From: hyx1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Harry Y Xu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Culture (was Re: Reclaiming our heritage)
Keywords: culture, heritage
Date: 12 Apr 92 21:04:41 GMT
Reply-To: hyx1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Harry Y Xu)
Organization: Columbia University, New York City

In article <1992Apr12.193521.7949@Princeton.EDU> fchen@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Franklin M. Chen) writes:
>In article <1992Apr12.075757.13889@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> hyx1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Harry Y Xu) writes:
>>	We all need self identity.  Heritages helps us in that respect.
>>	Learning about cultures is not the same as adopting to them and 
>>	living them out.  
>>	The word "reclaim_ing" sounds a little corny in this context.
>
>Some brief observations:
>
>I've seen the word "culture" thrown around casually on this newsgroup
>for some time now.  People seem to be using it in so many different ways
>that all I can tell is that, like "God," nobody has the same idea of
>what it is, except that it is a Good Thing.  It's a catchword like
>Democracy or Truth.

I just checked the Webster's.  Two of the definitions of *culture that 
we can use here are:  
1.  The sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings 
	and transmitted from one generation to another.
2.  The behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or 	age group.
I think we can actually combined the 2 def here.

>People talk about culture as if it were something analyzed, studied, and
>perhaps adopted; everyone is an amateur anthropologist, it seems.  I
>prefer to think of a culture as a "way of life."  Anyone who lives in a
>certain way, and attaches importance to this way of living, is
>implicitly living a "culture."

Indeed.  Cultured can be analyzed and studied, but u have to "live" the 
culture to "adopt" it.  It is a "way of life" from the above definition.
It takes a group of people to create a culture, not just one person.

>In fact, practically everyone here clearly identifies with American
>or Western culture, whether or not he realizes it.
>Examples:  the talk about "humankind" above is a typical expression of
>the ideals of the 18th century European enlightenment.  "We all need
>self identity" is a popular version of an existentialist thread which
>began with 19th century Romanticism.  Since the battle between
>classicism and romanticism has existed for millenia--consider the
>opposition of the Apollinian and Dionysian in ancient Greece, for
>instance--and has never been fully resolved, it is no wonder that
>nothing is being resolved in this newsgroup.  Two different Western
>tendencies fighting each other.

	You cann't call these ideals as "Western" or "American" simply
because they also have reference to these ideals.  These ideas are not
exclusive to any culture, but can be developed by anybody.  
	BTW, u can also find references to all these ideas in Chinese 
classics.

harry/kb2lha   -just my thoughts.
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  Harry Xu  (KB2LHA)	   Internet:  hyx1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
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