What's Culture?

What's Culture?

Culture defines how a group of people think, behave and react within a specific geographical location.

Many would say that is a limited definition for culture, and you might be right, but remember, this only my humble point of view that is determined by my own culture.

Generation through generation, we are taught a large set of behaviors, attitudes, values, beliefs, meanings, and many other things which will somehow determine the way we think, behave and react. All this acquired knowledge would define how people see the world that surrounds them, and how they understand it. For example, analyze for a second how different a Buddhist and a Christian person think; I bet you are going to conclude that they have a really different vision of life and of the world, and that's because their religion and beliefs,which are part of the knowledge that is socially transmitted, determine how they think and see the world.

Besides, our behaviors and reactions towards the society we live in, and towards the rest of the world depend on everything we know, understand and believe in. That's why people continue having similar behaviors and reactions to those of their ancestors.

It is also important to mention that as human beings with the capability of thinking and learning, we are always changing and adapting our culture to our own necessities and context. However, we do keep what we consider is part of our cultural identity. And our cultural identity is that what makes us and our own society different from the rest.

To finish, let us remember a famous phrase Marcus Garvey once said,

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”