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What exactly is culture?

Filed under: People and society by Hari
Posted on Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 19:17 IST (last updated: Thu, Oct 15, 2009 @ 19:17 IST)

By culture, I mean the internalized culture of an individual and not the collective, shared culture of communities. What exactly is this? What defines a "cultured" person and how does one recognize this facet of personality?

I offer no exact definition of this term. Indeed, it would be impossible to put into a few words the wealth of meaning hidden in this term. Personally I think what defines this culture is a combination of a person's refinement (in terms of attitude/personality), personal integrity and values, a certain amount of generosity as well as that stature which commands respect almost intuitively. But it's not just a combination of these factors. There is something more. I believe strongly that you cannot just define culture without the spiritual component.

Culture implies something more than the external person. It's so easy for anybody to feign good qualities and keep up pretences for years; indeed, one can make a habit of them. Yet, a truly cultured person will be so natural that it is impossible for him NOT to exhibit these attributes. Culture is an inseparable part of that person and will not change according to circumstances. A pretence of good attitude or behaviour can easily be unmasked in a particularly stressful situation. A good guide is the kind of language (or rather, obscenities) people sometimes mouth when provoked. A man's personal values will be tested only in times of difficulty. Similarly integrity will be tested only in situations which demand responses to ethical dilemmas.

This is why I believe that it is dangerous to judge individuals based on a few encounters or situations. Masking behaviour is easy under normal circumstances. Judging a person's sense of values is even harder. Only experience in life can help here. A few people develop an uncanny knack of probing the real person behind the external mask.

More than anything I don't think one can "learn" to be cultured. You either have it from birth, acquire it at a very early age or you don't. Lack of culture doesn't necessarily imply that a person is bad, unethical, mean-spirited or otherwise ill-mannered. It just means the absence of the qualities I mentioned.

6 comment(s)

  1. I think the terms "cultured" or "educated" refer to the kind of choices one can make in life. Can you resist temptation? Do you have a strong feeling of right and wrong: more importantly, can you justify any of your choices on sheer merit of the choice itself rather than because "everyone else is doing it"? I think that leads a long way into finding out what kind of a "cultured" person you're talking to.

    Comment by Sudipta Chatterjee (visitor) on Sat, Oct 17, 2009 @ 03:59 IST #
  2. Good points, Sudipta. I agree with you. As I mentioned, the difficult choices in life show up a person's inner "culture".

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Sat, Oct 17, 2009 @ 17:39 IST #
  3. For some reason I have this notion in my head that culture is grown in a lab in a petri dish. It also seems to me that there are an awful lot of people out there who really need to go back to that lab and pick up some culture.

    Comment by Ernie (visitor) on Wed, Oct 21, 2009 @ 21:38 IST #
  4. Ernie, well - going by that I'm not a culture. I'm a specimen. :biggrin:

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Thu, Oct 22, 2009 @ 17:30 IST #
  5. Quite a specimin, you are, my friend!

    Comment by mrcorey (visitor) on Thu, Oct 22, 2009 @ 19:58 IST #
  6. There is only one Papa Hari, though.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Sat, Oct 24, 2009 @ 15:58 IST #

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