On Culture Talk

I haven’t been posting so much lately, as I’ve reading & thinking a lot about culture; hope to say lots more soon. In my readings, I’ve been frustrated by the quite different ways the word “culture” gets used. It gets used differently in cultural evolution science, in corporate culture consulting, in travel and marketing talk, in museum and art talk, and in the “culture” sections of newspapers and magazines. So I’ve tried to work out an account here to explain these differences.

The main difference I see is between inside and outside culture talk. Outside talk tries to be objective, talking in ways that everyone could agree on. Inside views, instead, are from folks embedded in a culture, and pushing for it to move in particular directions. 

Cultural evolution science has the most outsider-like talk. And corporate culture consulting, travel, and marketing talk are also pretty outside. Cultural evolution folks use “culture” to mean all human behavior habits one plausibly copied from others. Which is objective, but way more inclusive than most other uses of the word “culture”.

In travel, marketing, and corporate culture talk, “culture” seems to refer to the socially-influenced stuff that is distinctive about some unit (e.g., nation or firm), relatively uniform across that unit, and is also relatively hard to see, understand, or control. So things that can easily vary within a unit, or that are relatively easy to see or control, less count as “culture.” 

In this view, particular things that one can point to and analyze well, like accounting or org charts or building layouts, count less as culture. “Culture” is instead more of an aggregate residual concept, referring to the big mess of complicated nearby social stuff that is left out of easy to construct descriptions and analyses. Given this definition of “culture”, you can see why culture might in fact be rather important and influential; in complicated contexts most stuff is hard to see, understand, or control. So most firm capital is plausible “intangible” corporate culture capital, and most of what makes some nations rich, etc. is national culture. 

Talk of “culture” in museum and art talk, and in the “culture” sections of newspapers and magazines is, in contrast, more insider-like talk. As the main force in culture is people copying the behaviors of prestigious associates, and enforcing norms, the main force that changes cultures is prestigious folks fighting over who should count as more prestigious, what specific behaviors should be more copied more, and which norms matter more. This animates a lot of talk wherein folks try hard to seem like “us”, to seem prestigious, and to rally allies into their sides of the culture movements they seek to “lead”, in part via appeals to other features of their cultures.

Most such culture leaders avoid talking about stuff that is relatively easy to see, analyze or control, as that sort of talk is seen as “scientific”, “technical” or “personal” and thus apparently not as valid or useful as culture leader talk. Their sort of talk is less precise or analytical, more willing to morally blame folks for related stances, and tends to talk more indirectly about what exactly they are pushing and why. Much cultural leadership is instead expressed as art and eloquent inspirational speech. 

I’m not sure how best to explain them, but these are the patterns I see. 

Added: Apparently “emic” & “etic” are terms for “insider” & “outsider” cultural views.

Added: Many seem reluctant to believe culture could be influenced by money, suggesting culture is seen as somewhat sacred, which fits with it being seen as less amenable to analysis or calculation.

Added: I previously suggested “core concept in ‘culture’ is ‘coordination’, i.e., whatever it is that makes us fall into one game theory equilibrium over others. So culture is not the players, their choice options, what they know at each choice, or their final game payoffs. And culture is not the aspects of equilibria that are the same across different equilibria of a game.” I now see that as roughly pointing at my new “residual” description of the “culture” concept.