As someone with a background in anthropology, culture is everything and everywhere. It's so all-encompassing it's hard to even wrap your head around. Everything you do, say, think, eat, wear is wrapped up in culture. Even being deliberately counter-cultural, by consciously defying the expectations of your culture, is still an engagement with culture (often by adopting a sub-culture).
Sure, it's the āsimpleā, āsurface-levelā things that people tend to think of, like
In your culture, how many meals a day are you generally expected to eat, and when are you expected to eat them?
In your culture, which clothes are considered āformalā, and when would you wear such clothes?
But it's also so much more:
If you were dating someone, at what point in the relationship would you be expected to introduce them to your parents? That's culture!
How much respect is given to artists? Are people like poets or musicians revered as an integral part of society, or is the predominant attitude āget a real jobā? That's culture!
How much value is given to education? What's considered more socially embarrassing - academic failure, or academic achievement? What's the intellectual landscape? Do people tend to respect experts, or denigrate them as āelitistsā? That's culture!
Which things are generally considered to be āhigh cultureā or ālow cultureā? Which kinds of media and art are considered āfor the massesā versus āfor the elitesā? That's culture!
How are politicians treated? Do people tend to respect them as their ābettersā, their āleadersā? Or are they assumed to be lying, conniving, corrupt, the worst of society? What kind of thing would end a politician's career? That's culture!
What's considered more egregious behaviour - bothering other people, or asking someone to stop bothering other people? That's culture!
If you were attending a job interview, how would you want to come across? How would you be expected to dress and behave? Would it be better to come across as very bold and confident, or humble and subservient? That's culture!
If you found yourself in a tricky situation - say, broken down at the side of the road - would you confidently expect strangers to come and help you? Or would it seem really weird for some random person to come and involve themselves in your situation? That's culture!
How are you expected to communicate? Is it seen as rude to be very blunt and straightforward, or is it considered rude to beat around the bush and make allusions and try to soften what you're saying rather than quickly getting to the point? That's culture!
I could go on (boy could I go on). This is so not meant to be all-inclusive; this is just a tiny sample of the things that make up ācultureā.
To put it bluntly, a lot of the time the word ācultureā seems to be used to mean, essentially, āthe things that make people of colour different from white peopleā. Oh, this guy eats this different kind of food; that's culture. This lady wears these clothes to a wedding; that's culture. But we white people, we don't have ācultureā; we just do what's normal. But it's all culture! Everything! All of it! And culture isn't just the result of where in the world you come from - class, occupation, rural/urban location, minority status, political affiliation, all these things and more can result in cultural differences even within a small area. Multiple cultures often co-exist, blend, overlap, and borrow from one another within the same place, which is especially noticeable in places with legacies of migration. People bring different cultures from around the world, and these interact with the dominant culture in all sorts of interesting ways. But a culture being dominant doesn't mean that it ceases to be a culture.
Claiming that certain groups of people (generally, whoever is the dominant majority group in a particular context) ādon't have cultureā is just as dumb as when people claim they ādon't have an accentā simply because their accent is the most common one where they live. There is no ādefaultā, every deviation from which is āa cultureā or āan accentā. Everyone has an accent. Every community, everywhere, has culture(s). If you aren't aware of your culture, or don't think you have an accent, you're probably just so used to being considered ādefaultā and ānormalā that it doesn't occur to you that no such thing actually exists.
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