Culture is ordinary, in the society and individual mind. Williams summarized the nature of culture: both traditional and creative; it’s both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. Culture has two senses: a whole way of life; the arts and learning, and Williams insisted on the significance of their conjunctions.

Williams raised his arguments by objecting to Marxists and Leavis：The Marxists indicated that culture is class-dominated, it is restricted to a small class and being passively accepted by the masses. Williams gave strong backing to working people, he argued that the culture in the great working-class political and industrial institutions is the best basis for English society. Leavis thought through education, we can maintain the finest individual values to resist the new vulgarity brought by Industrial Revolution. However, Williams emphasized that Industrial Revolution changed certain social and political modes and values, we can’t deny its satisfactory results and its influence on the working people.

The art and learning should be available to everyone in the society, everyone can have an interest in learning or the arts, culture is the product of a man’s whole committed personal and social experience. At the same time, Williams distinguished the ordinary people and the masses (mob, sometimes ignorant, low in taste and habit). The way of saying of “popular culture” replaces “mass culture”.

The content conveyed by the mass media is always the representation of culture? Williams held a rejection on this opinion. What influence will it bring to the public? The equation between popular education and commercial culture is always changeable in different historical periods, it’s not a true guide to the present state of mind.

Actually, Williams wants to establish “a democratic common culture”, a working- class culture, which contains the fundamental and common social process and practical significance, it stands for the interest and social status of working class. The hierarchy of culture has been removed and the distance between culture and people’s life has been reduced, the sphere of culture will be enlarged, culture represents the various elements of the entire lifestyle. Values and creativity of the ordinary people will be acknowledged, not only those so-called cultivated people or scholars. Then Williams drew a conclusion that the culture is expanding, “common culture” reflects the diversification of culture, the pluralism.

I remember a phrase: “A child should be exposed to culture at an early age.” From a traditional standpoint, it means children should read earlier, get the hang of art, go to museums or a concert as early as possible. Does this phrase still make sense to Williams? First, educational opportunity can be taken equally by everyone in every social stratum; if culture is ordinary, We can find culture everywhere, a child will notice and deliberate every detail in his living environment and his way of life, culture is indispensable to his everyday life, or we can say, culture is life, it’s not an independent art or learning, then children can experience its modes of change, there doesn’t exist anymore the way of saying: ”Children should be exposed to culture as early as possible.” Bring the children to a concert or a museum at an early age can be seemed as just a part of culture infiltration.

The definition of “culture” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary has different classifications, the first one is “way of life”, then “art/ music/ literature”, then “beliefs/ attitudes”. I’ve been thinking about a question about culture and civilization, to distinguish their literal notion, I looked up “civilization”–a society, its culture and its way of life during a particular period of time or in a particular part of the world. Does this mean the sphere of civilization is larger than culture? They both need specific social circumstance to develop, to change, since the definition of culture has changed, will it bring any literal or practical changes to civilization?