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[SirQuiamus]

What is culture? Why is it worth fighting over? And most importantly, what does it mean to you?

This thread is ultimately for any discussion related to the ill-defined concept of """culture""" and definitions thereof, but for starters, I'd like you to consider the following three questions:

(1) What is your culture? Do you see yourself as unicultural, multicultural, or something else altogether?

(2) What is your culture made of? State the specific things that you find important, and by "things" I mean everything except people: words, ideas, dialects, foods, clothes, customs, crafts, songs, dances, novels, TV shows, YouTube channels, games, etc. etc. etc.

(3) How important is your culture to you? Could you live without the things you listed in the previous question? Are any of these things "under threat" for whatever reason? What would you be willing to do to defend these things?

Thread rules:
– No Flames.
– No NSDAP.
– No Toxic Merkels.
– No Dog-Whistling. (Do not conflate "cultures" with "peoples" or "races.")
– Feel free to disagree with anyone (even the raving PC multi-cultists), as long as you're not needlessly impolite.

[Sergarr]

1) Russian, obviously. Unicultural, with a shade of evil appropriation of stuff from other cultures.
2) History and fairy tales at №1, followed by ideas and songs at №2 and food/customs/everything else at №3.
3) In order: very much, not really, not really, I don't really know.

Also,

Thread rules:
– No Flames.

raving PC multi-cultists

topkek

[GoblinCookie]

What is culture? Why is it worth fighting over? And most importantly, what does it mean to you?

This thread is ultimately for any discussion related to the ill-defined concept of """culture""" and definitions thereof, but for starters, I'd like you to consider the following three questions:

(1) What is your culture? Do you see yourself as unicultural, multicultural, or something else altogether?

(2) What is your culture made of? State the specific things that you find important, and by "things" I mean everything except people: words, ideas, dialects, foods, clothes, customs, crafts, songs, dances, novels, TV shows, YouTube channels, games, etc. etc. etc.

(3) How important is your culture to you? Could you live without the things you listed in the previous question? Are any of these things "under threat" for whatever reason? What would you be willing to do to defend these things?

Thread rules:
– No Flames.
– No NSDAP.
– No Toxic Merkels.
– No Dog-Whistling. (Do not conflate "cultures" with "peoples" or "races.")
– Feel free to disagree with anyone (even the raving PC multi-cultists), as long as you're not needlessly impolite.

1. I do not feel I really have a culture or belong anywhere at all.  All existing cultures are my enemy in one sense or another while I alone can hardely be said to constitute a culture. 

2. I suppose I like Dr Who like the other British folks, does that make me British?  I like DF also, does that make me American? 

3. I would be happy to see my 'culture' change completely, in fact I would rather like that.

[Malus]

These are pretty interesting questions. I'm Canadian, but being raised in a secular white lower-income household, I don't strongly identify with any culture in particular, except, I suppose, the overarching "Anglophone" culture. There aren't any unique traditions that I celebrate. Any examples of "Canadian" literature never really feel Canadian; they could just as easily have been written by an American and no one would've been able to tell the difference.

It's boring, really. Growing up I never understood the obsession with multiculturalism. I'm left wondering if this "absence" of culture is my culture, but that idea doesn't hold water under scrutiny. The clothes I wear are the same brands people halfway across the world wear; I eat my food with a fork and knife, I live in a wooden house... I watch American television and read American books, eat cereal and bacon and steak. There's nothing unique here. I feel no connection to my ancestors. I have no culture of my own; I'm a combination of other peoples' cultures.

Now, how much do I value my culture (or seeming lack thereof)? I don't have any cultural practices or traditions. I tried to imagine what it would be like if someone completely "robbed" me of my culture, but I couldn't really imagine what they'd take away. Considering living under another peoples' culture sheds some light on what I value: as long as I'm not being forced to participate in meaningless ceremonies and the food is safe and I have running water and access to the internet, I'm happy. Everything else is completely irrelevant -- take it away, replace it with something else, I don't care.

So unless you consider modern technology to be "culture", I'd have to say I don't value "my" culture at all.

[SirQuiamus]

(1) I identify as uniculturally Finnish, with a mixed Eastern/Savonian/North-Karelian regional identity. (I could list all kinds of hobbies and sub-cultures like DF as part of my identity, but i'll stick to the conventional idea of national culture as "Culture.")

(2) (Aww, this sounds clich!)
– Sauna.
– Cooking/baking/brewing/eating/drinking traditional Finnish stuff: Sourdough bread, sahti, kotikalja, mämmi, kalakukko, Karelian pasties, &c.
– The Finnish language and its artistic applications: Reading old Finnish literature, reading/writing scholarly articles on Finnish literature, &c.
– Sitting on the pier after sauna, buck-naked, with beer in hand.
– Uhhh... did I mention sauna?

(3) On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say 8. I wouldn't necessarily die for any of these things, and I could of course live without all of them, but damnit, I don't want to! And I will kick and scream if someone tells me to!

But luckily no-one is about to destroy my beloved Finn-things, thank goodness, and I even have evidence of that:
– There are 6 saunas per every 10 Finns, and no impending sauna-control laws.
– Tradition is fashionable, old people are attending cooking clubs, and young people are picking up ancient recipes from their relatives or off the internet. I'm not worried.
– The Finnish language is doing fine, and Finnish literature is not too shabby either – despite the fact that the "conservative" right-wing government just decided to cut three fucking billion from schools and universities, the very institutions entrusted with the job of protecting our language.
– "It's my pier and my beer! Get off muh propartay!"

[Bouchart]

I've lived in NY for almost my whole life though for whatever reason I've always identified more as a Southerner for whatever reason.

[Baffler]

I figure I'm unicultural. I'm from the USA, and am very much American. And to preempt any claims that the USA doesn't have a culture of its own, and that it's just a cobbled together collection of "real" old world cultures, that takes too narrow a view of things. If America doesn't have its own culture, than what the fuck is barbecue, or jazz, or rock and roll, or Thanksgiving? Just "everyday generic things?" Stop appropriating my culture you fucking shitlords.

These are pretty interesting questions. I'm Canadian, but being raised in a secular white lower-income household, I don't strongly identify with any culture in particular, except, I suppose, the overarching "Anglophone" culture. There aren't any unique traditions that I celebrate. Any examples of "Canadian" literature never really feel Canadian; they could just as easily have been written by an American and no one would've been able to tell the difference.

It's boring, really. Growing up I never understood the obsession with multiculturalism. I'm left wondering if this "absence" of culture is my culture, but that idea doesn't hold water under scrutiny. The clothes I wear are the same brands people halfway across the world wear; I eat my food with a fork and knife, I live in a wooden house... I watch American television and read American books, eat cereal and bacon and steak. There's nothing unique here. I feel no connection to my ancestors. I have no culture of my own; I'm a combination of other peoples' cultures.

Now, how much do I value my culture (or seeming lack thereof)? I don't have any cultural practices or traditions. I tried to imagine what it would be like if someone completely "robbed" me of my culture, but I couldn't really imagine what they'd take away. Considering living under another peoples' culture sheds some light on what I value: as long as I'm not being forced to participate in meaningless ceremonies and the food is safe and I have running water and access to the internet, I'm happy. Everything else is completely irrelevant -- take it away, replace it with something else, I don't care.

So unless you consider modern technology to be "culture", I'd have to say I don't value "my" culture at all.

Like this. I think it's a little bit of a fallacy to think of yourself as just not having a culture, in the same way that it's wrong for a man from Georgia to think that everyone from outside of Georgia has an accent but he and his neighbors talk "normally." You talk about not feeling "connected to your ancestors" and that "there's nothing unique here," but what I see is "ancestors are not important in my culture" and " elements of my culture have been adopted by diverse peoples the world over." And unless you don't celebrate any holidays, like giving and receiving gifts on Christmas, or trick-or-treating on Halloween, or having a party on New Years (possibly with lots of drinking, and a countdown), or take the day off on Labor Day in honor of those workers who came before you and won things like the eight hour workday.

[Bohandas]

(1.) Vanity

(2.) Vanity

[Malus]

Like this. I think it's a little bit of a fallacy to think of yourself as just not having a culture, in the same way that it's wrong for a man from Georgia to think that everyone from outside of Georgia has an accent but he and his neighbors talk "normally." You talk about not feeling "connected to your ancestors" and that "there's nothing unique here," but what I see is "ancestors are not important in my culture" and " elements of my culture have been adopted by diverse peoples the world over." And unless you don't celebrate any holidays, like giving and receiving gifts on Christmas, or trick-or-treating on Halloween, or having a party on New Years (possibly with lots of drinking, and a countdown), or take the day off on Labor Day in honor of those workers who came before you and won things like the eight hour workday.

Yeah, I was kind of aware that my idea of "no culture" is probably, itself, a manifestation of my own culture, somehow, but I couldn't really figure out how to express that clearly. If given the option, I work on statutory holidays for that excellent overtime pay, so I don't "celebrate" holidays per se. I moved across the country when I turned 18 and haven't done anything for Christmas/Halloween/Thanksgiving/whatever in a couple of years now, and if I have kids, I won't be encouraging those traditions for them either. Will probably give gifts on their birthdays though, so you got me there... but I feel like that's possibly the most "vanilla" tradition one can imagine, and it's common to quite a few cultures.

There was definitely some kind of implicit culture that I was raised with, that's been internalized to some extent. I'd never argue that American culture doesn't exist (American culture is surely one of the USA's most prolific exports?) but when people in other countries are basically raised on American culture... that doesn't make them American, does it? I'm not American -- I've never set foot in the USA -- but I could carry on a conversation with a random guy from Texas or California and we'd almost certainly have a huge overlap in terms of cultural knowledge; music, TV, film, literature... but it's his countrymen who've created these things, not mine, so I don't identify with any of it, and I can't say it's mine anymore than I could say War and Peace is a part of my culture because I read it once and liked it.

[GoblinCookie]

Like this. I think it's a little bit of a fallacy to think of yourself as just not having a culture, in the same way that it's wrong for a man from Georgia to think that everyone from outside of Georgia has an accent but he and his neighbors talk "normally." You talk about not feeling "connected to your ancestors" and that "there's nothing unique here," but what I see is "ancestors are not important in my culture" and " elements of my culture have been adopted by diverse peoples the world over." And unless you don't celebrate any holidays, like giving and receiving gifts on Christmas, or trick-or-treating on Halloween, or having a party on New Years (possibly with lots of drinking, and a countdown), or take the day off on Labor Day in honor of those workers who came before you and won things like the eight hour workday.

The problem is that we cannot define what culture actually means.  It appears to be a nebulous concept with no clear meaning, roughly synonomous with nation or social group.  A culture is not a set of institutions, holidays, ideas, customs and so on.  The reason is that these things are normally shared by multiple cultures and if one culture does not presently do something it can adopt another cultures 'thing' at which point that 'thing' becomes part of their culture.

There is also the element of "should we even care?".  Is not the culture idea basically a version of group-think, everbody else does it so if I do not do it as well then I do not belong.

[Powder Miner]

1. I'm pretty unicultural in that I'm solidly American, but given how regionalized American culture tends to be I should probably specify there: I'm a Pacific Northwesterner, though I've lived in West Virginia for a while and I've probably picked up a few Appalachian quirks, not that I KNOW either way.

2. I don't consider the way I've been affected by culture as a list of specific products (though I sure do consume a lot of American products) so much as a factor in my values and demeanor. I'm pretty dang infatuated with the values of liberty, individualism, and opportunity, etc, and I can't help but doubt that this would be quite the same were I from somewhere like Germany or Japan. That plus regional Pacific Northwestern stuff has probably also deeply affected the way I walk, talk, and act, though the exacts of that are probably too ingrained for me to really be able to identify. Pacific Northwest influences are mainly in my demeanor, I think, and obviously my speech. Nothing I can pin down without a lot of thought.

3. I'm pretty proud of being an American and the culture that comes with it, and I'd likely be very uncomfortable if I were isolated from it... but it's mainly values and personality I've been affected in, and if someone somehow took that from me I'm not sure I'd BE me.

[Kassire]

(1) Eh, Hispanic, Puerto Rican in particular. Though I obviously have several fairly American ideals due to being invaded living in Americanized areas for quite some time. So I'd say I'm kinda-ish proud for being American, I guess.

(2)
A. I literally cannot live without rice. Or beans. Or some variant of chicken.
B. Lots of festivals, partying, and alcohol
C. Religion and faith is pretty big, even if not so much for me, but I can say that it's pretty important for my close family.
D. Christian holidays, Christmas and Three-Kings are pretty big days, not even hyper-consumerized from where I used to live.
E. Generic Spanish customs and the Spanish Language, Hispanic dress, dance and music (Plena, the somewhat Puerto Rican salsa, and bomba come to mind)
F. The Natives and their customs who lived in Puerto Rico before the Spanish came.

(3) I'd say I'm proudly Puerto Rican. Shit-tonnes of customs are under danger of disappearing I must admit, due to the proud ol' American way. I mean, I'll probably pass one my traditions to my children.

[Baffler]

A culture is not a set of institutions, holidays, ideas, customs and so on.  The reason is that these things are normally shared by multiple cultures and if one culture does not presently do something it can adopt another cultures 'thing' at which point that 'thing' becomes part of their culture.

Sure it is! Some customs are shared by multiple cultures, but that doesn't make it any less of a custom. And there is very little that is shared by every culture. Hell, a significant body of literature has been composed arguing that nothing is shared by every culture. It's like claiming that all proteins are the same because they're all made of mostly the same things.

There is also the element of "should we even care?".  Is not the culture idea basically a version of group-think, everbody else does it so if I do not do it as well then I do not belong.

Well I think it's worth caring about. I don't really want to get into a lengthy discussion about conformity, but I'd say it's impossible to just not have a culture, and even if we could do away with it I don't think that would be a good thing.

[itisnotlogical]

1) I'm uniculturally American. My family likes to pretend that we're Portuguese, but our genetics are 90% French and we've been Americanized for four or more generations.

2) Well, the culture of my country and society has little to do with my personal culture, I feel. American society seems to be adopting anti-intellectualism at fast clip, which I want no part in. Videogames are the most common recreation, followed by visits to the movie theater, followed by just "hanging out", i.e. walking around town with no specific purpose in mind. I celebrate holidays, but because they're fun, not because of tradition or religion.

3) Probably couldn't live without the diversions I'm accustomed to. I don't feel like video games or movies are "under threat" by anything, except maybe shitty movies and games (which have been around since those were invented). SOPA and related things are thus far the only thing that has convinced me to phone my local representative.

[SirQuiamus]

A culture is not a set of institutions, holidays, ideas, customs and so on.  The reason is that these things are normally shared by multiple cultures and if one culture does not presently do something it can adopt another cultures 'thing' at which point that 'thing' becomes part of their culture.

Sure it is! Some customs are shared by multiple cultures, but that doesn't make it any less of a custom. And there is very little that is shared by every culture. Hell, a significant body of literature has been composed arguing that nothing is shared by every culture. It's like claiming that all proteins are the same because they're all made of mostly the same things.

Aye, aye, aye! There's the rub!

I mean, you can easily point out something that isn't shared by every culture, but is it possible to isolate the one thing that makes your culture absolutely unique?

We are talking about family resemblances, as opposed to cemented prototypes.