Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Definitions of Culture

According to Dictionary.com culture is partly defined as:
  • the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.
  • a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture.
  • the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture.
  • In anthropology, the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.

Wikipedia partly defines culture this way.

"Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance. Cultures can be "understood as systems of symbols and meanings that even their creators contest, that lack fixed boundaries, that are constantly in flux, and that interact and compete with one another."

Cultural anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity and activities to classify, codify and communicate their experiences materially and symbolically. Scholars have long viewed this capacity as a defining feature of humans (although some primatologists have identified aspects of culture such as learned tool making and use among humankind's closest relatives in the animal kingdom)."


Here's a video with a definition of culture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOwuNZqh6PU


The author of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, said this about culture:

"Culture is like the sum of special knowledge that accumulates in any large united family and is the common property of all its members. When we of the great Culture Family meet, we exchange reminiscences about Grandfather Homer, and that awful old Dr. Johnson, and Aunt Sappho, and poor Johnny Keats." --Aldous Huxley

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