The word
culture comes from the Latin root
colere, to inhabit, cultivate, or honor. In general it refers
to human activity; different definitions of culture reflect
different theories for understanding, or criteria for valuing, human
activity. In 1952 Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list
of over 200 different definitions of culture in their book,
Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions.
The popular use of the word culture in many
Western societies reflects the fact that these societies are
stratified. Many use the word "culture" to refer to elite
consumption goods and activities such as fine cuisine, art, and
music. Some label this as "high" culture to
distinguish it from "low" culture, meaning
non-elite consumption goods and activities.
18th and early 19th century scholars, and many people today,
often identified culture with "civilization" and opposed both to
"nature." Thus, people lacking elements of "high culture" were often
considered to be more "natural," and elements of high culture were
often critized, or defended, for repressing human nature.
By the late nineteenth century,
anthropologists argued for a broader definition of culture that
they could apply to a wide variety of societies, they began to argue
that culture is human nature, and is rooted in the
universal human capacity to classify experiences, and encode and
communicate them symbolically. Consequently, people living apart
from one another develop unique cultures, but elements of different
cultures can easily spread from one group of people to another.
Anthropologists have thus had to develop methodologically and
theoretically useful definitions of the word. Technically,
anthropologists distinguish between material culture
and symbolic culture, not only because each
reflects different kinds of human activity but because they
consitute different kinds of data that require different
methodologies. As a rule,
archeologists focus on material culture, and
cultural anthropologists focus on symbolic culture, although
ultimately both groups are interested in the relationship between
these two dimensions. Moreover, anthropologists understand "culture"
to refer not only to consumption goods, but to the general processes
by which such goods are produced and given meaning, and the social
relationships and practices in which such objects and processes are
embedded.
In the early twentieth century
anthropologists understood culture to refer not to a set of
discrete products or activities (whether material or symbolic) but
rather to underlying patterns of products and activities. Moreover,
they assumed that such patterns were clearly bounded (thus, some
people confuse "culture" for the society that has a particular
culture). In smaller societies in which people were divided by age,
gender, household, and descent group, anthropologists believed that
people more or less shared the same set of values and conventions.
In larger societies in which people were further divided by region,
race or ethnicity, and class, they believed that members of the same
society often had highly contrasting values and conventions. They
thus used the term subculture to identify the
cultures of parts of larger societies. Since subcultures reflect the
position of a segment of society vis a vis other segments and the
society as a whole, they often reveal processes of domination and
resistance.
Cultural studies developed in the late 20th century, in part
through the reintroduction of
Marxist thought in
sociology, and in part through the articulation of
sociology and other academic disciplines such as
literary criticism, in order to focus on the analysis of
subcultures in
capitalist societies. Following the non-anthropological
tradition,
cultural studies generally focus on the study of consumption
goods (such as fashion, art, and literature). Because the 18th and
19th century distinction between "high" and "low" culture is not
appropriate to the mass-produced and mass-marketed consumption goods
with which cultural studies is concerned, these scholars refer
instead to
popular culture.
Today some
anthropologists have joined the project of
cultural studies. Most, however, reject the identification of
culture with consumption goods. Furthermore, many now reject the
notion of culture as bounded, and consequently reject the notion of
subculture. Instead, they see culture as a complex web of shifting
patterns that link people in different locales, and link social
formations of different scales.
(see
Culture theory)
See also:
- "Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love and of
thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to
be less enslaved",
Andre Malraux
- "When two cultures collide is the only time when true
suffering exists",
Hermann Hesse
Other meanings of
Culture:
