reading: what is culture?

raymond williams proposed three useful ways to consider the word "culture": 

• "the process of a society's intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development."

• "the particular way of life of a people, period, or group."

• "the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity."

two out of three talk about art, literature, philosophy, performance… the good parts, the highest highs. the other refers simply to the average reality for an individual within a "culture." as pleasant as the loftier notions are, this middle definition is maybe our most useful, as the article refers to "popular culture." 

the signifiers and behaviors of pop culture often are taken from subcultures and appropriated, then re-sold to the masses. it's a good way for worthwhile things to become well known, but it's also pretty painful for a cynic.

pop culture has taken the place of folk culture in its lack of refined taste, lack of quality and perceived value. it works like folktales and legends, taking the mundane and reflecting it back as though it were powerful.

through the cycle of constant desire, fulfillment, and inevitable disillusionment, the consumers are neverendingly preoccupied with novelty and disappointment to the point that they find themselves unable to inflict any social change.

subcultures exist largely in response to the landscape of the mainstream, where a group of people react in a similar fashion and bond over that shared reaction by creating a group identity and behaving similarly. 

it's important, when looking at a subculture, not to reduce its identity to a sum of its outward signs without considering the context out of which those signs arose.

countercultures work much like subcultures, but more willfully articulate, standing intentionally and educatedly against some or all issues of the mainstream. both sub- and countercultures rely on dress and ritual to define their borders.