faetal on 25/5/2016 at 09:21
In many ways culture is a lot like a liquid which fills the available space it is in. Regional culture will be very tied to food, buildings, industry, art, surrounding landscape, notable alumni etc etc....
Towns do have their culture, I'm sure. The whole thing is hierarchical I think:
(British (Scottish (Glaswegian)))
And would be defined differently and at contextual levels of detail depending on which set of brackets you're trying to define.
Thirith on 25/5/2016 at 11:50
I tend to shy away from notions of national culture, because I don't particularly agree with prioritising nationality as a distinguishing factor over others - even though in intercultural contexts (which I've been working in for the last ~10 years) they have their validity. Nevertheless, on a daily basis, I find that I have more of a common basis with other urban left-leaning Europeans than with the average Swiss from more rural areas, and the same's probably true for my particular social bubble. Switzerland's a special case anyway, with four national languages and at least the three main language areas (German, French, Italian) all have their very own cultural flavour, though this again varies greatly between rural and urban areas as well as other socioeconomic factors. As such, at least within Europe I find the platonic ideal of national identity practically meaningless other than in terms of identity politics, i.e. who people claim they are and how they differ from those of other nationalities.
faetal on 25/5/2016 at 12:04
Don't be confusing parochialism with culture. I'm not especially proud of being British, since I did nothing to achieve this status and did nothing of nay of the feats that could be said be said to make the UK a good thing (overall, if you do that, you kind of have to take on the bad as well, British imperialism got pretty ugly - concentration camps were a thing WAY before the third reich). But there are behaviours which are Britishy and which, having grown up in that milieu, I have undeniably absorbed some of.
Good example - queues. If I want to get some kind of service somewhere, I lose my mind if there is no queueing system.
Thirith on 25/5/2016 at 12:13
That may well be, but I don't feel confident in any way to distinguish those features that are part of national culture from those that will differ between regions, urban/rural, social class, educational background, political leanings etc., whether for the UK, Switzerland or anywhere else. And I've seen people being shit at queuing in London and Glasgow, although of course it's possible that those people were tourists.
I'm not saying there aren't commonalities, but apart from thinking that these are less broadly representative than is usually asserted I find that these are often expressed more 'purely' by ex-pats than in the country itself.
demagogue on 25/5/2016 at 12:59
The expat community in Japan, maybe other Asian countries, is distinctive because the home culture is so different from Western, and Japanese culture tends to be rigid about its norms, that it's very easy for Americans N&S and Europeans to feel quite culturally aligned, just out of sheer triangulation to Japanese. I still feel like I think American, but day to day life is practically a cultural haze of generically Western/Westernized Japanese. I'm conscious about caring about culture like I wouldn't usually, maybe one reason I started this.
Incidently I think I gave a weak answer on the US above. I know in our roots, the image of this neverending frontier loomed large, and it was both hostile and productive, but anyway no safety net, so you had to be at constant uncomplaining work to get by. There was a stoicism and fatalism about it, and I think it's part of why the US tends to be solipistic, isolationist (by preference anyway), and blind to the world around it.
My own family were what they called Sooners, whites that lived in Oklahoma "Indian territory" before it was open to white settlement (the rush being famously dramatized in the movie Far and Away). And I remember stories about them taking 2-3 day trips just to get to the nearest town for supplies. So maybe it's something that was particularly important where I'm from. I know my grandparents sometimes seemed otherworldly stoic and duty driven.
Nicker on 25/5/2016 at 17:51
"Can a concept define a culture?"
No.
People use culture, personality and nationality interchangeably, even in this discussion. While you could probably venn diagram these into some sort of cohesion they are very distinct and subjective categories. Distinct but fuzzy.
Most nation states are relatively modern iterations of an ongoing redefining of borders. Nations contain cultures but no nation has a single, defining culture. Most nations have majority and minority cultures but also share cultures, both as expressions of shared values and as a result of the aforementioned shifting borders.
A culture can, with limited success, be defined or described by simple concepts. That's the nature of culture in the formal sense; an identifiable set of arbitrary, learned behaviours, shared by a population. But culture covers so many categories of expression that assigning a single descriptor to any culture is impossible.
If by culture we really mean national character, then no.
From WW2 we learned that the British are stoic and heroic while the French are arrogant and cowardly. Except that the Brits are plenty arrogant and their stoicism was aided by a big trench called the Channel, while the French endured half a decade with a Nazi on every corner and still fought on with whatever rusty relics they could muster. And there were plenty of Brits ready to welcome Hitler with open arms but somehow the French get tarred with the capitulation brush.
So no, you cannot define a nation with simple concepts because those concepts are subjective, period specific and projected. Stripped of their skin colour and accents, there is no way anyone could identify an individual's nation of origin merely by their personal conduct. We might think we can but I say, bullshit.
rachel on 25/5/2016 at 18:49
I don't think we want to define so much as get insight into why specific groups behave in specific ways. And there's definitely some generalizations you can make there, like it or not.
Someone said earlier that it's mostly coming from expats and not from within the country itself, and I think that's precisely because expats are in a completely different environment, that they become attuned to whatever makes their country of origin stand out. I've been living in Barcelona in Spain for 10 years, and it's a constant flux of tourism and visitors, all the time, added to the bicultural Spanish/Catalan identity of the city itself. I don't know what makes me guess right, but I can tell you I can usually tell someone is French just by looking at them from across the street, just by how they behave, without even hearing them talk. This might be more about mannerisms than a concept per se, but it's still there and it's definitely something you can see, even if I'd be having a really hard time if I tried to actually describe how I come to this conclusion. It's not systematic but I'm usually right, and since I'm pretty terrible at guessing other nationalities, I'm inclined to believe that "it takes one to know one", as it were and I must be carrying it with me from my upbringing. It's pretty weird actually.
edit: I realize it's a sample of 1...
bjack on 25/5/2016 at 20:14
Quote Posted by nicked
I think the cultural identity of England is largely based on the fallout from being a major empire. We either subconsciously think we're better than all the other countries, or we're ferociously self-deprecating of our own shameful country.
As a US citizen, I spent about 2 weeks in Nottingham on business. Being a Beatles freak since a young age (I remember them on TV in 1968), a 007 fan, and pretty much a fan of many things British, I was stoked to go hang out with some of my kindred people. Sort of... As I have said before, I am more Scots-Irish and Swiss, but my grandmother hailed from Colchester. I digress... I find Englishmen (and ladies) to be very self-deprecating. However, they are also extremely vicious attackers at any teeny slight one may commit. They seem to be spending most of their time looking for cracks in the armor, than listening to the grand scheme. After the first week, it got tedious. I found myself hanging out with more of the commonwealth people from India, Africa, etc.
I grew up in a sort of English home. Not 100% mind you, but I do know what kippers are. I was borderline autistic in my estimation, until a chick in college brought me out of my shell. To be demonstrative physically, like hugging, used to be a terrible fright. English simply do not do that. Nor do Germans or Swiss. OK, over exaggeration... but still sort of a stereotype that fits. Sometimes I wished I were Italian.
So back to Nicked... The US is starting to suffer the same thing. It was a major empire. It still is, but the will to keep it there has died. At least with the Obama types. What defines our culture now? Sex, Drugs, Suggestive Dance, and Chanting. There is no more Rock and Roll, except in “Oldies” venues.
Can a concept define a culture? Yes. Many examples over many millennia.
Yakoob on 31/5/2016 at 21:34
Cool thread. So for Poland i would say survival and martyrdom.
Half of our entire history is constantly fighting some invading force and trying to survive. At the end of 1700s poland was torn by its neighbors and would not be a country on the map of the world until WW1. Soon after it would be conquered by the Nazis and subsequently occupied by our Russian "liberators." It was only through our strong nationalism and underground movements that Polish identity survived.
It is no surprise we like to "celebrate" our own martyrdom and almost take pride in self pity. After the airplane to Smolensk crashed, killing the president and to government officials, we've spent each year on elaborate ordeals to remember the tragedy, unwilling to move on. Heck, one of the verses in our national anthem is still about fighting the invading Swedes from centuries ago!
There's much more to polish culture than this of course but during my current visit i realized just how much these elements shape our national identity. Its especially visible in Warsaw with the countless WW2 monuments, memorials and graveyards. It really is a city (re)built on its ruins.
