What is culture?

A language evolves and the words that compose it appear, disappear or change their meaning over time. New terms are created to describe new realities. Old words adapt to changes in society. The scope of a word widens or narrows. It is never frozen, and if it freezes at some point in its evolution, it is often only for a limited period of time. And this is not counting on the particular meanings that a word or an expression has from one language to another. The word culture has obviously not escaped these realities. Plus, it was deeply marked by the ups and downs of its history.

The evolution of the concept of culture

The term colture, the first spelling of the word culture in French, appeared in the 12^th century. It designated a “cultivated land”*, according to the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française. It was spelled culture, under the influence of the Latin cultura, towards the end of the following century. Its signification has expanded for the first time as it referred to the care of fields or livestock¹. The proper sens of the word in French still refers to this idea. The ninth edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française associates the term, in its first sense, with “natural productions”*. The other meanings, as it is also the case for the Latin cultura that has followed a similar development, are generally to be understood in a figurative sense.

* Une version française de ce texte a été publiée sous le titre Qu’est-ce que la culture?.

Last updated: 24 July 2020

Definitions of Culture

“Culture is life.”

– Neil Bissoondath, Selling Illusions – The cult of multiculturalism in Canada, Toronto, Penguin Books, 1994, p. 81.

“I use the terms culture and art interchangeably to cover man-made artifacts or performances that move us and expand our awareness of the world and of ourselves.”

– Tyler Cowen, In Praise of Commercial Culture, Cambridge/London, Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 5.

“In the end, culture is everything that can be shared.”

– Nancy Duxbury and Rowland Lorimer, “Of culture, the economy, cultural production, and cultural producers: An orientation”, (1994) 19 Can. J. Comm. 259, at 261.

“Culture here means a body of artistic and intellectual work of agreed value, along with the institutions which produce, disseminate and regulate it.”

– Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Malden, Blackwell, 2000, p. 21.

“Culture can be loosely summarized as the complex of values, customs, beliefs and practices which constitute the way of life of a specific group.”

– Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Malden, Blackwell, 2000, p. 34.

“Culture is just everything which is not genetically transmissable (sic).”

– Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Malden, Blackwell, 2000, p. 34.

“Alternatively, you can try to define culture functionally rather than substantively, as whatever is superfluous to a society’s material requirements.”

– Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Malden, Blackwell, 2000, p. 36.

“In other words, culture was simply what was distinctive about others.”

– Jonathan Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process, London, Sage, 1994, p. 67.

“[I]t understands to cover the whole range of practices and representations through which a social group’s reality (or realities) is constructed and maintained.”

– John Frow, Cultural Studies and Cultural Value, New York, Clarendon Press, 1995, p. 3.

“[D]efined as the production and circulation of symbolic meaning.”

– Nicholas Garnham, Capitalism and Communication – Global culture and the economics of information, London, Sage, 1990, p. 155.

“A culture is a way of doing things and a way of reflecting on what we do.”

– John Hutcheson, “The thief of arts – Will free trade rob us of our culture”, The Canadian Forum, février 1987, p. 9.

“Culture in the study of international relations may be defined as the sharing and transmitting of consciousness within and across national boundaries, and the cultural approach as a perspective that pays particular attention to this phenomenon.”

– Akira Iriye, “Culture and international history”, in Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson (eds.), Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, Cambridge/New York, Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 215; and Akira Iriye, “Culture”, (1990) 77 J. Amer. Hist. 99.

“The culture of a society is the whole complex of knowledge and beliefs and attitudes and practices which are embodied in the society, and in its social, political and economic arrangements.”

– Albert W. Johnson, “Free trade and cultural industries”, in Marc Gold and David Leyton-Brown (eds.), Trade-Offs on Free Trade – The Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, Toronto, Carswell, 1988, p. 350.

“I understand culture to be rooted in the shared knowledge and schemes created and used by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them.”

– John Paul Lederach, Preparing for Peace – Conflict transformation across cultures, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1995, p. 9.

“[T]he way of life of any society.”

– Ralph Linton, The Cultural Background of Personality, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1945, p. 19.

“It refers to the total way of life of any society, not simply to those parts of this way which the society regards as higher or more desirable.”

– Ralph Linton, The Cultural Background of Personality, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1945, p. 30.

“[T]he social heredity of a society’s members.”

– Ralph Linton, The Cultural Background of Personality, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1945, p. 32.

“A culture is the configuration of learned behavior and results of behavior whose component elements are shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society.”

– Ralph Linton, The Cultural Background of Personality, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1945, p. 32.

“Culture is the expression of human values. It may be very intense and conscious, as in art objects and performances or religious practice. It may be pervasive and relatively unconscious, in the rituals of food, the use of time or family celebrations. It embraces the extremes of this spectrum and everything between. Culture is everything we don’t have to do to survive – but are compelled to do to feel human.”

– François Matarasso, “Culture, economics & development”, in F. Matarasso (ed.), Recognising Culture – A series of briefing papers on culture and development, London, Comedia/Canadian Heritage/Unesco, 2001, p. 3.

“Culture is that which individuals, groups and societies produce and acquire in order to function effectively.”

– Roland Robertson, Globalization – Social theory and global culture, London, Sage, 1992, p. 40.

“[A]ll those practices, like the arts of description, communication, and representation, that have relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms and that often exist in aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aims is pleasure.”

– Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism, New York, Vintage Books, 1994, p. XII.

“What we need to understand is not what culture is, but how people use the term in contemporary discourses.”

– John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism – A critical introduction, London/New York, Continuum, 2001, p. 5.

“Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

– Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, in The Collected Works of Edward Burnett Tylor, vol. 3, London, Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1994, p. 1.

“Where culture meant a state or habit of the mind, or the body of intellectual and moral activities, it means now, also, a whole way of life.”

– Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780-1950, London, Chatto & Windus, 1958, p. XVIII.

“[C]ulture is a state or process of human perfection, in terms of certain absolute or universal values.”

– Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution, London, Chatto & Windus, 1961, p. 41.

“[C]ulture is the body of intellectual and imaginative work, in which, in a detailed way, human thought and experience are variously recorded.”

– Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution, London, Chatto & Windus, 1961, p. 41.

“[T]he independent and abstract noun which describes the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity.”

– Raymond Williams, Keywords – A vocabulary of culture and society, revised ed., New York, Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 90.

“This seems often now the most widespread use: culture is music, literature, painting and sculpture, theatre and film.”

– Raymond Williams, Keywords – A vocabulary of culture and society, revised ed., New York, Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 90.

“In anthropology, the integrated system of socially acquired values, beliefs, and rules of conduct which delimit the range of accepted behaviors in any given society.”

– Columbia Encyclopedia, 6^th edition.

“[T]he cultural life of the nation, the intellectual and emotional engagement of the people with all forms of art, from the simplest to the most abstruse.”

– United Kingdom, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Government and the Value of Culture (2004), p. 3.

“Culture no longer simply means being familiar with a select list of works of art and architecture, but the accumulated influence of creativity, the arts, museums, galleries, libraries, archives and heritage upon all our lives.”

– United Kingdom, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, The Culture White Paper (2016), p. 13.

¹ Philippe Bénéton, Histoire de mots: culture et civilisation, Paris, Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1975, p. 23.

³ Jonathan Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process, London, Sage, 1994, p. 71.

⁴ Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1988, p. 185 à 190; et John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism – A critical introduction, London/New York, Continuum, 2001, p. 23.

⁵ Michel Oriol, «L’altérité et les différences culturelles», in Carmel Camilleri (dir.), Différence et cultures en Europe, Strasbourg, Éd. du Conseil de l’Europe, 1995, p. 13, 15.

⁶ André-Hubert Mesnard, Droit et politique de la culture, Paris, PUF, 1990, p. 13.

⁷ J. Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process, op. cit., p. 72.

⁸ Herbert Marcuse, «Remarques à propos d’une définition de la culture», in H. Marcuse, Culture et société, Paris, Éd. de Minuit, 1980, p. 311, 312.

⁹ P. Bénéton, Histoire de mots, op. cit., p. 24, 25 et 26.

¹⁰ Denys Cuche, La notion de culture dans les sciences sociales, Paris, La Découverte, 2004, p. 8.

¹¹ P. Bénéton, Histoire de mots, op. cit., p. 24 à 26.

¹² Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, t. 4, Paris, Briasson, David, Durand et Le Breton, 1754, p. 552.

¹³ D. Cuche, La notion de culture dans les sciences sociales, p. 9.

¹⁴ Raymond Williams, Keywords – A vocabulary of culture and society, éd. revue et corrigée, New York, OUP, 1985, p. 87.

¹⁵ Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Malden, Blackwell, 2000, p. 9.

¹⁶ Thomas Stearns Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, London, Faber and Faber, 1962, p. 21 à 34.

¹⁷ D. Cuche, La notion de culture dans les sciences sociales, op. cit., p. 13.

¹⁸ Edgar Morin, Penser l’Europe, éd. revue et complétée, Paris, Gallimard (coll. Folio/Actuel), 1990, p. 83; et R. Williams, Keywords, op. cit., p. 57 et 59.

¹⁹ T. Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, op. cit., p. 9 et 26.

²⁰ Ralph Linton, The Cultural Background of Personality, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1945, p. 30.

²¹ R. Williams, Keywords, op. cit., p. 91.

²² D. Cuche, La notion de culture dans les sciences sociales, op. cit., p. 29.

²³ P. Bénéton, Histoire de mots, op. cit., p. 113.

²⁴ Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, in E. B. Tylor, The Collected Works of Edward Burnett Tylor, vol. 3, London, Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1994, p. 1 (notre traduction).

²⁵ Raymond Williams, Culture, London, Fontana Press, 1981, p. 13.

²⁶ J. Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism, op. cit., p. 5 et 6 (notre traduction).

²⁷ Claude Lévi-Strauss, «Introduction à l’oeuvre de Marcel Mauss», in Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologie, Paris, PUF, 1950, p. XIX.

²⁸ D. Cuche, La notion de culture dans les sciences sociales, op. cit., p. 4.

²⁹ Cf. T. S. Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, op. cit., p. 120; J. Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process, op. cit., p. 72. John Paul Lederach, Preparing for Peace – Conflict transformation across cultures, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1995, p. 9; John Frow, Cultural Studies and Cultural Value, New York, Clarendon Press/Oxford, 1995, p. 3; François Matarasso, «Culture, economics & development», in F. Matarasso (dir.), Recognising Culture – A series of briefing papers on culture and development, London, Comedia/Patrimoine canadien/Unesco, 2001, p. 3; Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780-1950, London, Chatto & Windus, 1958, p. XVI; et Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution, London, Chatto & Windus, 1961, p. 41.

³⁰ T. Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, op. cit., p. 21.; et R. Williams, Keywords, op. cit., p. 90. Cf. Esla Forey et Sophie Monnier, Droit de la culture, Paris, Gualino, 2009, p. 15.

³¹ D. Cuche, La notion de culture dans les sciences sociales, op. cit., p. 6.

³² Alec McHoul et Toby Miller, Popular Culture and Everyday Life, London, Sage, 1998, p. 5 (notre traduction). Cf. Toby Miller et George Yúdice, Cultural Policy, London, Sage, 2002, p. 1.

³³ Claude Mollard, L’ingénierie culturelle, 3^e éd., Paris, PUF, 2009, p. 20.

³⁴ Louis-Philippe Gratton, Contribution à l’analyse des rapports du droit interne et du droit international en matière culturelle – Étude de droit comparé et de droit international économique, Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, 2016, p. 30.

³⁵ Jean-Guy Meunier, «Le livre blanc de La politique québécoise du développement culturel – Esquisse critique d’une philosophie de la culture», (1979) 6 Philosophiques 347, 350.