18 June 2007

What is Real Culture?

I spoke to someone named Lupus who said the following:
The goal of the capitalist/liberal democracy method is commerce. Culture, heritage and language are assimilated and blended out with this method. The final output of a civilization that only exists for commerce is a monoculture whose highest purpose is to consume.

Basically, he thinks that commercialism is destroying culture, which he doesn't like. My understand of culture is that it is the set of characteristics of a group of people. Suppose we had a capitalist or libertarian system whereby private property is defended, individual rights are defended, free trade is defended, and so on. I would think this would be the perfect political system for the preservation of any culture. This is because if there is any demand for a certain culture by consumers then because of economic interests there will likely be businesses willing to supply that culture. The American nation-state is not absolutely perfectly capitalistic but it is relative to other nation-states, so I will use it as an example. In America there is rich and diverse culture, e.g. hip hop culture, classical music culture, homosexual culture, and even pedophile culture. I doubt this sort of diversity and level of cultural preservation would exist in a totalitarian communist state because people are not free to consume as they please, hence some cultures are dead already and because the incentive to produce and supply culture is not there.

Of course, Lupus responded by saying the following:
Culture is not products and services, thus it cannot be marketed, bought, sold and remain genuine culture. Do not confuse modern entertainment and consumerism with any legitimate form of culture. Heritage and language are also not products and services. Culture, heritage and language have always been developed free of charge by countless generations devoting their lives selflessly to build something meaningful, lasting and larger than themselves.

But I don't know. Now that Lupas has said that culture cannot be bought or sold, I don't really understand what culture is now. One definition of culture says it is "the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization." Of course, different definitions say different things.

Take European culture. European culture is the attitudes and behavior characteristic of Europeans. So take the actions, attitudes, behavior, traditions, etc of all Europeans, find some similarities, and that is European culture. Now take homosexual culture. Using the same approach, homosexual culture or gay culture is the attitudes and behavior characteristic of gay people. So take the actions, attitudes, behavior, traditions, etc of all gay people, find some similarities, and that is gay culture. Gay culture may include things like mardi gras and different sexual positions just as European culture may include the teachings of Plato and other Ancient Greeks. In fact, there may be overlap as many Ancient Greeks were homosexual and Ancient Greek philosophers and great thinkers were known to practice pederasty, i.e. sex with young boys. So my main argument is what constitutes real culture? How do you distinguish between real meaningful culture and "entertainment or hedonism"? I have just shown how homosexual culture has all the characteristics I think are necessary for a culture.

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