Defining Culture

I just read a list of the top 5 U.S. cities for culture. Number one is, and I think it would be unanimous choice, New York City. The next five are Washington D.C. (where the crooked but cultural politicians are), Chicago, New Orleans and San Francisco. It's a subjective choice, after all, it's hard to even agree on what is cultural these days. The subject had redefined itself due to modernity. No doubt another list of top five might not include all or most of the five on this list.

Culture is most often defined as being the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. Hmmmm That mans reality TV is culture too. I think I am losing my interest in culture. But anyway, cynical remarks aside, culture is not only disparate and hard to define and with which to agree. I think there is a factor that accounts for the rapid change in culture everywhere in the world. Due to incredible improvements in communication and transportation many countries are largely populated by immigrants, and the culture is influenced by the many groups of people that now make up the country. This is also a part of growth. As the countries grow, so does its cultural diversity.  

So it might be argued that the culture of the U.S. is more deep and interesting than the sacred cultures of the world, sacred cultural spots in places like Beijing, Vienna, Tokyo etc. that are little changed from what they were centuries ago. Still, the older cultural expressions have stood the test of time and also might be regarded as superior to the throw- away cultural expressions of "crude" places like the United States. So how one judges what is culture and what culture is more appealing is like choosing between noodles or rice. It's pointless. 

In 1964  Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart described his threshold test for what is pornography as being to hard to define but "I know it when I see it". Maybe that's a good definition for culture. Each individual knows it when he or she sees it.