Jan
12
What’s culture?
Posted by: Brian | January 12, 2009 | Comments Off on What’s culture?
Culture is a system of meaning shared between people. Culture is not inborn. People have to learn the values and norms of the society in which they are living. Sometimes we associate culture with “being cultivated” but as Williams asserts in his article, “culture is ordinary”. Culture is both high and popular culture but there is also many sub or counter cultures inside one particular culture. The culture of one particular country is not learnt only in museums but also in the street. Culture is shaped and negotiated among and between people. Keesing emphasizes this point in his article: people often want to naturalize, reify culture but culture is above all shaped by people. Culture is produced by people, that is why culture is “ordinary”. However, there is an important link between culture and power. Williams emphasizes this point speaking about the mass culture financed by advertising. The financing of culture is a burning issue and there are many other questions around this issue like: profitability or spirit independence. These two texts both emphasize the production of culture. Culture is a system of beliefs which conditions people’s behavior so it could be a way to manipulate or control people.
The two articles focus on the construction of “the other” who is excluded from the dominant culture. Most of the time, each human society defines its culture in opposition with the other ones. However, it is worth noticing that each culture appropriates elements of other cultures. Culture is a process and it is not fixed but it evolves. For instance tea is Chinese but it is viewed as a part of English culture. Western cultures define other cultures as exotic, they shape an “exotic other” but they also shape this other in their own culture, calling it “the mass”. The other is constructed as different. Williams’ article is very interesting because he speaks about the people access to culture. I agree with him and I do not think that we could assert that some people, “the mass”, are excluded from culture. It is true that it is more difficult for what we called “the mass”, the non-dominant class, to have a good education, to go to the university but they shape their own sub-culture, their own codes which is also culture. I do not think there is one dominant culture and then no other culture or people excluded from this dominant culture. I do believe in sub-cultures.
