Culture is the similarity that people share, but it is something deeper than just the clothes they wear, the language they speak, and the technology they utilize. A professional businessman living in downtown New York City, with the most cutting-edge technology and the latest Audi vehicle, is comparable to a mechanic living in a poverty-stricken town in Mexico who is struggling to put food on the table for his family. Both of these men wish to be happy, one of them could associate that happiness with having an abundance of money, the other with spending time with his family and nurturing those relationships, but the idea of finding happiness still exists in both their lives.
The point here is that culture is universal. It is the aspirations that people share. Everyone wants to be happy, they want to be successful, and they want to be loved. The words of Matthew Arnold, in Culture and Anarchy, could not explain this idea any better when he writes how culture is, "...all the love of our neighbour, the impulses towards action, help, and beneficence, the desire for removing human error, clearing human confusion, and diminishing human misery...". He describes culture as being, to a certain extent, the inherent desires that humankind shares.
Some may say that culture is always evolving but when looked at in this respect, it is not. It is everlasting and has never changed.
Some may say that culture is always evolving but when looked at in this respect, it is not. It is everlasting and has never changed.
I believe culture to be the mixture of defining characteristics held by a group of people. You say that culture is not evolving, but in some ways I believe that it is. From the way I see it, culture is something that is passed down and learned along with discovery.
ReplyDeleteIrene,
ReplyDeleteI like how you included in your definition the drastic difference of a New York City business man versus a poor man from Mexico because the two of the, would view culture as two different things. I believe that you are right; culture is more than just what is physical and on the outside, it is also our inner desires and helping others. People might be saying that culture is indeed evolving, but I'm not sure that generations before us, our generation, or generations after us will ever truly learn from mistakes or experiences that have been gone through previously.