Interpreting Culture: A Personal Perspective
“Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs” - Thomas Wolfe
Introduction
The task was to explain culture the way you comprehend it essay, so I will do it through the lens of different thinkers. One cannot hitch a specific meaning to culture as there are multiple meanings associated with it for different kinds of people. As we are innately different humans, our cultures also differentiate. People do not choose or adopt their specific culture rather they are born with it. According to me, culture is not just constituted by its traditions or customs but also by the people of the different regions who define the association of their culture with the help of rituals, values, linguistics, patterns of behaviour, influence of religion etc. Certain history of people connects culture to their own life thus it is often viewed as very fluid and can change over time.
Understanding Culture Through the Lens of Different Thinkers
Of the many socio-anthropological efforts that have aimed at succinctly understanding culture, Clifford Geertz have also tried to understand and explain the idea of culture perhaps in a simplified and understandable way. Geertz in his interpretation of cultures talks about the thick and thin description of behaviours. He differentiate thin description from thick by merely understanding it as a description about a behaviour without interpretation and on the contrary he explains thick description as a behaviour with interpretation and associates semiotic terms, gestures and various signs and symbols with such kinds of description. This an eccentric way of understanding culture in Geertz’s understanding. We can associate with the kind and explanation of culture Geertz tries to explain in his text. It is also perceived that gesture is not an independent component rather different cultures associate with different gestures because of which certain meanings are produced.
When we tried to analysed the explanation Geertz gave, Ria in this context gives of the example of giving flowers on certain occasions and the meaning associated with the colours of the respective flowers. For instance, she explained the significance of giving red roses on an auspicious occasion such as marriage or giving it to the loved ones. The “red” colour in her culture represents joy and celebration. It has also been a tradition in her society that the brides are supposed to wear red outfits and bangles on her auspicious day of marriage as it is considered as the colour of love, warmth and auspiciousness. According to what have been taught to her since childhood “black” colour signifies death, evil, fear and grief and consequently white also denotes misery and death. Therefore, it has always been told to her that these two colours must not be a part of the ceremonies.
On the contrary, where in her culture white and black colours are considered as inauspicious, such colours assume different meanings and importance in different societies and their cultures. For instance, in western countries white is the colour of new beginning, purity and is considered essentially a positive colour. Similarly, black is often wore by many individuals for professional interviews or meetings which is also signified as a beginning of a new carrier of an individual.
She also gives an example of yellow colour flowers. To her yellow colour flowers are significant because she often receives them from her friends on occasion such as friendships day or whenever she used to fall sick except her loved one who despite of any occasion or situation used to greet her with red colour flowers. Thus, the colour yellow carries the meaning of happiness, positivity, friendship and optimism for her and the fact that she used to get different colour flowers from her loved one indicates that purpose and meaning of the flower remained the same but its colour varied depending upon the person who was giving and the one to whom it was supposed to be given. Also, yellow colour in her traditional cultural ceremonies of marriage fetch an important place as its paste is applied on the bride and groom’s body a day prior to their marriage.
Conclusion
Therefore, we can say that different cultures associate different meanings of similar rituals, traditions and objects. Also gestures and its cultural meaning undergoes many transitions over time, depending upon the values and beliefs associated with it.
