catapult magazine

Here’s a question from one of the people out here that CAN’T give you a complete history of Alfred Hitchcock’s works cross referrenced with their Aristotelian influences and linked with the recent string of events in Ghana that are only reported in obscure newspapers printed with Soy Ink, whose environmental impact is clearly much less detrimental than normal ink.

A lot of times when I log on to *cino, I feel like a completely ignorant buffoon. I’m perhaps “moderately cultured,” not “very cultured.” I get up, I go to work, I do my job, I unwind in the evenings, I try to stay up on stuff. But here, I have very little to contribute. I have questions: Since Culture is, indeed, Not Optional, is it my duty to become as cultured as Grant? Feel free to say yes. I’m sure I need more discipline on these things. I’m just wondering if there’s something I’m missing. Since about 4 or 5 years ago, I have had to start training myself to like good music/movies. I grew up liking DC Talk and Jim Carrey was the epitome of funny. Thankfully, I think many of my viewpoints and “aesthetics” have changed dramatically over the past several years. Still, I often feel lost. Where do you get the time to take in all this culture (movies, current events, books)? When I read a book, it takes me a long time. I don’t have the cash to see a movie every week. And aside from the newspaper and the television, there’s so many things in current events that I miss, I wonder if I’ve got my eyes closed and everyone else has them open. It seems like too much to be able to hold down at once.

I’m not making excuses for my lack. I suppose no one’s a perfect angel here. I suspect that the cliquishness that’s perceived in communities like this comes from people not knowing what they’ve done wrong when their version of culture is what they’ve been handed and they don’t understand how a group of people can tell them they’ve gotten it all wrong. I think for some people, this stuff comes naturally. Others of us are having to break old, bad habits. And like with most habits, it’s not easy. Maybe some people can empathize with some of the stuff I’m saying here.

So tell me: what do I need to change? Go ahead, give me the easy answer. Give me the in-depth “zeitgeist” answer. You founders: stop preaching to the choir (throught I’d throw that in to link the Rush Limbaugh thing) and preach to me for a second.

I’m obviously being a little extreme here for the sake of the post.
Come on, just go with it.

what, doesn’t everyone here have brittney spears and n’sync in their CD players? i know i sure do . . .

hmm, that’s a tough one. Yes, I do believe there is such a thing as good and bad art. I guess what I was trying to say is that we can’t ignore the bad stuff, because it still has a tremendous impact on our culture. We should strive for good art, but also be aware of the bad. It’s a complex line to draw, and one that I haven’t really figured out yet. Others here may have better answers to that than I do.

Woo whee!!! What an exciting topic!! And definitely one that needed to happen on the site. You really hit something here, Adam (and everyone who has contributed). Rock and roll!

I think it’s important to note that the name of our organization/website is not a suggestion, as in “You should really get involved in culture.” Rather, it is a very simple fact. Culture is NOT optional. The dilemma that many Christians struggle with -to be or not to be involved in culture - is a false one, I think. Like you said, Bridget, culture is not just something we learn about or become a part of through education or art. We literally have no choice. We are culture. What we do, how we act, the art we produce, the institutions and organizations and websites we create, the machines we build, the way we worship, our system of language and speech, even how we put on our socks, is our culture. These things are what makes culture what it is.

I’d say that even people who attempt to swear off culture — who may say “ours is a culture of sin and I want nothing to do with it” and seperate themselves from it — are still part of culture. They’re just culturing in a different (and in my opinion, destructive) way. So, the question is not “to culture or not to culture”, but rather, how to culture obediently, normally, to the glory of God.

Thanks for the intriguing thoughts, Jason. I’m curious—what would your definition of culture be? From what you wrote I would guess (and please correct me if I’m wrong) you see culture as the outward things we do and produce. Am I on the right track?

I’m intrigued by Adam’s idea too, that culture is what distinguishes us from people 3000 years ago. When I think about who I am and the society I’m living in now, I think that I would say there is a symbiotic relationship between the people we are and the things we produce. I don’t know that I can separate those.

I’m not entirely sure what I think, but I’m beginning to think that culture is who we are, expressed in what we do.

Anyone want to agree, disagree, or discuss?

Is culture something which is merely comprised of everyting to do with our society? Some people define ethics by relating it to the values of a society which is to say that they have no objective roots, but rather are composed of the idea, beliefs and values of a society. I like to think that ethics may have some objective aspects, and I wonder if culture might as well. When heaven comes down what will culture look like. Will it be continually on a journey, or will we arrive at some perfection of culture? Maybe some aspects will be fixed and others will change. hmmm

Now that, Aron, is a very interesting question.

I hope it is a journey. It is so hard imagining what a completely different world would be like, and I suppose if I am realistic, it can’t really be done (that’s why even the Bible has to resort to clunky metaphors like the streets being paved with gold), so, with the understanding that I don’t know what I am talking about, I’ll tell you what I would hope.

I would hope we can still tell stories in heaven. I would hope that there is still teaching and learning in heaven. I would hope that I can spend most of my time in the library there (cause it must be one honkin’ amazing library). I would hope that some of my favorite musicians, living and dead, can team up and make new pieces together — pieces that are wonderful and moving and six days long and we can listen in rapt amazement and our butts won’t hurt. I would hope that I can be involved in the drama program there, even if just as a stagehand. I would love to see my four year old daughter and my great uncle Lyme (he was a New York artist who died when I was a little kid) team up and make a painting the size of a planet.

But if it isn’t that, if culture becomes something even more amazing — something fulfilled without being stagnant. Well, I’d be cool with that.

i came across an interesting quote in some reading i’m doing that speaks to some of the questions that are being asked here. the book is on Christian Democracy in Western Europe 1820-1953 and was written by Michael P. Fogarty. at the point in the book where this quote comes in, he is discussing the ideal personality of an individual according to the principles of Christian Democracy.

The language is rather dense and old-fashioned, but it strikes me that, while i don’t fully understand its definition of culture, this explanation is confirming and expanding some things that have been discussed already. can anyone offer a version of this definition that has the same ideas in easier language?

another quote that furthers what was said in the first is this:

any thoughts? what does this interpretation imply for us practically? i think it eloquently addresses some of the fears expressed in this thread of not being “cultured” enough.

These quotes affirm that all culture is religious. As Jason said so well, a la Calvin Seerveld, culture doesn’t take extra work to make or do. It is the work (and play) we do. Even thinking is cultivating. Our dreams are culture too. Looking at a rock? Culture.

I think what jabirdV was saying about care is right on. God created us to care for the earth and for ourselves, which means cultivating the earth, naming it, eating from it, looking at rocks. And we wear socks to take care of ourselves too. Sometimes we wear matching socks, which is also an act of caring for ourselves. Wearing matching socks preserves our reputation among fellow culturing human beings. This act says that we are willing, ready and able to go along with society’s norms for color coordination.

That still seems so broad to me. Just because something’s affected by culture doesn’t mean that it “is” culture. If “everything is culture,” then the word itself has no meaning.

Everything is AFFECTED by culture. But not everything IS culture. There’s got to be a difference between the Kyoto accord and the trees themselves that we’re trying to save.

For example, I think that the content of dreams can be a result of culture, but I think some dreams may come simply as a result of, let’s say, puberty for example.

Puberty is another good example. You could make an argument that kids are experiencing puberty earlier, possibly because of the psychological/social effects of the sexual revolution of the 60’s. But I don’t think that the maturation of a 12-year-old body is therefore part of culture. It’s a part of the created order. Granted, it’s been affected by culture.

Or trees again: An abundance of trees may affect the culture of a people. Or the consumer attitude of a people may lead them to get rid of the trees. I don’t think that makes the trees themselves culture. I think our actions/attitudes toward them are culture.

The “culture=everything” approach frustrates me because it leaves no room for specialization; no ground to stand on when explaining why culture is an important concept. I think it’s more helpful to restrain it a little bit.

I hope this doesn’t sound argumentative. I’m crazy about definitions.

Okay, Adam, so what about the idea that culture is the outward expression of our identity—would that help explain some of these things? The way we treat trees depends on who we are and what our values are. Our participation in the Kyoto accord is determined by how who we are (including the religious as Grant pointed out) and how we therefore respond to the Kyoto accord. Puberty is a physiological event, but is conditioned by culture. It has been beginning earlier and earlier because of our outward expressions of self such as our beliefs in hormones as acceptable in food products. It has been beginning earlier because of the health, environment, and sociological choices we have made—which could be called culture, which I am starting to convince mysel is the outward expression of who we are.

Personally, going back to your post of a while ago, I think that’s what makes us different from people 3000 years ago—we ARE different people. Our cultures still retain certain things that are the same, because as human beings created by God, there are things about our humanity that do not change. There are also things that change drastically, and perhaps how we express our believes about our selves and life changes.

One example of this might be language change. There has always been language—every culture and people group has language, but the type of language has changed. Languages change according to the needs of a society, and is never stagnant.

I don’t know, just one opinion.