[MD] Oui and Pirsig

[MarshaV]

At 08:04 PM 9/7/2007, Steve wrote:

>To anyone in this thread,
>
>What is culture?

Greetings,

Hmmmm.  An interesting question.  Maybe culture is a collection of 
social patterns.  There's cows, horses and pigs, and there's the 
farming culture which includes cows, horses and pigs, or something 
like that.  There's 'White America' by Eminem, and there's the 
Hip-Hop culture.

>Or what are examples of good culture/bad culture?

Any labeling of a culture, either good or bad, would say something 
about what I value, and not much about the culture.

>I'm a college student, so I am guessing I'm surrounded by a lot of
>good culture and a lot of pseudo culture.  I agree that money tied
>into culture can be bad, although money is a useful and necessary tool
>for other things.

I don't think the use of money is bad.  The use of money demonstrates 
value.  One of the first steps to use to investigate self, as in 
'Know thyself.', is to see where you spend your money.  I might 
suggest that a culture built on consumerism, which in turn is built 
on manipulating through the exploitation of sex and violence, is not 
a healthy culture.

>And I also am an introvert and highly value my time
>alone.

I've heard it suggested that the U.S. is a country of 
extroverts.  Germany, on the other hand, is a country of 
introverts.  I don't know if it's true, or not.

>p.s. I was also born and raised in Michigan, and still live and go to
>college here.

I left Michigan for Connecticut when I was twelve.  Now that was a 
culture shock!   From memory, I still miss the family, the people and 
the experiences, but that was a long time ago.

Marsha