Culture is
- Our ways of life and our responses to life, through customs in the forms of arts, beliefs, and institutions of an entire society, from generation to generation.
- The identity of an individual can be reaffirmed or distinguished by these traditions of a larger population.
- Negative effects- “As individuals typically affiliate with more than one cultural group, cultural identity is complex and multifaceted.” Belonging to more than one group can have a negative effect on the person’s identity. Trying to find where you fit in can often leave confusion and the feeling that you belong nowhere. For example, Karim from Buddha of Suburbia. (https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/key-concept-cultural-identity.pdf )
- Culture is made up of numerous and intersecting concepts of nationality, power systems, government, religion, spirituality, environment, and language.
- Culture explains how we treat our relationships and informs our internal/external perceptions. Culture gives reason to how and why individuals and/or groups choose to undergo process.
“Banner” is a musical composition by Jessie Montgomery written with the goal of providing the theoretical sound of a National Anthem in the world we currently live in. It includes diverse snippets of music from national anthems of various countries and folk songs mixed with Montgomery’s own original ideas, creating the 21st century-styled anthem. “To Think of Time” by Walt Whitman tries to examine cultural fears of death through the lens of spirituality and describe death’s effect on identity. The poem concludes that if there is a cultural understanding of an eternal soul shared between all people, how death does not have to change or make obsolete an individual identity, but can actually reaffirm it. In the video, The Importance of HBCUs, sports commentator Stephen Smith talks about the importance of our environment and the influence it can leave on us in the years to come. Together, these pieces encapsulate several subsections of our major concept of culture.