There are many perspectives on culture. But we will focus on two of the fundamental ones.

The more "traditional perspectives on culture" has been espoused by many thinkers throughout the centuries. In the West, for example, Matthew Arnold defined culture in his 1869 book, Culture and Anarchy, as "the best that has been thought and said in the world." Culture, according to this traditional view, is looked upon as a standard of excellence and usually refers to achievements in the arts, literature, architecture, and the like.

Similarly, many people also relate culture to standard in (formal) education--as in "the more you're educated, the more culture you have." Culture, from this angle, refers to the outcome of a formal and programmatic learning process (as in going through schooling). For example, in various parts on Mainland China, the expression "someone has culture" means someone h

But the above perspective is currently thought of by many scholars as a "class-based" or elitist view of culture. After all, someone, a class of people, or an institution in society is defining or legitimizing what is culture (or what is good, significant, and valuable) and what is not. For instance, most of the artifacts, "traditions," or past events we see in the typical art, culture, or history museums represent the vision or interpretation of the curators who have their own sets of ideology and preference; their selection is determined by a privileged class of people. Artifacts, traditions, or past events that are not selected for display in museums have tended to be viewed as unimportant or insignificant, at least by implication of their omission. In other words, this elitist definition of culture has enormous social, economic, and political implications. It is because cultural artifacts, practices, or traditions that are not legitimized by museums, the media, or cultural elites tend not to have much exposure and can then be forgotten easily.

Of course, ideally, and more often than not, we hope to have more mutual understandings than we have conflicting understandings in our communication. Here, what John Dewey wrote in his 1916 book, Democracy and Education, on the intimate relationship between communication and community can help us understand this concept even better. He said: "There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication. [People] live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common. What they must have in common...are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge--a common understanding--likemindedness as sociologists say. Such things cannot be passed physically from one to another like bricks; they cannot be shared as persons would share a pie by dividing it into physical pieces....Consensus demands communication." In short, a sense of community among people is created and maintained through and in communication.

Third, communication is a process sustained by the use of symbols people use to express themselves or to interact with others. Some of the key symbols we use include spoken or written words, graphic designs, hand signs, body gestures, audiotapes, movies, music, and so on. This is a KEY component is the communication process and in our understanding of culture as a sense-making experience. The meaning of symbols, all kinds of symbol (such as Chinese or English writings), is socially constructed. People assign meanings to the symbols they create (e.g., red is a lucky color during a wedding in Chinese tradition; red represents danger in traffic lights). That is to say, the meaning of symbols is also context-bound. Therefore, the meaning of any given symbol (or the symbolism we assign to any thing we use or thing we do) is ofte

Some topics in this essay:
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