Up until a few years ago, I thought of culture as a person's heritage, origin and the color of their skin. It was nothing but a word thrown around once a year while my high school and junior high recognized the foods and customs of various "cultures" from around the world. Of course, this involved little more than shuffling through the halls, tasting tacos from the Mexico room and spaghetti and garlic bread from Italy. After years of miseducation and bland samples of life outside of the US, I began to feel deceit. It wasn't until college, after taking classes like Culture, Race and Media, that I saw the effect this ignorance had on media, others and myself. I'd like to study this further.
Friends and documentaries shed some light on the ignorance of Americans and our media, but it wasn't until I lived in Berlin, Germany that I realized culture existed on a much smaller scale. Although these people are German, they are part of Berlin's culture, then part of Berlin's art scene, possibly even further than that, sculpture. I'm intrigued by these subcultures and the outlets chosen for self-expression, interaction with others different and alike, and the subsequent level of understanding.
Culture is identity, a way to define a person or group. Take a culture like hippies for example, they are defined by their clothing, hairstyle, their level of activism, their extracuricular activities. I believe we need to categorize these people, perhaps to feel secure with our character and individuality.
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Interesting ideas here. Do you think there is any danger in using culture to classify people however? How do we rely on culture to make these distinctions? Self-identification? Do you think all hippies are comfortable being called hippies?
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