CORRECT CULTURE

by Hugh M. Lewis

The anthropological concept of culture has been productive, influential and equivocal. A plethora of definitions of culture abound, yet none appear satisfactory in any final sense. For the past decade, at least, this concept has been under attack, both from the academic "left" and from the academic "right." In fact, the traditional concept has drawn so much fire and criticism that it appears very unfashionable to align oneself with the straight concept and all that seems to imply without some form of terminological hyphenation of identity or some interdisciplinary hybridization.

Whatever our stand in relation to the study of culture, it stands out clearly that we can only afford to ignore or reject those realities upon which the concept of culture is based only at peril to the empirical soundness of our theory and data. The concept of culture, however formally construed, does seem to designate some distinguishable, if slightly fuzzy, area of human reality.

Other lessons appear important to me--culture is deeply rooted; culture is primarily learned. There is little place remaining for human instinct; culture is preeminently a social phenomenon though it has definite psychological resonance. Though culture is mostly learned, it is bound by necessity to a particular setting or context of its behavioral and material articulation. Culture is both conservative and adaptable; culture is symbolically articulated and has the function of symbolically integrating the diverse moments and spaces of culture into a coherent sense of order.

It is wrong to claim that culture is only or first in our heads, or that culture is primarily a material manifestation that is "out there" beyond our own understanding or subjective powers. Culture as those designated processes encompass all our dichotomies of material/ideal, organic/superorganic, social/psychological,