GS101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Low Culture, Chopsticks, High Culture
Document Summary
Artefacts / cultural products - cutlery, chopsticks traditions / rituals - flowers at funeral. Steger: culture refers to the symbolic construction, articulation and dissemination of meaning (pg 80) Orend: culture is a way of life; the way people think, speak, behave and spend their time, focus on: political and religious ideologies (liberal vs. conservative, secular vs. theocratic) High culture/ low culture: high culture: the most meaningful, meritorious, long lasting elements of a culture, low culture: wide- spread or popular elements of a culture, a contentious distinction. Is human nature deterministic: human nature is universal but not deterministic tendencies but not predetermined outcomes, human nature swings both ways war but peace enmity but friendship greed but altruism shaping our environment for us but destroying environment. Recall the order that persists unseen; the hidden wholeness . What is the meaning of birth, of death, of suffering? depends on cultures, on religious and secular ideas.
