“A fish only discovers its need for water when it is no longer in it.” – fish also suffocate and die when out of water but I digress…
The pedantic definition of culture is:
“the set of beliefs, values, understandings, practices and ways of making sense of the world that are shared by a group of people.”
I have always thought of culture as something akin to the prudent or deliberate way people interact with the world based on what they were taught and what socio-political values their country/upbringing holds. Lately, when I think about culture a quote I’ve heard comes to mind:
“The problem with the French is that they do not have a word for entrepreneur.”
– George W. Bush
Contemptuous and comedic ignorance aside, people are constantly immersed in the fruits of other cultures whether they know it or not, from the simplistic choices of food and foreign media to the more subtle-like global supply chains and etymological nuances (which are handy for us writers). I would argue that virtually every human invention, tool, or idea that has brought us forward is a result of and testimony to the cooperation, intentional, knowable, or otherwise, of countless different cultures throughout the ages.
Do animals have culture? Monkey tribes or Orca maybe…
~ G.G. April 2024
Giuseppe Gillespie Writing 
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