Culture, like man, must repent. It must be reoriented

What is Culture?

by Joseph Pearce

Good culture, like a good man, must truly reflect the goodness of its Creator. Men are called to be saints and culture is called to be saintly. We need to convert the culture in the same way that we need to convert the man. Culture, like man, must repent.

What do we mean by “culture”? This perplexing question was asked recently by Manuel Alfonseca in his thought-provoking blog, Popular Science.[*] “Politicians and the media do not seem quite clear about the meaning of culture,” he writes. “When people talk about the world of culture, they usually refer to issues as diverse as pop music shows, bullfighting, opera, theater, cinema, museums, university….” Mr. Alfonseca complains that such loose-talk is “an abuse of language that mixes four things quite different, though related: culture, shows, entertainment and education.”

Proceeding logically and scientifically, he seeks to define his terms by citing the Cambridge dictionary:

• Culture: music, art, theatre, literature, etc.
• Education: process of teaching or learning, or the knowledge you get from this.
• Show: a theatre performance or a television or radio program that is entertaining rather than serious.
• Entertainment: public shows, performances or other ways of enjoying yourself.

Having made the necessary distinctions, he asserts that a cultural act “should be a public celebration where attendees try to increase their culture, to get knowledge that will improve their critical judgment.” Such cultural acts would include a classical music concert, the presentation of a book, or a visit to a museum. Conversely, watching movies is not a cultural act but entertainment, says Mr. Alfonseca, because, with few exceptions, “we do not watch a movie to increase our culture, but to enjoy ourselves.” Similarly he states that “a pop festival or a bullfight are not cultural events, but shows.”

“We can go to the opera or the theater to improve our culture,” he concedes, “but the performance itself may not be a cultural act, but a show, especially when the stage directors distort a classic work to express their originality or to shock the public.”

University professors can be considered a part of the world of culture, he says, “if they perform popularization.” Since, however, this is not their main activity, which consists primarily of education and research, they are not, properly speaking, part of the culture.

“When the media talk about the world of culture and put there actors, pop musicians (some of whom confess that they do not know music), and even DJs, they are really talking about the world of entertainment.” So says Mr. Alfonseca in clearly plaintive mode. “Let us call things by their name.”

This is all very well but not at all satisfactory. It raises more questions than it answers. It will not do.

Rather than raising the questions, let’s suggest another way of understanding what is meant by culture. As a word, and agreeing with Mr. Alfonseca, culture is too lightly used and too often abused. As a living thing it is too often taken for granted and all too often not fully appreciated for what it is. It is, therefore, time that we looked at culture with a clarity of vision that is often absent. In short, it is time to define our terms.

First, we can say that culture is human (and ultimately divine). It does not belong to, or come forth from, other animate creatures. There is no canine culture; no civilization of chimpanzees; no planet of the apes. Only people make music, write poetry, build cathedrals, or paint pictures. Second, we can say that culture iscreative. It is the art of making. For a Christian, the fact that something is peculiarly human marks it as a sign that man, in a way crucially different from other animals, is made in the image of God. Culture is, therefore, a mark of God’s image in us. But what sort of mark is it? It is a creative mark. It is the image of the Creator’s creativity in his creatures. Our imagination is the image of God’s Imagination in us. There is, therefore, something both human and divine in the creativity that creates culture. It is the gift of the Giver finding creative expression in the personhood of the gifted. On a mystical level one can see an image of both the Trinity and the Incarnation in this primal truth of culture. The Trinity is the eternal expression of Divine Vitality, the source of all Creativity, and the Incarnation is the eternal and temporal giving of this Divine Vitality, this Primal Gift, in the Created humanity of Christ, to mankind. On the deepest level, the Trinity and the Incarnation are the archetypes of all culture. They are the source from which all culture springs, and they are the end which all properly ordered culture serves.

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