinking, you will hopefully agree with some of what i mean.

i mean come on guys i kick off this discussion with a legitimate albeit provocative statement `What is culture?’ Ans `Not America’ i get an ad hominem attack by an Israeli and then my comment gets deleted, that seems like an over-reaction. In fact i’m disappointed. you’ll have me dreaming up ridiculous Zionist conspiracy theories at this rate.

Culture is an integral part of every society. It is a learned pattern of behavior and ways in which a person lives his or her life. Culture is essential for the existence of a society, because it binds people together. In the explicit sense of the term, culture constitutes the music, food, arts and literature of a society. However, these are only the products of culture followed by the society and cannot be defined as culture. It is also something that a person learns from his family and surroundings, and is not ingrained in him from birth. It does not have any biological connection because even if a person is brought up in a culture different from that in which he was born, he imbibes the culture of the society where he grows up. It is also not a hidden fact that some people feel the need to follow the beliefs and traditions of their own culture, even though they might be not subscribing to certain ideologies within.

@Luiveton bright and thoughtful answer.

Actually it was me who asked “What is culture”. The interesting answer from Luiveton has I’m afraid gone for culture = the arts (otherwise well argued with lots of good points) and I can’t buy a definition that doesn’t have our heritage in it somewhere.

@mammal, thanks for the clarification. I looked up the Frankfurt school because I had no prior exposure to it, but I still can’t help but disagree with your connection between products and culture. Yes, we export a lot of mass-produced stuff that people identify with our culture, and that in itself is an aspect of our culture, for better or worse, but it is not what I immediately identify as the sum of our culture, and while I do agree with you on some level that we are “hostile” to culture, I don’t think that cancels out or negates our cultural contributions to the world, which is suggested by your previous assertion which implies that the US is entirely culturally bankrupt.

For instance, when I think of British culture, I don’t automatically think of BP, or 18th and 19th Century imperialism, or the Prudential Assurance Company. I think of Shakespeare and Anglican architecture, and the Magna Carta, and so on. Similarly, when I think of “American” culture, I think of the blues, Mark Twain, Southern Gothic writing, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and so on, not McDonald’s or Jesus Camp. Sure, these things are aspects of our culture, just like the British examples I mentioned, but I don’t think of them as dominating or negating the more timeless examples that we’ve also produced. Maybe I’m just thinking of this in a different way, but that’s how I approach it.

At least architecure is making an appearance here, though the term “Anglican” is not one I hear often (I’m a Scot). Some interesting thinking coming out. Thanks folks!

@Colinm, yeah I know that’s not really a term, but I was thinking of Anglican Churches which seem, at least to me, to have a pretty distinctive architectural style. I could be wrong.

Culture 2010 style

Hi Seazen. Thanks but that YouTube move won’t load for me; perhaps because I’m in the UK.