Clifford Geertz, Emphasizing Interpretation

From The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973

Clifford Geertz (1926-present) is best known for his

ethnographic studies of Javanese culture (Java is an
Indonesian island south of Borneo) and for his writings
about the interpretation of culture. The most influential
aspect of Geertz's work has been his emphasis on the
importance of the symbolic -- of systems of meaning -- as
it relates to culture, cultural change, and the study of
culture; notice this emphasis as you read the summaries
and excerpts below. Bodley and Geertz can both
compared here with Matthew Arnold for for perspective
on the great transition which has taken place regarding
the concept "culture" in Western thought over the past
century; Raymond Williams's perspective might be taken
as a middle ground in this transition.

In attempting to lay out the various meanings attached to the word "culture," Clifford
Geertz refers to the important anthropological work, Clyde Kluckhohn's Mirror for Man,
in which the following meanings are suggested:

1. "the total way of life of a people"

"the social legacy the individual acquires from his
2.
group"
3. "a way of thinking, feeling, and believing"
4. "an abstraction from behavior"
a theory on the part of the anthropologist about the way
5.
in which a group of people in fact behave
6. a "storehouse of pooled learning"
"a set of standardized orientations to recurrent
7.
problems"
8. "learned behavior"
9. a mechanism for the normative regulation of behavior
"a set of techniques for adjusting both to the external
10.
environment and to other men"
11. "a precipitate of history"
 12. a behavioral map, sieve, or matrix

"The concept of culture I espouse. . . is essentially a semiotic one. Believing, with Max
Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I
take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental
science in search of law but an interpretative one in search of meaning. It is explication I
am after. . . . (pp. 4-5)"

Geertz compares the methods of an anthropologist analyzing culture to those of a literary

critic analyzing a text: "sorting out the structures of signification. . . and determining their
social ground and import. . . . Doing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of
'construct a reading of') a manuscript. . . ."

Once human behavior is seen as . . . symbolic action--action which, like phonation in

speech, pigment in painting, line in writing, or sonance in music, signifies--the question
as to whether culture is patterned conduct or a frame of mind, or even the two somehow
mixed together, loses sense. The thing to ask [of actions] is what their import is" (pp. 9-
10).

Geertz argues that culture is "public because meaning is"--systems of meaning are
necessarily the collective property of a group. When we say we do not understand the
actions of people from a culture other than our own, we are acknowledging our "lack of
familiarity with the imaginative universe within which their acts are signs" (pp. 12-13).

normative

A "norm" is "a standard, model, or pattern regarded as typical" (American Heritage

English Dictionary). A process is said to be "normative" when it results in bringing
atypical patterns in line with typical ones. Socialization, for example, is often a normative
process, as it involves bringing social pressures to bear on behavior that is considered
unusual.

precipitate

This word has a variety of meanings. In the phrase "a precipate of history" (from Geertz's
summary of Kluckhohn), the word is being used to make an analogy betweeen the
chemical process by which a solid substance is created in a liquid solution (after which it
falls to the bottom of the test tube) and the process by which culture (analogous to the
solid) is formed within and from the material of history (the liquid). "Precipitation," a
noun, is most commonly used to refer to rain- or snow-fall; "to precipitate," a verb,
means to cause something to occur.

system of meaning

A system of meaning is a set of relationships between one group of variables (like words,
behaviors, physical symbols, etc.) and the meanings which are attached to them.
Relationships in meaning systems are arbitrary: there is no particular reason why the
word "cat" should refer to a furry four-legged animal, for example. However, when a
society agrees upon certain relationships between a certain class of variable (like words
or behaviors) and their meanings, a system of meaning is established. Language is
perhaps the most formal of human meaning systems. At the same time, we all know what
it means to wink at someone or to give someone "the finger"; this suggests that human
behavior, like language, can be a part of a complex and established system of meaning.

ethnography

Ethnography is a method of studying and learning about a person or group of people.

Typically, ethnography involves the study of a small group of subjects in their own
environment. Rather than looking at a small set of variables and a large number of
subjects ("the big picture"), the ethnographer attempts to get a detailed understanding of
the circumstances of the few subjects being studied. Ethnographic accounts, then, are
both descriptive and interpretive; descriptive, because detail is so crucial, and
interpretive, because the ethnographer must determine the significance of what she
observes without gathering broad, statistical information. Clifford Geertz, whose thoughts
about culture are excerpted in the Other Important Definitions of Culture, is famous for
coining the term "thick description" in discussing the methodology of the ethnographer.

Some excellent examples of ethnographic research in anthropology can be found at:

The Ethnographics Gallery at the University of Kent at Canterbury (try the CSAC
Research Projects section, which contains a bevy of electronically-published
ethnographic studies)

semiotics

Semiotics is the study of how signs and symbols relate to the things they represent. As
becomes evident in discussions about culture, the meaning of a sign or symbol is not
fixed; it varies over time, in different contexts, and by the intent of the speaker/writer.
The relationship between a symbol or sign and what it represents can also be contested --
different individuals or groups of individuals might have different views on the content of
a specific sign/signified relationship (as is the case with the word "culture"). Someone
interested in this process of meaning-making -- a semiotician -- might study the process
by which contested meanings arise and are resolved. (A more familiar word, semantics,
has very similar meanings.)

sign

A sign is a variable -- like a word, for example -- which stands for another variable or
meaning. The word "door" is a sign; the actual physical object indicated by the word
"door" is called the "signified." The difference between a sign and a symbol is that a sign
and its signified enjoy a more specific relationship than that between a symbol and what
it symbolizes. For example, the word door stands for a more narrow range of meanings
than a symbol like the clock tower atop Bryan Hall, which, as a symbol of the university,
can be called upon to have a much broader range of associations.

symbol
Anything that is taken to mean something beyond what it is can be
said to be symbolic. The clock tower atop WSU's Bryan Hall, for
example, is often taken as a symbol for the university; when it
appears on a postcard or a sweatshirt, the picture represents --
symbolizes -- the entire university. The sound or written appearance
of a word is always a symbol when someone hears or reads it and
comprehends its meaning. On a larger cultural scale, a storm can
symbolize troubled times in some cultures whereas in other cultures
it can symbolize the blessing of the gods. For comparison, see
"sign."
 Visual Anthropology at Kent
"Anthropology as Multimedia"
Introduction
Visual Anthropology is
famously ambiguous: it
can, has and is taken to
refer to EITHER the
anthropological study of
visual material OR to the
use of visual material in
undertaking
anthropological research
(or some combination of
both of these). Visual
Anthropology at Kent
stands resolutely on the
fence with regard to these
organising principles! We
are interested in both
approaches and try to use
the idea of digital
multimedia (which we
have pioneered as a field
technique) as a starting
point for the study and
development of visual
anthropological
approaches.
Some of the implications of this are outlined in a background paper on multimedia and
anthropology by Mike Fischer and David Zeitlyn

Studying Visual Anthropology at Kent

 Our one year masters programme in Visual Anthropology in which students work
with (and to consider) photography, video and multimedia- this is further
discussed on another page.
 Visual Anthropology as an undergraduate - our undergraduate programs include a
theoetical course which leads to students producing (in small teams) either a short
video or a photographic project.

Archives and Teaching material

Howard Becker 1974. Photography and Sociology. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual
Communication 1, 3-26 Full text online with permission
Field-photos from our archives

Some Mambila examples:

 The field photos of Farnham Rehfisch (Nigeria 1953/4)
 The Gutowski Photographs (Missionaries in Nigieria in 1970s)

Digital Video

Making tradition in the Cook Islands

Smelting iron - original film from the Powell Cotton Museum
A Day in the Life... Somié Village, Province de l'Adamaoua, Cameroon
A series of video clips that were taken at approximately one hour intervals
throughout the period 6am-7pm of Wednesday 21 April 1999.

David Zeitlyn 11 September 2003

John H. Bodley, An Anthropological Perspective

From Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States, and the Global System, 1994

John H. Bodley is Chair of the Department of

Anthropology at Washington State University. In this
excerpt from his textbook on cultural anthropology,
Bodley discusses the history of anthropological
 conceptions of culture. Bodley's own definition, similar in
many ways to the baseline definition offered here, is a
good example of contemporary anthropological views
about culture; that is, it is descriptive, inclusive, and
relativistic. Compare Bodley's definition with that of
Matthew Arnold for perspective on the great transition
which has taken place regarding the concept "culture" in
Western thought over the past century; Raymond
Williams's perspective might be taken as a middle ground
in this transition. An interesting comparison can be made,
too, between anthropological arguments (like Bodley's
and Geertz's) and the voices in the U.S. culture debate.

I use the term culture to refer collectively to a society and its way of life or in reference to
human culture as a whole.

The Modern technical definition of culture, as socially patterned human thought and
behavior, was originally proposed by the nineteenth-century British anthropologist,
Edward Tylor. This definition is an open-ended list, which has been extended
considerably since Tylor first proposed it. Some researchers have attempted to create
exhaustive universal lists of the content of culture, usually as guides for further research.
Others have listed and mapped all the culture traits of particular geographic areas.

The first inventory of cultural categories was undertaken in 1872 by a committee of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, which was assisted by Tylor. The
committee prepared an anthropological field manual that listed seventy-six culture topics,
in no particular order, including such diverse items as cannibalism and language. The
most exhaustive such list is the "Outline of Cultural Materials," first published in 1938
and still used as a guide for cataloging great masses of worldwide cultural data for cross-
cultural surveys. Like the table of contents of a giant encyclopedia, the outline lists 79
major divisions and 637 subdivisions. For example, "Food Quest" is a major division
with such subdivisions as collecting, hunting, and fishing.

There has been considerable theoretical debate by anthropologists since Tylor over the
most useful attributes that a technical concept of culture should stress. For example, in
1952 Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, American anthropologists, published a list of
160 different definitions of culture. Although simplified in the brief table below, their list
indicates the diversity of the anthropological concept of culture. The specific culture
concept that particular anthropologists work with is an important matter because it may
influence the research problems they investigate, their methods and interpretations, and
the positions they take on public policy issues.
 TABLE: Diverse
Definitions of Culture:
Culture consists of everything on a list of topics, or
Topical: categories, such as social organization, religion, or
economy
Culture is social heritage, or tradition, that is passed
Historical:
on to future generations
Culture is shared, learned human behavior, a way of
Behavioral:
life
Normative: Culture is ideals, values, or rules for living
Culture is the way humans solve problems of
Functional:
adapting to the environment or living together
Culture is a complex of ideas, or learned habits, that
Mental:
inhibit impulses and distinguish people from animals
Culture consists of patterned and interrelated ideas,
Structural:
symbols, or behaviors
Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned meanings that
Symbolic:
are shared by a society

Culture involves at least three components: what people think, what they do, and the
material products they produce. Thus, mental processes, beliefs, knowledge, and values
are parts of culture. Some anthropologists would define culture entirely as mental rules
guiding behavior, although often wide divergence exists between the acknowledged rules
for correct behavior and what people actually do. Consequently, some researchers pay
most attention to human behavior and its material products. Culture also has several
properties: it is shared, learned, symbolic, transmitted cross-generationally, adaptive, and
integrated.

The shared aspect of culture means that it is a social phenomenon; idiosyncratic behavior
is not cultural. Culture is learned, not biologically inherited, and involves arbitrarily
assigned, symbolic meanings. For example, Americans are not born knowing that the
color white means purity, and indeed this is not a universal cultural symbol. The human
ability to assign arbitrary meaning to any object, behavior or condition makes people
enormously creative and readily distinguishes culture from animal behavior. People can
teach animals to respond to cultural symbols, but animals do not create their own
symbols. Furthermore, animals have the capability of limited tool manufacture and use,
but human tool use is extensive enough to rank as qualitatively different and human tools
often carry heavy symbolic meanings. The symbolic element of human language,
especially speech, is again a vast qualitative expansion over animal communication
systems. Speech is infinitely more productive and allows people to communicate about
things that are remote in time and space.

The cross-generational aspect of culture has led some anthropologists, especially Kroeber
(1917) and Leslie White (1949), to treat culture as a superorganic entity, existing beyond
its individual human carriers. Individuals are born into and are shaped by a preexisting
culture that continues to exist after they die. Kroeber and White argued that the influence
that specific individuals might have over culture would itself be largely determined by
culture. Thus, in a sense, culture exists as a different order of phenomena that can best be
explained in terms of itself.

Some researchers believe that such an extreme superorganic interpretation of culture is a

dehumanizing denial of "free will," the human ability to create and change culture. They
would argue that culture is merely an abstraction, not a real entity. This is a serious issue
because treating culture as an abstraction may lead one to deny the basic human rights of
small-scale societies and ethnic minorities to maintain their cultural heritage in the face
of threats from dominant societies. I treat culture as an objective reality. I depart from the
superorganic approach in that I insist that culture includes its human carriers. At the same
time, people can be deprived of their culture against their will. Many humanistic
anthropologists would agree that culture is an observable phenomenon, and a people's
unique possession.

A Baseline Definition of Culture

People learn culture. That, we suggest, is culture's essential feature. Many qualities of
human life are transmitted genetically -- an infant's desire for food, for example, is
triggered by physiological characteristics determined within the human genetic code. An
adult's specific desire for milk and cereal in the morning, on the other hand, cannot be
explained genetically; rather, it is a learned (cultural) response to morning hunger.
Culture, as a body of learned behaviors common to a given human society, acts rather
like a template (ie. it has predictable form and content), shaping behavior and
consciousness within a human society from generation to generation. So culture resides
in all learned behavior and in some shaping template or consciousness prior to behavior
as well (that is, a "cultural template" can be in place prior to the birth of an individual
person).

This primary concept of a shaping template and body of learned behaviors might be
further broken down into the following categories, each of which is an important element
of cultural systems:
  systems of meaning, of which language is primary
 ways of organizing society, from kinship groups to states and multi-national
corporations
 the distinctive techniques of a group and their characteristic products

Several important principles follow from this definition of culture:

 If the process of learning is an essential characteristic of culture, then teaching
also is a crucial characteristic. The way culture is taught and reproduced (see
reproduction in the glossary) is itself an important component of culture.
 Because the relationship between what is taught and what is learned is not
absolute (some of what is taught is lost, while new discoveries are constantly
being made), culture exists in a constant state of change.
 Meaning systems consist of negotiated agreements -- members of a human society
must agree to relationships between a word, behavior, or other symbol and its
corresponding significance or meaning. To the extent that culture consists of
systems of meaning, it also consists of negotiated agreements and processes of
negotiation.
 Because meaning systems involve relationships which are not essential and
universal (the word "door" has no essential connection to the physical object -- we
simply agree that it shall have that meaning when we speak or write in English),
different human societies will inevitably agree upon different relationships and
meanings; this a relativistic way of describing culture.

If you have read through other discussions/definitions of culture on these pages, you
probably already have the sense that there is much disagreement about the word and
concept "culture" and you probably already realize that any definition, this one included,
is part of an ongoing conversation (and negotiation) about what we should take "culture"
to mean. For a very brief history of this debate, see the glossary entry for "culture"; for
interpretive discussions and explorations of culture, visit the "Exploring Culture" section
of these pages.

See also:
 glossary entry for "culture"
 Quotations on culture
 other important perspectives on culture:
o Bodley (1994)
o Geertz (1973)
o Williams (1958)
o Arnold (1869)
o Women, Culture, and Power
o The Culture Debate in the U.S.
essence

The "essence" of something is that part or property from which the thing's identity is
derived. In other words, if you take away the essence of a thing, it loses its identity. The
essence of a bicycle, for example, might be that it rides primarily on two wheels; devices
which rely on one wheel aren't called bicycles, but rather "unicycles," and those with
more than two are identified as "tricycles," wagons, cars, etc. Similarly, when we talk
about the "essential component" of something, we are speaking of that component which
is most basic to its identity. (Note: "Essential" can also mean "necessary" -- as in,
Camilla's expertise is essential to the success of our efforts.)

society
A society is any group of people (or, less commonly, plants or animals) living together in
a group and constituting a single related, interdependent community. This word is
frequently taken to include entire national communities; we might, for instance, comment
upon some aspect of U.S. society. Society can also be used to refer to smaller groups of
people, as when we refer to "rural societies" or "academic society," etc. Society is
distinguished from culture in that society generally refers to the community of people
while culture generally refers to the systems of meaning -- what Geertz calls "webs of
significance" which govern the conduct and understanding of people's lives.
Nevertheless, because of the close conceptual relationship between the community and its
culture, the distinction between these words is often unclear in common use of "society"
or its derivative words; for example, when we refer to "societal problems," we are
referring to conflicts which have as much to do with culture as they do with society. See
also "sociology."

sociology
Sociology is the formal study of how humans behave in groups. Sociology tends to focus
on how human groups originate, how they are organized, and how they relate to one
another.
reproduction

"Reproduction," as it is applied to culture, is the process by which aspects of culture are

passed on from person to person or from society to society. There are a number of
different ways in which this can happen.

The most common form of cultural reproduction is "enculturation," which one

anthropologist describes as "a partly conscious and partly unconscious learning
experience whereby the older generation invites, induces, and compels the younger
generation to adopt traditional ways of thinking and behaving" (Harris 7). Does
enculturation work like a Xerox machine, reproducing everything mostly as it was? Of
course not. Your hairstyles and music and diction are different in many ways from those
of your parents; cultures are organic, growing and changing with the passing of time.
However, enculturation is a powerful tool, and enculturation is the reason why, for
example, people born in the U.S. drive on the right side of the road while people in
Europe drive on the left. Parents and educators are two of the most influential
enculturating forces; the Muslim boys pictured above, studying the Quran (or Koran)
outside their teacher's house in the Old Quarter of Kano, Nigeria, are involved in a
variety of enculturating processes.

Another important pattern of cultural reproduction is called "diffusion." Diffusion (which

means "a spreading out") happens when patterns of cultural behavior or meaning are
passed from one society to another. For example, when international leaders meet at a
conference or summit, it is quite normal for all of the males to be wearing Western-style
business suits -- even though such garb is hardly part of a cultural tradition in most parts
of the world. This type of clothing, and its symbolic association with formality and
professionalism, has spread out to many different cultures. Diffusion is also the reason
why many U.S. citizens cherish sushi (a Japanese delicacy), live in "Santa Fe style"
houses (incorporating Spanish and Native American architectural styles), and make
everyday use of words like "boutique" (a French loan-word).
relativism

Relativism refers to a theory or philosophy which argues that abstract values like truth,
beauty, and morality are not absolute, but rather that they are dependent on the culture in
which they exist. A relativistic view of the world would see one culture's notion of "truth"
as being valid only relative to that culture; a second culture's notion of "truth" could be
quite different, and yet still be valid relative to that second culture. An important element
of relativistic theory is its argument that abstract conceptions like truth, beauty and
morality do not exist in the absence of human cultures; instead, they are created by
cultures and are negotiated and changed through cultural processes.

culture
See also:
 our baseline definition of culture
 Quotations on culture
 other important perspectives on culture:
o Bodley (1994)
o Geertz (1973)
o Williams (1958)
o Arnold (1869)
o Women, Culture, and Power
o The Culture Debate in the U.S.

A recent etymology of the word "culture":

Look in an old dictionary -- say, a pre-1960 Webster's -- and you'll likely find a definition
of culture that looks something like this: "1. The cultivation of soil. 2. The raising,
improvement, or development of some plant, animal or product" (Friend and Guralnik
1958). This use of the word has its roots in the ancient Latin word cultura, "cultivation"
or "tending," and its entrance into the English language had begun by the year 1430
(Oxford English Dictionary). By the time the Webster's definition above was written,
another definition had begun to take precedence over the old Latin denotation; culture
was coming to mean "the training, development, and refinement of mind, tastes, and
manners" (Oxford English Dictionary). The OED traces this definition, which today we
associate with the phrase " high culture," back as far as 1805; by the middle of the 20th
century, it was fast becoming the word's primary definition.

However, if you try a more modern source, like the American Heritage English
Dictionary, you'll find a primary definition of culture which is substantially different than
either of the two given above: "The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts,
beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought." Why such a
difference, and in such a (relatively) short period of time? Well, in the past 40 years, the
use of the word "culture" has been heavily influenced by the academic fields of sociology
and cultural anthropology. These fields have gradually brought what was once a minor
definition of culture (the last of eight definitions given in the old 1958 Webster's quoted
above) into the mainstream.

It is easy to imagine how the U.S. society which was so focused on "socially transmitted
behavior patterns" in the sixties would come to need a word to describe the object of its
interest. The civil rights movement during this era brought everyone's attention to bear on
cultural differences within U.S. society, while the Vietnam War served to emphasize the
position of the U.S. culture in relation to other world cultures.

Over time, these new uses for the word culture have eclipsed its older meanings, those
associated with cultivation of the land and the production of crops. You might say that an
aspect of U.S. culture over the past 40 years is its fascination with the issue of culture
itself -- a fascination which has brought about many changes in the way we speak and the
meanings of words which we commonly use.

Quotations on Culture
 Browse quotations on culture.
 Quotable person index (click to view their quotation[s]):
o Matthew Arnold
o Henry Ward Beecher
o Samuel Butler
o Aime Cesair
o Ralph Waldo Emerson
o Mahatma Gandhi
o Goethe
o Matthew Green
o Aldous Huxley
o Minnie Kellogg
o Aubrey Menen
o John Stuart Mill
o Mary Pettibone Poole
o Seneca
 o Henry van Dyke
o Simone Weil
o Walt Whitman

Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.

Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, I, 1869 [source: Esar]
Cutlure looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, --
the passion for sweetness and light.
Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, pref., 1873 [source: Esar]
Culture is to "know the best that has been said and thought in the world."
Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, pref., 1873 [source: Esar]

That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.
Henry Ward Beecher [source: Correct Quotes]

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture.
Samuel Butler [source: Esar]

Culture is everything. Culture is the way we dress, the way we carry our heads, the way
we walk, the way we tie our ties -- it is not only the fact of writing books or building
houses.
Aime Cesair, Martiniquen writer, speaking to the World Congress of Black Writers and
Artists in Paris [source: Petras and Petras]

Culture, with us, ends in headache.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience, 1841 [source: Esar]

No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.

Mahatma Gandhi [source: Correct Quotes]
Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.
Mahatma Gandhi [source: Correct Quotes]

Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the
senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one
should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these
things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good
poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Bk. v, ch. 1 (Carlyle, tr.) [source: Stevenson]

Rather than by your culture spoiled,

Desist, and give us nature wild.
Matthew Green, The Spleen, l. 248 [source: Stevenson]

Culture is like the sum of special knowledge that accumulates in any large united family
and is the common property of all its members. When we of the great Culture Family
meet, we exchange reminiscences about Grandfather Homer, and that awful old Dr.
Johnson, and Aunt Sappho, and poor Johnny Keats.
Aldous Huxley [source: Flesch]

Culture is but the fine flowering of real education, and it is the training of the feeling the
tastes and the manners that makes it so.
Minnie Kellogg, Iroquois leader [source: Petras and Petras]

The poor have no business with culture and should beware of it. They cannot eat it; they
cannot sell it; they can only pass it on to others and that is why the world is full of hungry
people ready to teach us anything under the sun.
Aubrey Menen [source: Flesch]

A cultivated mind is one to which the fountains of knowledge have

been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to
exercise its faculties.
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, II, 1863. [source: Esar]

Culture is what your butcher would have if he were a surgeon.

Mary Pettibone Poole, A Glass Eye at a Keyhole (1938). [source: Maggio]

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to

remain in one place and linger in his own company.
Seneca, Epistulae ad Lucilium. Epis. ii, sec. 1. [source: Stevenson]

Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.
Henry van Dyke [source: Stevenson]

Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors, who when

their turn comes will manufacture professors.
Simone Weil, The Need for Roots (1949) [source: Maggio]

Are not the processes of culture rapidly creating a class of supercilious infidels, who
believe in nothing? Shall a man lose himself in countless masses of adjustments, and be
so shaped with reference to this, that, and the other, that the simply good and healthy and
brave parts of him are reduced and clipp'd away, like the bordering of a box in a garden?
Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 1870 [source: Esar]
high culture

When Matthew Arnold wrote that to have culture is to "know the best that has been said
and thought in the world," he captured the conceptual essence of high culture. As the term
"culture" has come to have a broader meaning, more inclusive of everything within a
given culture rather than simply the most elite cultural manifestations, the term "high
culture" has begun to serve for referring to those aspects of culture which are most highly
valued and esteemed by a given society's political, social, economic, and intellectual elite.
Opera, yachting, and Tom Stoppard are associated with high culture in the U.S. Note:
What constitutes high power is a site of conflict. Generally, the most powerful members
of a society are the ones who have the most influence over cultural meaning systems, and
therefore the more powerful classes tend to enjoy the privilege of defining "high culture."
See also: "popular culture."

popular culture

Popular culture (or "pop culture") refers to the cultural meaning systems and cultural
practices employed by the majority classes in a society. The movie with the biggest
weekend gross box office total, the number one song on the Billboard charts, the most
widely read books and the highest ranking television show in the Nielsen ratings are
important elements of U.S. popular culture. Popular culture is often discussed in contrast
to high culture. See also: "high culture."

cultural anthropology
"The scientific study of the development of human cultures based on archaeological,
ethnologic, ethnographic, linguistic, social, and psychological data and methods of
analysis" (American Heritage Electronic Dictionary). John H. Bodley points out that
cultural anthropology "can help us think about [world] problems in new and creative
ways because it offers a view of many alternative ways of living. ... Familiarity with only
a single national tradition leaves one ill equipped to cope with perplexing issues arising
even within multiethnic states" (1).
cultivation
This is one of many English words which derives
from the Latin word colere, meaning to till,
cultivate, or inhabit. The word "culture" derives
from the same root. Cultivation, specifically, refers
to the preparation, use, and maintenance of soil for
growing crops, as well as to the growing of crops
from seeds or bulbs. Cultivation can also refer to the
improvement of a plant species using horticultural
techniques. This meaning gives rise to another
common use of the word: as a synonym for the improvement, nurture, or refinement of
people. In this latter use, "cultivate" implies the acquisition of traits which are associated
with "high culture." For example, our schools hope to cultivate an appreciation for art and
music in young children.

culture
See also:
 our baseline definition of culture
 Quotations on culture
 other important perspectives on culture:
o Bodley (1994)
o Geertz (1973)
o Williams (1958)
o Arnold (1869)
o Women, Culture, and Power
o The Culture Debate in the U.S.

A recent etymology of the word "culture":

Look in an old dictionary -- say, a pre-1960 Webster's -- and you'll likely find a definition
of culture that looks something like this: "1. The cultivation of soil. 2. The raising,
improvement, or development of some plant, animal or product" (Friend and Guralnik
1958). This use of the word has its roots in the ancient Latin word cultura, "cultivation"
or "tending," and its entrance into the English language had begun by the year 1430
(Oxford English Dictionary). By the time the Webster's definition above was written,
another definition had begun to take precedence over the old Latin denotation; culture
was coming to mean "the training, development, and refinement of mind, tastes, and
manners" (Oxford English Dictionary). The OED traces this definition, which today we
associate with the phrase " high culture," back as far as 1805; by the middle of the 20th
century, it was fast becoming the word's primary definition.

However, if you try a more modern source, like the American Heritage English
Dictionary, you'll find a primary definition of culture which is substantially different than
either of the two given above: "The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts,
beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought." Why such a
difference, and in such a (relatively) short period of time? Well, in the past 40 years, the
use of the word "culture" has been heavily influenced by the academic fields of sociology
and cultural anthropology. These fields have gradually brought what was once a minor
definition of culture (the last of eight definitions given in the old 1958 Webster's quoted
above) into the mainstream.

It is easy to imagine how the U.S. society which was so focused on "socially transmitted
behavior patterns" in the sixties would come to need a word to describe the object of its
interest. The civil rights movement during this era brought everyone's attention to bear on
cultural differences within U.S. society, while the Vietnam War served to emphasize the
position of the U.S. culture in relation to other world cultures.

Over time, these new uses for the word culture have eclipsed its older meanings, those
associated with cultivation of the land and the production of crops. You might say that an
aspect of U.S. culture over the past 40 years is its fascination with the issue of culture
itself -- a fascination which has brought about many changes in the way we speak and the
meanings of words which we commonly use.

Matthew Arnold, Culture is "High Culture"

From Culture and Anarchy, 1869
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) was a
preeminent poet of the Victorian
era, a lifelong educator, a pioneer in
the field of literary criticism, a
government official (Inspector of
Schools), and an influential public
figure. But one of his most
enduring legacies is his extensive
body of writing on the topic of
culture. Arnold saw culture--"contact with the best which
has been thought and said in the world" (cf. "high
culture" in the glossary) --as the crucial component of a
healthy democratic state.

Arnold's view of culture as involving such characteristics

as "beauty," "intelligence," and "perfection" is a
Neoplatonic one -- that is, it tends to assume that these
values exist in the abstract and are the same for all
human societies. His argument, then, is openly political:
he feels that if more people will share and pursue his
notions of beauty, truth, and perfection--of culture--that
the world will be a better place.

Compare this view with that of Raymond Williams -- who

argues that culture isn't just the "best that has been
thought and said," but rather that "culture is ordinary"
-- and with the anthropological perspectives of John
Bodley and Clifford Geertz, which attempt to view
culture more descriptively and to approach the study of
human societies with an assumption that values,
behaviors, and ideologies are different from people to
people. Taken together, this group of excerpts illustrates
the general move away from the Arnoldian conception of
culture.

The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity; sometimes, indeed, they make its
motive mere exclusiveness and vanity. The culture which is supposed to plume itself on a
smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothing so intellectual as
curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity and ignorance or else as an engine of
social and class distinction, separating its holder, like a badge or title, from other people
who have not got it. No serious man would consider all this culture, or attach any value to
it, as culture, at all.
But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the scientific passion, the sheer
desire to see things as they are, natural and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the
ground of it. There is a view in which 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, the noble aspiration to leave the world better
and happier than we found it, come in as part of the grounds of culture, and the main and
pre-eminent part. Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity,
but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection. It moves by
the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion for pure knowledge, but also of
the moral and social passion for doing good. As in the first view of it [ie. the view
associated with science/curiosity], we took for its worthy motto Montesquieu's words:
"To render an intelligent being yet more intelligent!" so, in the second view of it [ie.
Arnold's view], there is no better motto which it can have than these words of Bishop
Wilson: "To make reason and the will of God prevail!"

The moment culture is considered not merely as the endeavour to see and learn about the
universal order, but as the endeavor, also, to make it prevail, the moral, social, and
beneficent character of culture becomes manifest.

***

The Greek idea of "a finely tempered nature" gives exactly the notion of perfection as
culture brings us to conceive it: a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the
characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of
things,"--as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all too little, most
happily calls them in his Battle of the Books,--"the two noblest of things, sweetness and
light." The man with a finely tempered nature is the man who tends toward sweetness and
light.

Neoplatonism

The Neoplatonic movement, a revival and reinterpretation of Plato's doctrine of essential,

pre-existing "forms," began as early as the third century BCE with the writings of
Plotinus (Plato himself lived during the 5th century BCE). The Neoplatonic tradition
subscribes to Plato's theory that reason can reveal an understandable order in the
universe; this tradition has influenced many movements during the past two-thousand
years, including the Romantic movements in 19th century Britain (ie. Wordsworth,
Shelley, etc.) and the U.S. (ie. Emerson). The significance of Neoplatonic views in the
culture debate is their adherence to the essential quality of "goodness," "truth," and other
aspects of the universal order -- that is, a Neoplatonic position tends to discard the
possibility that there could be more than one interpretation of "goodness," "truth," etc.

Raymond Williams, Moving from High Culture to

Ordinary Culture
Originally published in N. McKenzie (ed.), Convictions, 1958

Raymond Williams was an early pioneer in the field of

"cultural studies" -- in fact, he was doing cultural studies
before the term was even coined. This excerpt is from an
essay Williams wrote in 1958, entitled "Culture is
Ordinary." According to one of his editors, Williams here
"forced the first important shift into a new way of
thinking about the symbolic dimensions of our lives.
Thus, 'culture' is wrested from that privileged space of
artistic production and specialist knowledge [eg. "high
culture"] , into the lived experience of the everyday"
(Gray and McGuigan 1).

Culture is ordinary: that is the first fact. Every human society has its own shape, its own
purposes, its own meanings. Every human society expresses these, in institutions, and in
arts and learning. The making of a society is the finding of common meanings and
directions, and its growth is an active debate and amendment under the pressures of
experience, contact, and discovery, writing themselves into the land. The growing society
is there, yet it is also made and remade in every individual mind. The making of a mind
is, first, the slow learning of shapes, purposes, and meanings, so that work, observation
and communication are possible. Then, second, but equal in importance, is the testing of
these in experience, the making of new observations, comparisons, and meanings. A
culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are
trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested. These are
the ordinary processes of human societies and human minds, and we see through them
the nature of a culture: that it is always both traditional and creative; that it is both the
most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. We use the word
culture in these two senses: to mean a whole way of life--the common meanings; to mean
the arts and learning--the special processes of discovery and creative effort. Some writers
reserve the word for one or other of these senses; I insist on both, and on the significance
of their conjunction. The questions I ask about our culture are questions about deep
personal meanings. Culture is ordinary, in every society and in every mind. (6)
Montesquieu
Charles Louis de Secondat (1689-1755), Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu, was a
French political thinker, author, and judge whose writings had a deep influence on
Liberalism. Unlike Arnold, Montesquieu had a more relative view of culture and human
nature; he argued that political systems should reflect the cultural principals of a given
human society. Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748) advocated the separation of
governmental powers, a doctrine which had a major influence on the U.S. constitution.

Swift, Jonathan
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was an Irish-born author who gained notoriety and political
influence as a sharp-witted satirist. His most famous work, Gulliver's Travels, followed
the journeys of a character named Lemuel Gulliver through the imaginary lands of the
Lilliputians (pygmies), the Brobdingnags (giants), and the Houyhnhnms (an ultra-rational
society of horses) who ruled over the cretin Yahoos (an uncivilized, humanlike race).
Other satires included A Modest Proposal (which ironically suggested that the British eat
their own children) and The Battle of the Books (which poked fun at literary critics).
Many Swiftian words have become integrated into the English language. When
something is "of Lilliputian proportions" it is very, very small; referring to someone as a
"Yahoo" implies that they lack manners and behave badly. Yahoo, incidentally, is also the
name of the most famous World Wide Web directory, housed and maintained at Stanford
University!