How can you define that which of itself adds definition? Culture has shown itself, throughout the years, to be among the most frustrating of concepts to subdue and contain. It's illusive nature is such that just as one is proudly setting bounds to it's immense and diverse landscape, it embarks anew on a conquest of creativity and expression. While I consider it fully futile to attempt to contain this most unruly term, I will gladly do my best to shed light on some of what it itself contains.
It appears to me that Culture is best defined as a hybrid of what was and of what is. It's puzzling paradox is that while it is vulnerable to being molded and manipulated by the simplest of society, it also holds tremendous sway over the every day operations of life. While we all contribute to the composition of culture, we largely only reinforce prearranged and accepted patterns. The man or woman who would confront and alter the fundamental understanding of "normal" will do so with no small expenditure of effort and energy.
This can be seen in the example of the Flywheel. Wikipedia defines a Flywheel as "a rotating mechanical devise that is used to store rotational energy". If you can imagine with me an extremely large metal disk, mounted on an axis, weighing as much as 100 tons, we would be on the same page. A considerable amount of energy is needed to rotate the disk the first time, but each ensuing rotation compounds on the last until such an enormous momentum has gathered that the wheel now has plenty of power to carry you around and around. And culture does just the same thing; the energy we expend in changing culture compounds and becomes a force of it's own. In the end, that which we first influenced comes full circle to influence us.
Where have you been investing energy to improve the culture we live in?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel
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