How do you see culture?
Do you see it as the zeitgeist of a community? How about a worldview, outside of a local community? or is culture merely collective civilization?
How do you make culture?
Is it based on ideas? Thoughts (there is a difference)? Images?
As Gideon Strauss says, culture is probably the most liminal and confusing word after nature. I’ve found, like Strauss, someone who has given a rather unique and hopeful view of culture. And, even better, he put it in a fairly easy-to-read book. Andy Crouch’s book, Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling, is simply stunning. I think, in the interest of space, I’m going to chop this talk into several posts, each dwelling on something different about Crouch’s work, but for now I’d like to define culture to you the way I’ll be defining culture from now until someone better comes along (not likely).
Crouch defines culture not as a set of ideas, a worldview, or anything so ethereal; culture is the amalgamation of stuff. Everything made by human hands are cultural artifacts, the building blocks of culture. Now, held within those products are ideas about worldviews, how the world should work, etc., but what’s most important is that culture is made not through pushing ideas and thoughts through to form, but by making the stuff I see on my table: iPods, candles, phones, and wallets.
Here’s a great exercise to get you thinking in this mindset. Crouch says that cultural artifacts answer 5 important questions:
In his book, Crouch answers these questions using omelets and highways, but I encourage you to start thinking about household items in this way, to get your head around the ideas Crouch presents in his book.
Next time, we’ll talk responses to culture.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on January 13, 2009 at 11:19 pm, filed under Culture and tagged books, Culture, Ideas. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.