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 +[[Image:Hollywood.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[Hollywood]] is iconic for [[popular culture]]]]
 +{| class="toccolours" style="float: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5"
 +| style="text-align: left;" |
 +"[Culture is] the best that has been said and thought in the world" --''[[Culture and Anarchy]]'' (1869) by Matthew Arnold
 +<hr>
 +"The distinction between [[high culture|"high"]] and [[low culture|"low" culture]] seems less and less meaningful." --"[[One Culture and the New Sensibility]]", [[Susan Sontag]], 1965.
 +<hr>
 +There are two contradictory views of culture. The first holds that culture is the ''very best'' (see [[perfection]]) that a society produces, the second holds that culture is ''everything'' a society produces, even ordinary and ugly phenomena. Both views are right. But at the extreme ends, both high culture and low culture are minority cultures; the combined influences and the [[cross fertilization]] of both 'high' and 'low' culture constitute [[mainstream culture]]. In this sense, mainstream culture equals ''culture''. --J. W. Geerinck
 +|}
 +[[Image:The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg.jpg|thumb|200px|''[[The Bookworm]]'' (c. 1850) by [[Carl Spitzweg]]]]
 +[[Image:The Artist Moved by the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''[[The Artist's Despair Before the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins]]'' (1778-80) by Henry Fuseli]]
[[Image:Silk Road.jpg|thumb|200px|The [[Silk Road]], [[Silk Road transmission of art|transmitter]] of [[Western culture]]]] [[Image:Silk Road.jpg|thumb|200px|The [[Silk Road]], [[Silk Road transmission of art|transmitter]] of [[Western culture]]]]
-[[Image:Western face of the Greek Parthenon.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[1872]] [[photograph]] of the western face of the [[Greek]] [[Parthenon]]]]+[[Image:Western face of the Greek Parthenon.jpg|thumb|right|200px|This page '''''{{PAGENAME}}''''' is part of the [[humanity]] series.<br><small>[[1872]] [[photograph]] of the western face of the [[Greek]] [[Parthenon]]</small>]]
[[Image:Paris at the 1900 World Fair.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Paris]] at the [[1900]] [[World's Fair]]: [[Exposition Universelle (1900)|Exposition Universelle]]]] [[Image:Paris at the 1900 World Fair.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Paris]] at the [[1900]] [[World's Fair]]: [[Exposition Universelle (1900)|Exposition Universelle]]]]
-[[Image:Toulouse Lautrec in drag.jpg |thumb|right|200px|"[[Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec]]" in the clothes of [[Moulin Rouge]] showgirl [[Jane Avril]], photo by [[Nadar]], [[1894]].]]+[[Image:Toulouse Lautrec in drag.jpg |thumb|right|200px|Illustration: ''[[Toulouse-Lautrec wearing Jane Avril's Feathered Hat and Boa]]'' (ca. 1892), photo Maurice Guibert]]
-[[Image:Eugene Atget.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''Rue de la Colonie'' ([[1900]]) - [[Eugène Atget]]]]+
{{Template}} {{Template}}
-'''culture''' is that which distinguishes life in one group from life in another group{{cn|date=August 2012}}, including language, beliefs, morality, norms, customs, institutions, and physical objects, among other qualities. +'''Culture''' ([[cultura|cultura]], lit. "[[cultivation]]") is a modern [[concept]] based on a term first used in [[classical antiquity]] by the Roman [[List of orators|orator]], [[Cicero]]: ''"cultura animi"'' (cultivation of the soul). The term ''"culture"'' appeared first in its current sense in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, to connote a process of [[plant cultivation|cultivation]] or improvement, as in [[agriculture]] or [[horticulture]]. In the 19th century, the term developed to refer first to the betterment or [[refinement]] of the individual, especially through [[education]], and then to the fulfillment of [[nationalism|national aspirations or ideals]]. In the mid-19th century, some scientists used the term "culture" to refer to a universal human capacity. For the German [[nonpositivist]] [[sociologist]] [[Georg Simmel]], culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been [[objectification|objectified]] in the course of history", see [[Sociology of culture]].
-When culture ({{lang-la|[[wikt:cultura|cultura]]}}, lit. "cultivation") first began to take its current usage by Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries (having had earlier antecedents elsewhere), it connoted a process of [[plant cultivation|cultivation]] or improvement, as in [[agriculture]] or [[horticulture]]. In the 19th century, it came to refer first to the betterment or refinement of the individual, especially through [[education]], and then to the fulfillment of [[nationalism|national aspirations or ideals]]. In the mid-19th century, some scientists used the term "culture" to refer to a universal human capacity. For the German [[nonpositivist]] [[sociologist]] [[Georg Simmel]], culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been [[objectification|objectified]] in the course of history".+In the 20th century, "culture" emerged as a central concept in [[anthropology]], encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic inheritance. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with [[symbol]]s, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively. Hoebel describes culture as an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not a result of biological inheritance.
-In the 20th century, "culture" emerged as a concept central to [[anthropology]], encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human genetics. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with [[symbol]]s, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively.+Distinctions are currently made between the physical artifacts created by a [[society]], its so-called [[material culture]] and everything else, the intangibles such as language, customs, etc. that are the main referent of the term "culture".
-A distinction is current between the physical artifacts created by a [[society]], its so-called [[material culture]] and everything else, the intangibles such as language, customs, etc. that are the main referent of the term "culture". 
-== Definition == 
-The word '''''culture''''' comes from the Latin root ''[[colere]],'' (to inhabit, to cultivate, or to 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 L. Kroeber|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''. 
-Presently, the [[UNESCO]] defines culture as the "set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group". Culture encompasses "in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs".+== Early modern discourses ==
 +=== German Romanticism ===
-Popular use of the word ''culture'' in many [[Western society|Western societies]] can reflect the stratified character of those societies. 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.+The German philosopher [[Immanuel Kant]] (1724–1804) formulated an individualist definition of "enlightenment" similar to the concept of ''[[bildung]]'': "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." He argued that this immaturity comes not from a lack of understanding, but from a lack of courage to think independently. Against this intellectual cowardice, Kant urged: ''Sapere aude'', "Dare to be wise!" In reaction to Kant, German scholars such as [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] (1744–1803) argued that human creativity, which necessarily takes unpredictable and highly diverse forms, is as important as human rationality. Moreover, Herder proposed a collective form of ''bildung''.
-== Culture as civilization ==+In 1795, the great linguist and philosopher [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]] (1767–1835) called for an anthropology that would synthesize Kant's and Herder's interests. During the [[Romanticism|Romantic era]], scholars in [[Germany]], especially those concerned with [[nationalism|nationalist]] movements—such as the nationalist struggle to create a "Germany" out of diverse principalities, and the nationalist struggles by ethnic minorities against the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]]—developed a more inclusive notion of culture as "[[world view|worldview]]." According to this school of thought, each ethnic group has a distinct worldview that is incommensurable with the worldviews of other groups. Although more inclusive than earlier views, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between "civilized" and "primitive" or "tribal" cultures.
-Many people today have an idea of "culture" that developed in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries. This notion of culture reflected inequalities within European societies, and between European powers and their colonies around the world. It identifies "culture" with "[[civilization]]" and contrasts it with "[[nature]]." According to this way of thinking, one can classify some countries and nations as more civilized than others, and some people as more cultured than others. Some cultural theorists have thus tried to eliminate popular or mass culture from the definition of culture. Theorists such as [[Matthew Arnold]] (1822-1888) or [[F. R. Leavis|the Leavisites]] regard culture as simply the result of "the best that has been thought and said in the world” Arnold contrasted mass/popular culture with social chaos or anarchy. On this account, culture links closely with social cultivation: the progressive refinement of human behavior. Arnold consistently uses the word this way: "... culture being a pursuit of our total [[perfection]] by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world".+
-In practice, ''culture'' referred to [[elite|élite]] activities such as [[museum]]-caliber [[art]] and [[European classical music|classical music]], and the word ''cultured'' described people who knew about, and took part in, these activities. These are often called "[[high culture]]", namely the culture of the [[Ruling class|ruling]] [[social group]], (Bakhtin, 1981)to distinguish them from [[mass culture]] or [[popular culture]].+In 1860, [[Adolf Bastian]] (1826–1905) argued for "the psychic unity of mankind". He proposed that a scientific comparison of all human societies would reveal that distinct worldviews consisted of the same basic elements. According to Bastian, all human societies share a set of "elementary ideas" (''Elementargedanken''); different cultures, or different "folk ideas" (''Völkergedanken''), are local modifications of the elementary ideas. This view paved the way for the modern understanding of culture. [[Franz Boas]] (1858–1942) was trained in this tradition, and he brought it with him when he left Germany for the United States.
-From the 19th century onwards, some social [[critics]] have accepted this contrast between the highest and lowest culture, but have stressed the refinement and of sophistication of high culture as corrupting and unnatural developments that obscure and distort people's essential nature. On this account, [[folk music]] (as produced by working-class people) honestly expresses a natural way of life, and classical music seems superficial and decadent. Equally, this view often portrays [[Indigenous peoples]] as '[[noble savage]]s' living [[authenticity (philosophy)|authentic]] unblemished lives, uncomplicated and uncorrupted by the highly-stratified [[capitalism|capitalist]] systems of [[Western culture|the West]].+=== English Romanticism ===
-Today most social scientists reject the [[monadic]] conception of culture, and the opposition of culture to [[nature (innate)|nature]]. They recognize non-[[élite]]s as just as cultured as élites (and non-Westerners as just as civilized) -- simply regarding them as just cultured in a different way. Thus social observers contrast the ''"high" culture'' of élites to [[Popular culture|''"popular" or pop culture'']], meaning goods and activities produced for, and consumed by the [[proletariat|masses]]. (Note that some classifications relegate both [[high culture|high]] and [[low culture]]s to the status of [[subculture]]s.)+In the 19th century, humanists such as [[English people|English]] poet and essayist [[Matthew Arnold]] (1822–1888) used the word "culture" to refer to an ideal of individual human refinement, of "the best that has been thought and said in the world." (''[[Culture and Anarchy]]'') This concept of culture is comparable to the [[German people|German]] concept of ''[[bildung]]'': "...culture being a pursuit of our total [[perfection]] by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world."
 + 
 +In practice, ''culture'' referred to an [[elite|élite]] ideal and was associated with such activities as [[art]], [[European classical music|classical music]], and [[haute cuisine]]. As these forms were associated with urban life, "culture" was identified with "civilization" (from lat. ''[[civitas]]'', city). Another facet of the [[Romanticism|Romantic]] movement was an interest in [[folklore]], which led to identifying a "culture" among non-elites. This distinction is often characterized as that between "[[high culture]]", namely that of the [[Ruling class|ruling]] [[social group]], and "[[low culture]]." In other words, the idea of "culture" that developed in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries reflected inequalities within European societies.
 + 
 +Matthew Arnold contrasted "culture" with "anarchy;" other Europeans, following [[philosophy|philosophers]] [[Thomas Hobbes]] and [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], contrasted "culture" with "the state of nature". According to Hobbes and Rousseau, the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] who were being conquered by Europeans from the 16th centuries on were living in a state of nature; this opposition was expressed through the contrast between "civilized" and "uncivilized." According to this way of thinking, one could classify some countries and nations as more civilized than others and some people as more cultured than others. This contrast led to [[Herbert Spencer]]'s theory of [[Social Darwinism]] and [[Lewis Henry Morgan]]'s theory of [[cultural evolution]]. Just as some critics have argued that the distinction between high and low cultures is really an expression of the conflict between European elites and non-elites, some critics have argued that the distinction between civilized and uncivilized people is really an expression of the conflict between European colonial powers and their colonial subjects.
 + 
 +Other 19th century critics, following Rousseau, have accepted this differentiation between higher and lower culture, but have seen the refinement and [[sophistication]] of high culture as corrupting and unnatural developments that obscure and distort people's essential nature.<!-- i.e. American Transcendentalism?? --> These critics considered [[folk music]] (as produced by "the folk", i.e., rural, illiterate, peasants) to honestly express a natural way of life, while classical music seemed superficial and decadent. Equally, this view often portrayed [[indigenous peoples]] as "[[noble savage]]s" living [[authenticity (philosophy)|authentic]] and unblemished lives, uncomplicated and uncorrupted by the highly stratified [[capitalism|capitalist]] systems of [[Western culture|the West]].
 + 
 +In 1870 [[Edward Tylor]] (1832–1917) applied these ideas of higher versus lower culture to propose a theory of the [[evolution of religion]]. According to this theory, religion evolves from more polytheistic to more monotheistic forms. In the process, he redefined culture as a diverse set of activities characteristic of all human societies. This view paved the way for the modern understanding of culture.
 +=== Cultural studies ===
 +In the United Kingdom, sociologists and other scholars influenced by [[Marxism]], such as [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]] and [[Raymond Williams]], developed [[cultural studies]]. Following nineteenth-century Romantics, they identified "culture" with consumption goods and leisure activities (such as art, music, film, food, sports, and clothing). Nevertheless, they understood patterns of consumption and leisure to be determined by relations of production, which led them to focus on class relations and the organization of production. In the United States, "Cultural Studies" focuses largely on the study of [[popular culture]], that is, the social meanings of mass-produced consumer and leisure goods. The term was coined by [[Richard Hoggart]] in 1964 when he founded the Birmingham [[Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies]] or CCCS. It has since become strongly associated with [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]], who succeeded Hoggart as Director. Cultural studies in this sense, then, can be viewed as a limited concentration scoped on the intricacies of consumerism, which belongs to a wider culture sometimes referred to as "Western Civilization," or "Globalism."
 + 
 +From the 1970s onward, Stuart Hall's pioneering work, along with his colleagues [[Paul Willis (cultural theorist)|Paul Willis]], [[Dick Hebdige]], Tony Jefferson, and [[Angela McRobbie]], created an international intellectual movement. As the field developed it began to combine [[political economy]], [[communication]], [[sociology]], [[social theory]], [[literary theory]], [[Media influence|media theory]], [[film theory|film/video studies]], [[cultural anthropology]], [[philosophy]], [[museum studies]] and [[art history]] to study cultural phenomena or cultural texts. In this field researchers often concentrate on how particular phenomena relate to matters of [[ideology]], [[nationality]], [[ethnicity]], [[social class]], and/or [[gender]]. Cultural studies is concerned with the [[Value (personal and cultural)|meaning]] and practices of everyday life. These practices comprise the ways people do particular things (such as watching television, or eating out) in a given culture. This field studies the meanings and uses people attribute to various objects and practices. Specifically, culture involves those meanings and practices held independently of reason. Watching television in order to view a public perspective on a historical event should not be thought of as culture, unless referring to the medium of television itself, which may have been selected culturally; however, schoolchildren watching television after school with their friends in order to "fit in" certainly qualifies, since there is no grounded reason for one's participation in this practice. Recently, as [[capitalism]] has spread throughout the world (a process called [[globalization]]), cultural studies has begun to analyse local and global forms of resistance to Western hegemony.
 + 
 +In the context of cultural studies, the idea of a ''text'' not only includes [[written language]], but also [[film]]s, [[photography|photographs]], [[fashion]] or [[hairstyle]]s: the texts of cultural studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of culture. Similarly, the discipline widens the concept of "culture". "Culture" for a cultural studies researcher not only includes traditional [[high culture]] (the culture of [[Ruling class|ruling]] [[social group]]s) and [[popular culture]], but also everyday meanings and practices. The last two, in fact, have become the main focus of cultural studies. A further and recent approach is [[comparative cultural studies]], based on the discipline of [[comparative literature]] and cultural studies.
 + 
 +Scholars in the [[United Kingdom]] and the [[United States]] developed somewhat different versions of cultural studies after the field's inception in the late 1970s. The British version of cultural studies was developed in the 1950s and 1960s mainly under the influence first of Richard Hoggart, [[E. P. Thompson]], and [[Raymond Williams]], and later Stuart Hall and others at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the [[University of Birmingham]]. This included overtly political, [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] views, and criticisms of [[popular culture]] as 'capitalist' [[mass culture]]; it absorbed some of the ideas of the [[Frankfurt School]] critique of the "[[culture industry]]" (i.e. mass culture). This emerges in the writings of early British cultural-studies scholars and their influences: see the work of (for example) Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Paul Willis, and [[Paul Gilroy]].
 + 
 +Whereas in the United States Lindlof & Taylor said, "Cultural studies [were] grounded in a pragmatic, liberal-pluralist tradition". The American version of cultural studies initially concerned itself more with understanding the subjective and appropriative side of audience reactions to, and uses of, [[mass culture]]; for example, American cultural-studies advocates wrote about the liberatory aspects of [[fandom]]. The distinction between American and British strands, however, has faded. Some researchers, especially in early British cultural studies, apply a [[Marxist]] model to the field. This strain of thinking has some influence from the [[Frankfurt School]], but especially from the [[structuralism|structuralist]] Marxism of [[Louis Althusser]] and others. The main focus of an orthodox Marxist approach concentrates on the ''production'' of [[Value (personal and cultural)|meaning]]. This model assumes a mass production of culture and identifies power as residing with those producing [[cultural artifact]]s. In a Marxist view, those who control the [[means of production]] (the economic ''base'') essentially control a culture. Other approaches to cultural studies, such as [[feminist]] cultural studies and later American developments of the field, distance themselves from this view. They criticize the Marxist assumption of a single, dominant meaning, shared by all, for any cultural product. The non-Marxist approaches suggest that different ways of consuming cultural artifacts affect the meaning of the product. This view is best exemplified by the book ''Doing Cultural Studies: The Case of the Sony Walkman'' (by Paul du Gay et al.), which seeks to challenge the notion that those who produce commodities control the meanings that people attribute to them. Feminist cultural analyst, theorist and art historian [[Griselda Pollock]] contributed to cultural studies from viewpoints of [[art history]] and [[psychoanalysis]]. The writer [[Julia Kristeva]] is among influential voices in the turn of the century, contributing to cultural studies from the field of art and psychoanalytical [[French feminism]].
== Ambiguity of the word culture == == Ambiguity of the word culture ==
Line 34: Line 59:
== Some dichotomies == == Some dichotomies ==
-*[[high culture]] vs [[nobrow|nobrow culture]] vs [[low|low culture]]+*[[high culture]] vs [[low culture]]
*[[cultural optimism]] vs [[cultural pessimism]] *[[cultural optimism]] vs [[cultural pessimism]]
-*[[popular]] and [[mainstream]] vs [[subculture]] and [[underground]]+*[[popular]] and [[mainstream]] vs [[subculture]] and [[underground culture|underground]]
*[[genre fiction]] vs [[literary fiction]] *[[genre fiction]] vs [[literary fiction]]
Line 52: Line 77:
*"[[body genre]]s" vs "[[mind genre]]s" *"[[body genre]]s" vs "[[mind genre]]s"
- +== Cultural history ==
- +:''[[cultural history]]''
-== Bibliography ==+* ''[[Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century]]'' (1989) by Greil Marcus
-* ''[[Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century]]''+* ''[[Sexual Personae]]'' (1990) by Camille Paglia
-* ''[[Sexual Personae]]''+
== See also == == See also ==
*[[Animal culture]] *[[Animal culture]]
Line 72: Line 96:
*[[Sociology of culture]] *[[Sociology of culture]]
*[[Sociocultural evolution]] *[[Sociocultural evolution]]
 +*[[There are two contradictory views of culture]]
 +* ''[[The Two Cultures]]'', an essay by C. P. Snow
*[[Urban culture]] *[[Urban culture]]
 +*[[Visual culture]]
{{GFDL}} {{GFDL}}

Revision as of 21:23, 25 November 2014

Hollywood is iconic for popular culture

"[Culture is] the best that has been said and thought in the world" --Culture and Anarchy (1869) by Matthew Arnold


"The distinction between "high" and "low" culture seems less and less meaningful." --"One Culture and the New Sensibility", Susan Sontag, 1965.


There are two contradictory views of culture. The first holds that culture is the very best (see perfection) that a society produces, the second holds that culture is everything a society produces, even ordinary and ugly phenomena. Both views are right. But at the extreme ends, both high culture and low culture are minority cultures; the combined influences and the cross fertilization of both 'high' and 'low' culture constitute mainstream culture. In this sense, mainstream culture equals culture. --J. W. Geerinck

This page Culture is part of the humanity series.1872 photograph of the western face of the Greek Parthenon
Enlarge
This page Culture is part of the humanity series.
1872 photograph of the western face of the Greek Parthenon
Illustration: Toulouse-Lautrec wearing Jane Avril's Feathered Hat and Boa (ca. 1892), photo Maurice Guibert
Enlarge
Illustration: Toulouse-Lautrec wearing Jane Avril's Feathered Hat and Boa (ca. 1892), photo Maurice Guibert

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Culture (cultura, lit. "cultivation") is a modern concept based on a term first used in classical antiquity by the Roman orator, Cicero: "cultura animi" (cultivation of the soul). The term "culture" appeared first in its current sense in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, to connote a process of cultivation or improvement, as in agriculture or horticulture. In the 19th century, the term developed to refer first to the betterment or refinement of the individual, especially through education, and then to the fulfillment of national aspirations or ideals. In the mid-19th century, some scientists used the term "culture" to refer to a universal human capacity. For the German nonpositivist sociologist Georg Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history", see Sociology of culture.

In the 20th century, "culture" emerged as a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic inheritance. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively. Hoebel describes culture as an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not a result of biological inheritance.

Distinctions are currently made between the physical artifacts created by a society, its so-called material culture and everything else, the intangibles such as language, customs, etc. that are the main referent of the term "culture".


Contents

Early modern discourses

German Romanticism

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) formulated an individualist definition of "enlightenment" similar to the concept of bildung: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." He argued that this immaturity comes not from a lack of understanding, but from a lack of courage to think independently. Against this intellectual cowardice, Kant urged: Sapere aude, "Dare to be wise!" In reaction to Kant, German scholars such as Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) argued that human creativity, which necessarily takes unpredictable and highly diverse forms, is as important as human rationality. Moreover, Herder proposed a collective form of bildung.

In 1795, the great linguist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) called for an anthropology that would synthesize Kant's and Herder's interests. During the Romantic era, scholars in Germany, especially those concerned with nationalist movements—such as the nationalist struggle to create a "Germany" out of diverse principalities, and the nationalist struggles by ethnic minorities against the Austro-Hungarian Empire—developed a more inclusive notion of culture as "worldview." According to this school of thought, each ethnic group has a distinct worldview that is incommensurable with the worldviews of other groups. Although more inclusive than earlier views, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between "civilized" and "primitive" or "tribal" cultures.

In 1860, Adolf Bastian (1826–1905) argued for "the psychic unity of mankind". He proposed that a scientific comparison of all human societies would reveal that distinct worldviews consisted of the same basic elements. According to Bastian, all human societies share a set of "elementary ideas" (Elementargedanken); different cultures, or different "folk ideas" (Völkergedanken), are local modifications of the elementary ideas. This view paved the way for the modern understanding of culture. Franz Boas (1858–1942) was trained in this tradition, and he brought it with him when he left Germany for the United States.

English Romanticism

In the 19th century, humanists such as English poet and essayist Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) used the word "culture" to refer to an ideal of individual human refinement, of "the best that has been thought and said in the world." (Culture and Anarchy) This concept of culture is comparable to the German concept of bildung: "...culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world."

In practice, culture referred to an élite ideal and was associated with such activities as art, classical music, and haute cuisine. As these forms were associated with urban life, "culture" was identified with "civilization" (from lat. civitas, city). Another facet of the Romantic movement was an interest in folklore, which led to identifying a "culture" among non-elites. This distinction is often characterized as that between "high culture", namely that of the ruling social group, and "low culture." In other words, the idea of "culture" that developed in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries reflected inequalities within European societies.

Matthew Arnold contrasted "culture" with "anarchy;" other Europeans, following philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, contrasted "culture" with "the state of nature". According to Hobbes and Rousseau, the Native Americans who were being conquered by Europeans from the 16th centuries on were living in a state of nature; this opposition was expressed through the contrast between "civilized" and "uncivilized." According to this way of thinking, one could classify some countries and nations as more civilized than others and some people as more cultured than others. This contrast led to Herbert Spencer's theory of Social Darwinism and Lewis Henry Morgan's theory of cultural evolution. Just as some critics have argued that the distinction between high and low cultures is really an expression of the conflict between European elites and non-elites, some critics have argued that the distinction between civilized and uncivilized people is really an expression of the conflict between European colonial powers and their colonial subjects.

Other 19th century critics, following Rousseau, have accepted this differentiation between higher and lower culture, but have seen the refinement and sophistication of high culture as corrupting and unnatural developments that obscure and distort people's essential nature. These critics considered folk music (as produced by "the folk", i.e., rural, illiterate, peasants) to honestly express a natural way of life, while classical music seemed superficial and decadent. Equally, this view often portrayed indigenous peoples as "noble savages" living authentic and unblemished lives, uncomplicated and uncorrupted by the highly stratified capitalist systems of the West.

In 1870 Edward Tylor (1832–1917) applied these ideas of higher versus lower culture to propose a theory of the evolution of religion. According to this theory, religion evolves from more polytheistic to more monotheistic forms. In the process, he redefined culture as a diverse set of activities characteristic of all human societies. This view paved the way for the modern understanding of culture.

Cultural studies

In the United Kingdom, sociologists and other scholars influenced by Marxism, such as Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams, developed cultural studies. Following nineteenth-century Romantics, they identified "culture" with consumption goods and leisure activities (such as art, music, film, food, sports, and clothing). Nevertheless, they understood patterns of consumption and leisure to be determined by relations of production, which led them to focus on class relations and the organization of production. In the United States, "Cultural Studies" focuses largely on the study of popular culture, that is, the social meanings of mass-produced consumer and leisure goods. The term was coined by Richard Hoggart in 1964 when he founded the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies or CCCS. It has since become strongly associated with Stuart Hall, who succeeded Hoggart as Director. Cultural studies in this sense, then, can be viewed as a limited concentration scoped on the intricacies of consumerism, which belongs to a wider culture sometimes referred to as "Western Civilization," or "Globalism."

From the 1970s onward, Stuart Hall's pioneering work, along with his colleagues Paul Willis, Dick Hebdige, Tony Jefferson, and Angela McRobbie, created an international intellectual movement. As the field developed it began to combine political economy, communication, sociology, social theory, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy, museum studies and art history to study cultural phenomena or cultural texts. In this field researchers often concentrate on how particular phenomena relate to matters of ideology, nationality, ethnicity, social class, and/or gender. Cultural studies is concerned with the meaning and practices of everyday life. These practices comprise the ways people do particular things (such as watching television, or eating out) in a given culture. This field studies the meanings and uses people attribute to various objects and practices. Specifically, culture involves those meanings and practices held independently of reason. Watching television in order to view a public perspective on a historical event should not be thought of as culture, unless referring to the medium of television itself, which may have been selected culturally; however, schoolchildren watching television after school with their friends in order to "fit in" certainly qualifies, since there is no grounded reason for one's participation in this practice. Recently, as capitalism has spread throughout the world (a process called globalization), cultural studies has begun to analyse local and global forms of resistance to Western hegemony.

In the context of cultural studies, the idea of a text not only includes written language, but also films, photographs, fashion or hairstyles: the texts of cultural studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of culture. Similarly, the discipline widens the concept of "culture". "Culture" for a cultural studies researcher not only includes traditional high culture (the culture of ruling social groups) and popular culture, but also everyday meanings and practices. The last two, in fact, have become the main focus of cultural studies. A further and recent approach is comparative cultural studies, based on the discipline of comparative literature and cultural studies.

Scholars in the United Kingdom and the United States developed somewhat different versions of cultural studies after the field's inception in the late 1970s. The British version of cultural studies was developed in the 1950s and 1960s mainly under the influence first of Richard Hoggart, E. P. Thompson, and Raymond Williams, and later Stuart Hall and others at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. This included overtly political, left-wing views, and criticisms of popular culture as 'capitalist' mass culture; it absorbed some of the ideas of the Frankfurt School critique of the "culture industry" (i.e. mass culture). This emerges in the writings of early British cultural-studies scholars and their influences: see the work of (for example) Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Paul Willis, and Paul Gilroy.

Whereas in the United States Lindlof & Taylor said, "Cultural studies [were] grounded in a pragmatic, liberal-pluralist tradition". The American version of cultural studies initially concerned itself more with understanding the subjective and appropriative side of audience reactions to, and uses of, mass culture; for example, American cultural-studies advocates wrote about the liberatory aspects of fandom. The distinction between American and British strands, however, has faded. Some researchers, especially in early British cultural studies, apply a Marxist model to the field. This strain of thinking has some influence from the Frankfurt School, but especially from the structuralist Marxism of Louis Althusser and others. The main focus of an orthodox Marxist approach concentrates on the production of meaning. This model assumes a mass production of culture and identifies power as residing with those producing cultural artifacts. In a Marxist view, those who control the means of production (the economic base) essentially control a culture. Other approaches to cultural studies, such as feminist cultural studies and later American developments of the field, distance themselves from this view. They criticize the Marxist assumption of a single, dominant meaning, shared by all, for any cultural product. The non-Marxist approaches suggest that different ways of consuming cultural artifacts affect the meaning of the product. This view is best exemplified by the book Doing Cultural Studies: The Case of the Sony Walkman (by Paul du Gay et al.), which seeks to challenge the notion that those who produce commodities control the meanings that people attribute to them. Feminist cultural analyst, theorist and art historian Griselda Pollock contributed to cultural studies from viewpoints of art history and psychoanalysis. The writer Julia Kristeva is among influential voices in the turn of the century, contributing to cultural studies from the field of art and psychoanalytical French feminism.

Ambiguity of the word culture

[t]he fatal ambiguity of the word "culture" itself--which simultaneously has an organic, biological resonance (growing plants, germ cultures etc) yet also signifies the antithesis of earthy natural-ness (the civilized, the non-instinctual, the artificial, the sublimated). --Simon Reynolds, Springerin, 2001

Some dichotomies

Cultural history

cultural history

See also




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