NewYorker - Hebdige

When I think of the term culture, I think about the ways of life of a certain population in a certain destination. It varies from state to state, or country to country. But when I read the opening of the piece, the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of culture, I was shocked. It first spoke about soil and organisms, and only last did it dicuss civilization and education. It's amazing how once again, it is proved how language is so arbitrary, and that a single word can have multiple definitions. But then reading further on, I agreed more with what Williams had to say about culture. "A particular way of life ... values not only in art and learning but also in ordinary behaviour ... clarification of meanings and values..." (Hebdigs 145). I think this definition is what we base our thoughts on, especially when learning about it in school. I took a class here called Intercultural Communication, and we did ethnographic research on a different culture, and learned about traditions and values of people from all over the world. There are different customs for different things, different holidays, etc. Even hand gestures mean different things to different cultures, so when going abroad, it is a good idea to learn their culture and customs before implying anything that you don't mean, because it means something different to an American.
"The theory of culture now involved the study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life," (145) - this is important to make the connection between individuals and the country they live in, their way of life. It is good to look at individual parts that make up the whole, and draw conclusions/find answers that way, because then you are looking at a micro level of culture to a macro level of culture.