Here are some responses that were posted on Facebook:... is everything you remember when you've forgotten everything you learned in School. -- michael Culture is everything people learn, believe and consider real that is apart from their genetically determined physicality. Culture lives in people and is preserved in imperfect artifacts that transmit information when new people engage them. A bit of culture dies with every person, and a slightly different culture is relearned and recreated by following generations.
Culture is a living meta-creature. We may think some things are true and unchanging, but we re-create them every generation, factoring in our own needs and experience. We cannot live, even imagine very accurately, outside of our own time. Consequently, history is tricky and subjective.
Culture has limits. We are incapable of avoiding certain repetitive patterns such as war because true, awful experience dies with the experienced. Culture cannot transmit deep visceral, horrifying experience to enough new people to prevent new wars and other terrible recurring cultural patterns. -- David
I agree with David's definition. Especially given that it gets to the heart of things - culture is not static and is the derivative of everybody within the society. You are affected just as much as you affect culture, and it changes as the population changes.
one more post from a friend on FB and my response:Culture is what makes up one's identity...what does the author say? -- Colleen Essentially the author says that culture is things. If it's not tangible, then it's not culture. Specifically he says, "While it's certainly true that culture can have effects on us that we're not aware of, culture itself is anything but invisible. We hear it, we smell it, we taste it, we touch it, and we see it."
I'd argue that we might see the results or reflections of culture. Or we might see something that helps to shape culture. But culture is not the tangible. Culture is an intangible embodiment of beliefs, philosophies and values.
I like your definition of culture, David. There are artifacts that reflect or shape culture, but they're not themselves culture. -- me
Here's a contrarian thought: The book (which I believe is the same one I'm reading) suggests that culture is what we make of the world - both in the sense of our interpretation of the world, and in the sense that we make (create) culture in everything we do. The author argues that culture is not something that merely exists in our minds, but that it is tangible and has very tangible effects. For example, the author argues that culture limits what we can think and do, and that those limits change over the time, making new things possible that once were impossible (buying a CD player, for example), and importantly, also making things that were once possible now impossible (like buying a vacuum tube radio at the corner drug store, or easily taking a multi-day journey on horseback). The point of the book is to argue that we can only change the culture of our world, at whatever scope, by doing something, and more specifically, by creating something new. Think of it this way: another mp3 player won't change the world or culture much, but the ipod and the whole itunes experience, changed culture significantly because it was new. Another me-too movie won't have much affect, but the rule-changing epic can have a great effect upon the shared experience we call culture. New thoughts, new ideas can be powerful expressly because they have a tangible affect on our choices. So yes, culture is tangible.
If those are actual examples from the book then I think the author's definition of "culture" extends way beyond what is actual culture.
If culture limits what we can think, then how do we ever develop new ideas? We couldn't if we were actually limited, so I would say that assertion is flat out wrong. I would instead say he's got his ideas backwards: culture is in part the result of currently held notions.
For the latter part, that's technology and not culture. It's technology that has made things like CD players cheap enough to be a commodity, not culture. Culture only comes into play when you look at, say, the Amish who reject technology. It's not impossible by any stretch: instead it's rejected.
Culture is values, mores and notions. All the things described are tangible, but go back to my post comparing culture to baking: you can't confuse the result derived from culture for the culture itself. That's making a categorical error.
yes.For the latter part, that's technology and not culture. It's technology that has made things like CD players cheap enough to be a commodity, not culture. Culture only comes into play when you look at, say, the Amish who reject technology. It's not impossible by any stretch: instead it's rejected.to the extent that music is now something i can listen to all by myself, even when i'm in a crowd of people, and i may never meet the artists, and that affects my concept of what music is and how it relates to me, then technology has clearly affected culture. this is very different from a time period in which, if you weren't within listening distance of the artist, you didn't hear the music. and when you listened it it, it was communal whether people wanted it to be or not. there was no technology available (except whispering and distance, perhaps) to limit who was hearing the music. music was communal and relational. now music can be very personalized and even secluding.
The point is not to argue about what culture is. The author of the book defines culture as what people make of the world. He also points out that, while we speak of "the culture", it is not a uniform thing, but quite different in different parts of the world (and even in a country). I tend to agree with him that culture, as he defines it, does limit as well as enable. Another example: The culture of capitalism enables/encourages behaviors that communism does not, and those differences in behavior, accumulated over time, made a huge difference in the societies that adopted one or the other.
My wife taught in China 25 years ago. Because of the cultural differences, she had a hard time explaining ice cream (they had no refrigeration where she was). One could define that as a technology difference, but then everything at some level is merely technology, and I don't see how that helps.
History is replete with examples of folks limited by their culture. The American Revolution was driven by ideas, yet many could not accept those ideas because of their culture. Today, that is still true in some parts of the world.
Today, a woman in certain parts of the world doesn't dream of becoming a doctor because female doctors are non-existent in her world. In my culture, my daughter does dream of being a doctor. The realm of possibilities is greatly affected by culture.
More directly, ways of thinking (culture in the small) affect the possibilities we see around us. Things we may never even consider might be very possibile, but practically can be impossible for us because of our thinking. I was raised in a family that had a business. Starting a business was easily within my family culture. I've talked with many for which starting and running a business is so foreign they never consider it.
And, as I said, those things are technology, not culture. Culture can be changed by a change in technology, actually it can't avoid it. But that culture is changed by technology doesn't make technology a part of culture.
And, again, technology most definitely affects culture (it limits what is achievable) but that doesn't make technology itself a part of culture. No more than mountains affect culture for people who live on them without the mountains themselves being the culture.
Not limited in ideas, but limited by what they could and could not practice and behavior.
100 years ago I would have been treated with open hostility for being an atheist. Culture didn't stop people from having those ideas, but instead considered it a "Bad Thing" and encouraged people to openly chastise anybody who held that opinion. Or go back another 200 years and you'd find people like me being killed. Culture didn't limit ideas, just defined what is "good" and what is not.
Or about your example of friends who wouldn't know how to begin a business: that's an example of (lack of) experience and not a limit of possibilities. Or the other example of people in China not having an idea of what ice cream is due to a lack of refridgeration. It's easy to confuse that for culture when it's juts an outside influence on culture. That's the categorical error I was referring to before.
i've only made it to about page 70, but he sure has talked a lot about what he thinks culture is so far in my reading. have you finished the book, scott? i was trying to keep up with rob so we could talk about it, but i've decided to reread Resident Aliens instead. i might try to plow a little further into crouch's book before you all meet.
so you've liked the book? from things don has said, it sounds like he didn't agree with it so much.
Here are some responses that were posted on Facebook:... is everything you remember when you've forgotten everything you learned in School. -- michael
ReplyDeleteCulture is everything people learn, believe and consider real that is apart from their genetically determined physicality. Culture lives in people and is preserved in imperfect artifacts that transmit information when new people engage them. A bit of culture dies with every person, and a slightly different culture is relearned and recreated by following generations.
Culture is a living meta-creature. We may think some things are true and unchanging, but we re-create them every generation, factoring in our own needs and experience. We cannot live, even imagine very accurately, outside of our own time. Consequently, history is tricky and subjective.
Culture has limits. We are incapable of avoiding certain repetitive patterns such as war because true, awful experience dies with the experienced. Culture cannot transmit deep visceral, horrifying experience to enough new people to prevent new wars and other terrible recurring cultural patterns. -- David
I agree with David's definition. Especially given that it gets to the heart of things - culture is not static and is the derivative of everybody within the society. You are affected just as much as you affect culture, and it changes as the population changes.
ReplyDeleteone more post from a friend on FB and my response:Culture is what makes up one's identity...what does the author say? -- Colleen
ReplyDeleteEssentially the author says that culture is things. If it's not tangible, then it's not culture. Specifically he says, "While it's certainly true that culture can have effects on us that we're not aware of, culture itself is anything but invisible. We hear it, we smell it, we taste it, we touch it, and we see it."
I'd argue that we might see the results or reflections of culture. Or we might see something that helps to shape culture. But culture is not the tangible. Culture is an intangible embodiment of beliefs, philosophies and values.
I like your definition of culture, David. There are artifacts that reflect or shape culture, but they're not themselves culture. -- me
yes, I think I'd go with that.
ReplyDeleteSame here. Culture is like baking, and a cake is the reflection of baking. But a cake is not itself the act of baking.
ReplyDeleteHere's a contrarian thought: The book (which I believe is the same one I'm reading) suggests that culture is what we make of the world - both in the sense of our interpretation of the world, and in the sense that we make (create) culture in everything we do. The author argues that culture is not something that merely exists in our minds, but that it is tangible and has very tangible effects. For example, the author argues that culture limits what we can think and do, and that those limits change over the time, making new things possible that once were impossible (buying a CD player, for example), and importantly, also making things that were once possible now impossible (like buying a vacuum tube radio at the corner drug store, or easily taking a multi-day journey on horseback). The point of the book is to argue that we can only change the culture of our world, at whatever scope, by doing something, and more specifically, by creating something new. Think of it this way: another mp3 player won't change the world or culture much, but the ipod and the whole itunes experience, changed culture significantly because it was new. Another me-too movie won't have much affect, but the rule-changing epic can have a great effect upon the shared experience we call culture. New thoughts, new ideas can be powerful expressly because they have a tangible affect on our choices. So yes, culture is tangible.
ReplyDeleteIf those are actual examples from the book then I think the author's definition of "culture" extends way beyond what is actual culture.
ReplyDeleteIf culture limits what we can think, then how do we ever develop new ideas? We couldn't if we were actually limited, so I would say that assertion is flat out wrong. I would instead say he's got his ideas backwards: culture is in part the result of currently held notions.
For the latter part, that's technology and not culture. It's technology that has made things like CD players cheap enough to be a commodity, not culture. Culture only comes into play when you look at, say, the Amish who reject technology. It's not impossible by any stretch: instead it's rejected.
Culture is values, mores and notions. All the things described are tangible, but go back to my post comparing culture to baking: you can't confuse the result derived from culture for the culture itself. That's making a categorical error.
yes.For the latter part, that's technology and not culture. It's technology that has made things like CD players cheap enough to be a commodity, not culture. Culture only comes into play when you look at, say, the Amish who reject technology. It's not impossible by any stretch: instead it's rejected.to the extent that music is now something i can listen to all by myself, even when i'm in a crowd of people, and i may never meet the artists, and that affects my concept of what music is and how it relates to me, then technology has clearly affected culture. this is very different from a time period in which, if you weren't within listening distance of the artist, you didn't hear the music. and when you listened it it, it was communal whether people wanted it to be or not. there was no technology available (except whispering and distance, perhaps) to limit who was hearing the music. music was communal and relational. now music can be very personalized and even secluding.
ReplyDeleteThe point is not to argue about what culture is. The author of the book defines culture as what people make of the world. He also points out that, while we speak of "the culture", it is not a uniform thing, but quite different in different parts of the world (and even in a country). I tend to agree with him that culture, as he defines it, does limit as well as enable. Another example: The culture of capitalism enables/encourages behaviors that communism does not, and those differences in behavior, accumulated over time, made a huge difference in the societies that adopted one or the other.
ReplyDeleteMy wife taught in China 25 years ago. Because of the cultural differences, she had a hard time explaining ice cream (they had no refrigeration where she was). One could define that as a technology difference, but then everything at some level is merely technology, and I don't see how that helps.
History is replete with examples of folks limited by their culture. The American Revolution was driven by ideas, yet many could not accept those ideas because of their culture. Today, that is still true in some parts of the world.
ReplyDeleteToday, a woman in certain parts of the world doesn't dream of becoming a doctor because female doctors are non-existent in her world. In my culture, my daughter does dream of being a doctor. The realm of possibilities is greatly affected by culture.
More directly, ways of thinking (culture in the small) affect the possibilities we see around us. Things we may never even consider might be very possibile, but practically can be impossible for us because of our thinking. I was raised in a family that had a business. Starting a business was easily within my family culture. I've talked with many for which starting and running a business is so foreign they never consider it.
And, as I said, those things are technology, not culture. Culture can be changed by a change in technology, actually it can't avoid it. But that culture is changed by technology doesn't make technology a part of culture.
ReplyDeleteAnd, again, technology most definitely affects culture (it limits what is achievable) but that doesn't make technology itself a part of culture. No more than mountains affect culture for people who live on them without the mountains themselves being the culture.
ReplyDeleteNot limited in ideas, but limited by what they could and could not practice and behavior.
ReplyDelete100 years ago I would have been treated with open hostility for being an atheist. Culture didn't stop people from having those ideas, but instead considered it a "Bad Thing" and encouraged people to openly chastise anybody who held that opinion. Or go back another 200 years and you'd find people like me being killed. Culture didn't limit ideas, just defined what is "good" and what is not.
Or about your example of friends who wouldn't know how to begin a business: that's an example of (lack of) experience and not a limit of possibilities. Or the other example of people in China not having an idea of what ice cream is due to a lack of refridgeration. It's easy to confuse that for culture when it's juts an outside influence on culture. That's the categorical error I was referring to before.
i've only made it to about page 70, but he sure has talked a lot about what he thinks culture is so far in my reading. have you finished the book, scott? i was trying to keep up with rob so we could talk about it, but i've decided to reread Resident Aliens instead. i might try to plow a little further into crouch's book before you all meet.
ReplyDeleteso you've liked the book? from things don has said, it sounds like he didn't agree with it so much.