Culture
Culture () is the social behavior and norms found in human societies. Culture is considered a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies. Some aspects of human behavior, social practices such as culture, expressive forms such as art, music, dance, ritual, and religion, and technologies such as tool usage, cooking, shelter, and clothing are said to be cultural universals, found in all human societies. The concept of material culture covers the physical expressions of culture, such as technology, architecture and art, whereas the immaterial aspects of culture such as principles of social organization (including practices of political organization and social institutions), mythology, philosophy, literature (both written and oral), and science comprise the intangible cultural heritage of a society.
In the humanities, one sense of culture as an attribute of the individual has been the degree to which they have cultivated a particular level of sophistication in the arts, sciences, education, or manners. The level of cultural sophistication has also sometimes been seen to distinguish civilizations from less complex societies. Such hierarchical perspectives on culture are also found in class-based distinctions between a high culture of the social elite and a low culture, popular culture, or folk culture of the lower classes, distinguished by the stratified access to cultural capital. In common parlance, culture is often used to refer specifically to the symbolic markers used by ethnic groups to distinguish themselves visibly from each other such as body modification, clothing or jewelry. Mass culture refers to the mass-produced and mass mediated forms of consumer culture that emerged in the 20th century. Some schools of philosophy, such as Marxism and critical theory, have argued that culture is often used politically as a tool of the elites to manipulate the lower classes and create a false consciousness, and such perspectives are common in the discipline of cultural studies. In the wider social sciences, the theoretical perspective of cultural materialism holds that human symbolic culture arises from the material conditions of human life, as humans create the conditions for physical survival, and that the basis of culture is found in evolved biological dispositions.
When used as a count noun, a “culture” is the set of customs, traditions, and values of a society or community, such as an ethnic group or nation. Culture is the set of knowledge acquired over time. In this sense, multiculturalism values the peaceful coexistence and mutual respect between different cultures inhabiting the same planet. Sometimes “culture” is also used to describe specific practices within a subgroup of a society, a subculture (e.g. “bro culture”), or a counterculture. Within cultural anthropology, the ideology and analytical stance of cultural relativism holds that cultures cannot easily be objectively ranked or evaluated because any evaluation is necessarily situated within the value system of a given culture. Yet within philosophy, this stance of cultural relativism is undermined and made inapplicable since such value judgement is itself a product of a given culture.
Heritage (noun)
An inheritance; property that may be inherited.
Heritage (noun)
A tradition; a practice or set of values that is passed down from preceding generations through families or through institutional memory.
Heritage (noun)
A birthright; the status acquired by birth, especially of but not exclusive to the firstborn.
Heritage (noun)
Having a certain background, such as growing up with a second language.
“The university requires heritage Spanish students to enroll in a specially designed Spanish program not available to non-heritage students.”
Culture (noun)
the arts, customs, lifestyles, background, and habits that characterize a particular society or nation
Culture (noun)
the beliefs, values, behaviour and material objects that constitute a people’s way of life
Culture (noun)
any knowledge passed from one generation to the next, not necessarily with respect to human beings
Culture (noun)
cultivation
Culture (noun)
the process of growing a bacterial or other biological entity in an artificial medium
Culture (noun)
the growth thus produced
“I’m headed to the lab to make sure my cell culture hasn’t died.”
Culture (noun)
the collective noun for a group of bacteria
Culture (noun)
the details on a map that do not represent natural features of the area delineated, such as names and the symbols for towns, roads, meridians, and parallels
Culture (verb)
to maintain in an environment suitable for growth especially of bacteria cultivate}}
Culture (verb)
to increase the artistic or scientific interest in something cultivate}}
Heritage (noun)
property that is or may be inherited; an inheritance
“they had stolen his grandfather’s heritage”
Heritage (noun)
valued objects and qualities such as historic buildings and cultural traditions that have been passed down from previous generations
“the estuary has a sense of history and heritage”
“Europe’s varied cultural heritage”
Heritage (noun)
denoting or relating to things of special architectural, historical, or natural value that are preserved for the nation
“a heritage centre”
“60 miles of heritage coastline”
Heritage (noun)
denoting a traditional brand or product regarded as emblematic of fine craftsmanship
“heritage brands have found a growing cachet among younger customers”
Heritage (noun)
denoting a breed of livestock or poultry that was once traditional to an area but is no longer farmed in large numbers
“Cotswold sheep are considered a heritage breed in Canada”
Heritage (noun)
(of a plant variety) not hybridized with another; old-fashioned
“heritage roses”
Heritage (noun)
a special or individual possession; an allotted portion
“God’s love remains your heritage”
Heritage (noun)
Christians, or the ancient Israelites, seen as God’s chosen people.