Let's Define Terms

Since this blog is now about culture, I figure it would be a good idea to define it. What is culture? First, the obligatory dictionary definition: "the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively" (Oxford English Dictionary)

In other words, everything human knowledge has produced.

Valid definition, but for the purposes of my blog, I would like to go further in describing culture. I had a teacher in high school who gave a definition which seemed curious to me at the time, but to my present self now seems quite apparent.

I choose to describe culture as "how the religion of a society manifests itself in the lives and works of its people."

I already hear an objection. "Not everyone has a religion," you might say, and you'd be right by the traditional idea of religion. Not every person believes in a deity nor does every person believe in the spiritual realm. But everyone does have a worldview, a framework for understanding existance. Two examples of this are Christianity, which is traditionally called a religion, and humanism, which is typically thought of more as a philosophy. But both have the same effects on a person's life, and demand some kind of behavior based on the ideas of the belief. Because of this, and for the purposes of The New Pinstripes, I choose to equate worldview to religion.

Another objection: societies are so varied that no individual "religion" can be pinpointed, and therefore my description of culture is unrealistic. I disagree. It is true that many people believe many different things. But we find that at any given time, one belief will be prevalent. This prevailing belief tends to create what we generally call "American culture" (or fill in the blank with your own nationality.) And of course, there is not one single culture. We live among a multitude of sub-cultures, and many of these appear very different from the prevailing culture. In my desription, I refer to all of these. Culture can be as narrow or broad as necessary.

It is through this description of culture that I will comment on what I see. We can see the character of a society through what it produces, and society's character determines its future.