NationStates Jolt Archive

I'd like to hear some other people's definition of what exactly culture is.

Please be specific.

Isn't it what makes yoghurt set?

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[/civ nerdiness]

edit: its hard to give any form of specific answer to such a vague question. especially when the subject matter is so very varied and complex - both vague and intricate, and historical yet ever-changing - itself...

+4 per turn with a Theatre
+3 per turn with a Library

[/civ nerdiness]
jokes

jokes
Oh, please, that really should've been expected.

Fine, I'll be the first serious one, but this is only because I don't want Unogal's head to explode (I always seem to be the one that has to clean that up). I think culture is a mix of generational influence, a country's heritage, and the arts and traditions that really influence how people interact.

Happy?

The stereotypes a given group celebrates and accepts as uniquely thiers, as opposed to the negative ones they deny and demonize.

well. culture, in my opinion. is the people, entertainment, history, geography, and other stuff taht influences you. everyone has a different culture--ex. i am really into japanese entertainment but my friends like watching late-night comedy, which is retarded and doesn't go anywhere else in the world for a good reason. so my culture is different. but for some reason people generalize. they take things that most people living in america are affected by, and call it "american culture" even though america has no real culture at all and is a culmination of random parts of other cultures. so yeah. i think.

jokes
an integral part of culture; humour.
that was nerd humour of course... hooray for internationalist geek/internet culture, which pervades all other cultures and boundaries - to a nice extent at least :)

What is culture; hmm, start with the tough ones...! Maybe easiest to start by saying what it does, then how it does it; that'll help define what it is?

I think it's the context for the socialisation of an individual by its parents and peers; it also offers (even defines?) the limits and opportunities for the society itself into which an individual is socialised.

As to what actually 'makes up' that culture, that varies; but it usually produces a system of moral thought; loose definitions of what it means to be an adult, a child, a man, a woman etc (roles for its people, in other words); balance of power (with a wise man, a strong man, the maternal line, the people with the most land?) between 'classes'; also helps direct art, creative thinking - ethical, political, economic, and artistic schools of thought, in other words.

A culture offers an ideology for its people to follow, ideals for them to live up to in all spheres of human endeavour.

Why do you want you know, may I ask? :)

1) The way in which a people lead their lives in a given area/society.

2) In the case of the High Arts, the result of human creativity.

Culture, according to Cultural Anthropologists(who should know...) is -

Social, negotiated(at times asymmetrically) fields of meaningful interaction based on knowledge both conscious and unconscious, that assume the agence of individuals who reproduce the fields that shape them.

Culture is a way to define people based on a few details rather than anything that uniquely applies to them.

Culture = shared, socially learned knowledge and patterns of behaviour.

Culture is a Cult that survived long enough to go mainstream.

There is also the idea of Political culture, which brings up a whole new peripheral.

Culture is making sure you consider everyone different than you to be a savage or a barbarian while at the same time they are smiling in your face and thinking the same thoughts of you. Its relative. Now go take a bath you dirty European.

Oh come on, as if Americans, Japanese, Arabs and so on don't think the same of themselves ;p

Culture is not being a redneck. According to Jeff Foxworthy, "a redneck is someone with a glorious absence of culture." Are we clear now?

Yogurt is a culture.