YOU HAVE NO CULTURE!

Now onto business; You have no culture!

A bold statement thrown at people frequently in life, but, to me, I have always found it confusing.

How can someone have no culture? What is it that makes a person considered to have no culture? Or should I say, uncultural!

First, we should understand what is 'culture'.


For all those obnoxious book-based sheep out there, here is what the dictionary says:

Culture

1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.

2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc.

Pfffffftttt.

3.a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture.

4.development or improvement of the mind by education or training.

5.the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture.

Getting there...

6. Anthropology. the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.

Ah ha! Close enough!


Dictionary meanings aside, to me, everyone has culture. Whether it is the sophisticated western civilisation of the 17th, 20th, blah-teenth Century, or the cannibal tribes in Papua New Guinea, everyone has culture.

Culture is defined by us, people, human beings; the living and learning mind and body, the left and right, the physical and the spiritual, and...genitals.

Everyone has culture, because we are culture.

I think this whole 'no culture' comes from the high/low brow concept that has been passed through generations to generations and eventually became an accepted statement.

And also from the occasional, self-obsessed douche bag throwing a fit because nobody understood their pathetic joke.


In my opinion, the statement should be reworded to 'you have no understanding', or better yet, 'you suck at understanding'.

Not only have we been influenced by the concepts of high/low culture, but we have somehow managed to mix up our definitions between 'understanding' and 'culture'. I'm sure you don't need to look in the dictionary to get that.

When someone has 'no culture', it's not because they are uncultural, it's because they don't understand. This is why we have abilities of communication, empathy and wikipedia; to help us learn and create understanding amongst people and cultures.

Makes more sense to me. :)