WHAT IS CULTURE? [AUDIO]
Summary
TLDRThis script delves into the multifaceted concept of culture, tracing its etymology to the Latin 'colere' and exploring its various interpretations across different societies. It contrasts the German emphasis on high art and philosophy, the American focus on popular culture and societal structures, and the UK's blend of both. Scholars' definitions range from Tylor's broad framework to the semiotic perspective of culture as symbolic communication. The script also touches on cultural materialism and psychological approaches, highlighting the necessity to identify one's perspective when studying culture.
Takeaways
- 📚 The origin of the word 'culture' comes from the Latin word 'colere', which means both 'care' and 'cultivation', reflecting the dual aspects of human interaction with nature.
- 🌱 Culture is often seen as a broad and vague concept, encompassing various interpretations and understandings, which can lead to different definitions and perspectives.
- 🏛 Two typical meanings of culture are presented: one as the mastery and domination of nature by humans, and the other as the care and conservation of nature for its own sake.
- 🎨 In Germany, culture is associated with 'justice culture' and is manifested through great works in art, philosophy, and scholarship, highlighting the importance of intellectual achievements.
- 🏙️ The United States is described as a country deeply influenced by the bourgeois revolution, with a culture defined by capitalism and the absence of traditional feudal structures.
- 🇬🇧 The UK's cultural definition is a blend of German and American perspectives, combining the importance of great works with the social and economic structures of capitalism.
- 🔍 Edward Tylor's definition of culture as a 'complex whole' including knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, and customs has been criticized for being too all-encompassing.
- 🏛️ Other scholars like Malinowski have proposed that culture consists of both material artifacts and a system of customs, offering a more balanced view of culture's tangible and intangible aspects.
- 📜 The semiotic approach to culture views it as a text to be interpreted through symbols and signs, emphasizing the need for thick descriptions to understand cultural practices fully.
- 🌱 Cultural materialism, as proposed by Harris, focuses on observable and quantifiable factors such as ecological conditions and technology to explain cultural variation and change.
- 🧠 The psychological approach to culture since the 1950s sees it as a set of rules and information that influences individual behavior, acquired through social transmission like teaching and imitation.
- 🌟 In summary, culture is widely shared among members of a social group and is characterized by the shared virtue of belonging to that group, with definitions varying across different fields of study.
Q & A
What is the origin of the word 'culture'?
-The word 'culture' originates from the Latin word 'colere', which means care or tending, and also refers to the occupation of a peasant.
What are the two typical meanings of the word 'culture' as discussed in the script?
-The two typical meanings are: 1) Culture as the human mastery and domination of nature and oneself, and 2) Culture as the act of taking care of something, which is not necessarily about dominating it but rather conserving it for its own sake.
How does Germany define culture according to the script?
-Germany defines culture as 'justice culture' or a culture that manifests itself in great works such as art, philosophy, or scholarship, often associated with educated individuals.
What is the American perspective on culture as presented in the script?
-The American perspective on culture is influenced by the bourgeois revolution and is characterized by a society arranged in a consistently bourgeois fashion, with a focus on capitalists and rich individuals.
How does the United Kingdom combine the concepts of culture from Germany and the United States?
-The UK combines the concepts by having a culture rooted in social processes, which includes the presence of a monarch and great works of art and philosophy, as well as popular British products and capitalists.
What is Edward Tylor's definition of culture?
-Edward Tylor defines culture as a complex whole that includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
What criticism does the script mention about Tylor's definition of culture?
-Critics argue that Tylor's definition is too broad and vague because it lumps psychological items like beliefs with external items like art, making it difficult to distinguish between internal and external cultural aspects.
What is the semiotic approach to defining culture?
-The semiotic approach defines culture as something historically transmitted, a pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, which requires interpretation through the investigation of symbols and signs.
How does Clifford Geertz define culture in the context of semiotics?
-Clifford Geertz defines culture as a text that needs to be interpreted through thick descriptions, which involve looking at behavioral practices and describing them in sufficient detail to trace inferential associations between observed events.
What is the concept of cultural materialism as introduced by Marvin Harris?
-Cultural materialism, according to Marvin Harris, is an empirical science that focuses on observable and quantifiable entities and events, such as ecological conditions and technologies, to explain cultural variation and change.
How does the psychological approach to culture differ from other approaches mentioned in the script?
-The psychological approach views culture in terms of widely distributed, lasting mental and public representations that affect individual behavior, acquired through teaching, imitation, and social transmission.
What does the script suggest about the necessity of identifying one's perspective when studying culture?
-The script suggests that when studying culture, it is important to identify and locate one's purpose and perspective, as the definition and understanding of culture can vary greatly depending on the field of study and the researcher's point of view.
Outlines
📚 Origins and Definitions of Culture
This paragraph delves into the etymology and multiple interpretations of the term 'culture.' It traces the word back to its Latin roots, 'colere,' meaning both 'care' and 'occupation of the peasant.' The text discusses the broad and vague nature of culture as a concept, acknowledging its complexity and the various ways it can be understood. It presents two main meanings of culture: one as a human mastery over nature and the self, and the other as a form of care and conservation. The paragraph also provides examples of how different countries, such as Germany, define culture, focusing on great works in art, philosophy, and scholarship, and introduces the notion of 'justice culture' in Germany, with notable figures like Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Habermas.
🏛 Cultural Perspectives: USA and UK
The second paragraph contrasts the cultural definitions and histories of the United States and the United Kingdom. It suggests that the U.S. is a product of the bourgeois revolution, having transitioned from feudalism to a society dominated by capitalists and the wealthy, such as tech moguls and former presidents. The paragraph illustrates this with a comparison to medieval feudalism, suggesting a modern 'corporate feudalism.' In contrast, the UK is described as having a blend of traditional feudal elements, such as the monarchy, alongside great works of art and philosophy. The paragraph also touches on the semiotic turn in the definition of culture, viewing it as a text to be interpreted through symbols and signs, with scholars like Geertz advocating for 'thick descriptions' to understand cultural practices fully.
🔍 Theories of Culture: Materialism and Psychology
This paragraph explores various scholarly definitions of culture, from Edward Tylor's comprehensive view of culture as a complex whole to more specific definitions by Herzkovitz and Needham. It also introduces the concept of cultural materialism by Harris, which focuses on observable and quantifiable material variables to explain cultural variation and change. Harris contrasts this 'etic' approach with the 'emic' approach, which attempts to understand culture from an insider's perspective. The paragraph further discusses the psychological approach to culture, where it is seen as a set of rules and information that influences behavior, acquired through social transmission. It mentions the work of Andrade, Richardson and Boyd, and Sperber in this context.
🌐 The Varied Landscape of Cultural Definitions
The final paragraph emphasizes the diversity of cultural definitions and the importance of context in understanding culture. It summarizes the various perspectives presented, including psychological, semiotic, cultural materialism, traditional, and realistic definitions based on national examples. The paragraph concludes by highlighting the necessity for researchers to identify their purpose and perspective when studying culture, as the definition and understanding of culture can vary greatly depending on the field of study and the researcher's point of view.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Culture
💡Pop Culture
💡Great Works
💡Feudalism
💡Capitalism
💡Semiotic Turn
💡Artifacts
💡Cultural Materialism
💡Ecological Conditions
💡Psychological Approach
💡Social Transmission
Highlights
The origin of the word 'culture' is from the Latin 'colere', meaning care or tending.
Culture is a complex and vague concept with various understandings due to its generality.
Two typical meanings of culture: mastery over nature and taking care of something without dominating it.
German culture is defined by great works in art, philosophy, and scholarship.
American culture is characterized by the bourgeois revolution and corporate feudalism.
British culture combines elements of feudalism, art, philosophy, and capitalist products.
Edward Tylor's definition of culture as a complex whole including knowledge, belief, and customs.
Critique of Tylor's definition for being too inclusive and mixing psychological with external items.
Herzkovitz's definition of culture as the man-made part of the environment.
Malinowski's definition combining artifacts and customs as a well-organized unity of culture.
Semiotic turn in defining culture as historically transmitted patterns of meanings in symbols.
Gertz's approach to interpreting culture through the investigation of symbols for thick descriptions.
Cultural materialism by Harris focuses on observable and quantifiable material variables to explain cultural variation.
Harris contrasts the materialistic approach with emic approaches capturing culture from within.
Psychological approach to culture since the 1950s, viewing it as implicit rules and information affecting behavior.
Sperber's definition of culture as widely distributed, lasting mental and public representations in a social group.
The necessity to identify one's purpose and perspective when studying culture due to its varied definitions.
Culture is widely shared by members of a social group, characterized by shared belonging.
Transcripts
our first lesson
is defining culture and pop culture
and trending mayon what is the origin of
the word
culture culture is from the latin word
colere
which means care coleri also means
occupation of the peasant
to tend or tending there's also an
area in which people confront nature
it means overtly general and a vague
conception of culture
it also means various possibilities of
understanding it because it's too vague
and very generic however
the word kolari is still the root word
of
the modern day word culture
there are two typical meanings
of the word culture first is
the human beings coping with nature in
the sense of its mastery
it means the domination of both external
nature
in the sense of its mastery the
domination of the natural forces
in the human being itself and the
control of civilization
over human urges and the unconscious
it means that culture is something that
is being dominated
being controlled by human beings
but we ask whose substance
is essentially the mold or molding
of reality is it
nature's or is it the human being's
domination and control
second another aspect of the concept of
culture
is to take care for something
is always not equal to dominate it
like tending nature is not equal to
suppressing or exploiting it
rather the notion of care contains the
moment
of conserving something for its own sake
like conserving nature for nature's
sake conserving the earth for the
earth's
sake the idea that what human beings
acquire
and subject to their rule should not be
radically broken
or eradicated but rather simultaneously
preserved
in its own being
but despite these traditional
definitions of culture
we still ask so what is
culture
i will give you three examples
in germany it's called
justice culture or a culture that
essentially manifests itself in what are
called
great works or the educated
culture such as art philosophy
or scholarship if you look at the list
of names here
i know that they are familiar emmanuel
can't
hegel marx nietzsche heidegger
and habermas and if you look at the
painting that is the fall of phaeton
which was painted by a popular german
artist johannes
this is how the germans define culture
they base it on great works
again such as art philosophy or
scholarship
that's one definition of culture
another definition of culture is maybe
we could not
look at the country of the united states
of america
in a slightly blunt and exaggerated
manner adorno said
america is purely a country of the
berzwa revolution
it is a country that has not only been
successfully penetrated by this
revolution
but also one in which this revolution
constitutes the precondition of its
entire society
a country whose very foundation it has
been to arrange
society in a consistently bourgeois
fashion yeah
the united states has already gone far
away
from the feudal society i mean at one
point in the history of the united
states
they were under the rule of
the uk or the british monarch
today for the u.s there is no more king
nobles and lords knights peasants
or serbs but you know they have
capitalists
and rich people such as the owner of
facebook zuckerberg
jeffrey bezos of the amazon and their
former president donald trump
if we look at how
is the united states before and today
perhaps this is the perfect example
yes there they were not under the
monarchy today but if you look at it
from the medieval feudalism they
are somehow under the corporate
feudalism
the monarchs were replaced by central
bankers
the landed gentries were replaced by big
bunkers such as jp morgan
the clergy the archbishops the priests
were replaced by
corporate elites the royal ministers
were replaced by elected officials such
as the president
or prime ministers the merchants were
somehow replaced by top bureaucrats the
vessels were
replaced by top professionals such as
doctors entertainers
lawyers and
everyone else the workers
the students the soldiers
the common americans are at that level
so this is how they define
american culture
but i'll give you a third example
in uk there is this differences between
the two conception of culture
the conception of the german culture
and the american culture because in the
uk
the it is rooted in the actual social
processes
of both countries
like they have the monarch
or the british royalties and then they
have
many great works such as mr and mrs
robert andrews painting
and of course there are british
philosophers
francis bacon john locke bertrand
russell
so it is somehow a combination of
the feudalism the great art
and philosophy and of course
the popular british
products are capitalists it's just
cadbury twinings martin
spencer burberry so somehow
yes the germans have their own
definitions of
what culture is the united states has
defined its own
definition of culture and somehow the uk
is a combination of both the american
definition and the german definition
but let's look at the scholarly
definition
of culture apart from these examples
how do scholars define culture
according to edward tylor culture is
that complex whole which includes
knowledge
belief art law morals
custom and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by man
as a member of society it's basic
it's a combination of everything
however critics said that
tyler's definition packs in too much
lumping everything psychological items
such as belief
with external items such as art
therefore scholars have focused on
certain definitions
such as herzkovitz when he defined
culture as
the man-made part of the environment
something external and need
defined it as the total shared
learned behavior of a society
or a subgroup which is something
internal
but malinowski
adopted these two definitions
and formulated his own definition
that culture is a well-organized unity
divided into two fundamental aspects
it is a body of artifacts and a system
of customs
so it's a combination of herzkovitz and
needs definition
however there was this semiotic turn
of culture's definition gears
define culture as something historically
transmitted
pattern of meanings embodied in symbols
it's like culture is like a text
something that needs to be
interpreted through the investigation of
symbols
you know semiosis look at symbols and
signs
and for gertz we have to interpret
and investigate these symbols
for kurds the interpretation involves
the production of
thick descriptions like when you analyze
a culture
you have to what look at
the behavioral practices and describe
them
in sufficient detail to trace
inferential associations
between the observed events
for example it's not sufficient to refer
to an observed ritual as marriage
like we must recognize that natural
rights have very different secular
across social groups
and these must be described like
a catholic nuptial right is different
from an
islamic and from a christian
and maybe from alumad nuptial right
and according to girts we have to
describe
these however
cultural materialists believe that
this thick description that is proposed
by gears
thwarts explanation because the factors
that
determine social practices are largely
unknown to practitioners
like for instance i'm
i'm born and raised as a catholic and
then i would analyze or look at
the nuptial rights or the marriage
rights of
an islamic community somewhere in
mindanao
which is something unknown to me
how am i able to
justifiably describe
that event that social event
therefore cultural materialists are
proposing
a different way to look at culture the
concept
of cultural materialism by harris
according to harris cultural materialism
is an empirical science this is the
foundation of the cultural
materialist way of knowing like
epistemologically cultural materialism
focuses on those entities
and events that are observable and
quantifiable and that we
when we look at culture we have to look
at
what is observable and what is
quantifiable
for harry's these factors principally
involve
material variables such as ecological
conditions
in which a group leaves like where do
they live
like where are the islamic filipinos
live
the lumad filipinos live
where do the catholics live and the
technologies
available to it anything if you think of
technologies
any any technology that you could think
of
for them cultural variation and change
so the differences in culture and the
changes
can be best explained by these factors
the ecological conditions and the
technologies
without describing the richly elaborated
practices
narratives or psychological states
harris calls the materialistic approach
ethic
and contrasts it with emic approaches
which try to capture a culture from
within so according to harry's when we
look at culture
are you looking are you looking at it
from an insider's perspective are you a
member
of that islamic community
where you're trying to observe and
record a natural right or are you an
outsider
are you a catholic who has
never witnessed or who is never a part
of that community
and is trying to study that culture
so harris's basic approach to the study
of culture is to show how
emic or native thoughts and behaviors
are
a result of material considerations
harris focuses on practices that
contribute to the basic biological
survival of those
in society such as the subsistence
practices
technology and demographic issues
but of course the definition of culture
did not end with harris's cultural
materialism
because the psychologists are seeing
culture
in a different way as well thus
we have the psychological approach to
culture since the 1950s
according to the andrade culture is
often said to consist
in rules these rules are said to be
implicit because
ordinary people can't tell you what they
are
and according to richardson and boyd
culture
is information capable of affecting
individuals behavior
that they acquire from other members of
their species
through teaching imitation and other
forms of social transmission
that we create culture
by learning by imitating and
through social transmission because we
interact with each other
that's how they define it and according
to sperber
culture in terms of widely distributed
lasting mental and public
representations
inhabiting a given social group
so if we look at the definitions of
culture
we have psychological definitions we
have semiotic definitions
we have cultural materialism definitions
we have traditional definitions the
origin of the word culture
and then we have realistic definitions
based on the countries i have given as
an example
so what does this mean this means that
when we look at culture we have to point
out we have to identify and locate
what is the our purpose or what is the
purpose of looking at culture
and where do you come from
when you look at this culture are you
exploring culture on
the psychological aspect the social
aspect
the materialism aspect the semiotic
aspect
it's up to you you have to identify it
when you become a researcher
in the future if you're interested with
culture and you wanted to deal with this
there are many things to consider and
once we embark on a particular
definition or research or exploration
we have to narrow down our
focus because we cannot just
have a one-size-fits-all definition of
culture
the definition of culture would always
vary from one field of study
to another so in summary
most definitions characterize culture as
something that
is widely shared by members of a social
group
and shared in virtue of belonging to
that group somehow
the definitions they have given you they
share something
one is this culture is shared by
members of a social group of a
particular community
of a particular group of people and
there is the shared virtue of belonging
to that particular group by these
members
of that group or community
you
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