BLOG CULTURE
(some bloggers' cultural interaction)

We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation
of life. We have language...We have affection.
- Lewis Thomas
The Medusa and the Snail

Jobert: What is culture?
A: Quite a few great definitions had been thrown in already, there's another one by Belle and most recently by APO Jim, but with a term as primordial as culture, there should be room for some more. I'll take Prof. Edward F. Said's, who considers culture two-fold, the 1st being all those practices autonomous from economic, social, and political realms and often exist in aesthetic forms and whose principal aim is to entertain; and 2nd is as a concept to keep up with the best that was thought and known, to be able to see yourself, your people, your society, and your traditions in their best lights - a society's reservoir of the best that differentiates "us" from "them".

Jobert: Is culture how humans view one another?
A: In a way, yes. Prof. Said deems the history of culture as the history of cultural borrowings, viewing culture as not just a matter of ownership but appropriations as well. Culture, he is firm to add, is not impermeable, as we see common experiences and interdependencies between different cultures. The Philippines is a good example, being the great appropriators we are. We suddenly become the American sitcom characters we watched the night before, matching their appearances, wearing their clothes, sporting their make-ups, speaking their language. Duh, Whatever.

Jobert: Is culture experience, or can culture be experienced, or is culture the product of experience?
A: I'll take Belle's pronouncement. Environment plays a huge part on how our brains develop, thus making culture - or us as a part of the greater us within the environment - a product of many factors like religion, language, art, law, morals etc. Culture is a sense of identity - ethnic, religious, communal - and it is this environment that helps us identify ourselves with the rest within that environment. That also makes culture, in a large respect, a product of experience that is very close to us, or something that surrounds us, for a sufficient period of time. If you go to Saudi Arabia today, you will notice the clash between your culture and theirs, being diametrically opposed. You may find a part of theirs offensive, as they might judge some of yours illegal. Wherefore, while you experience this foreign culture, your culture will not probably be a product of this new experience. But if you moved to Saudi Arabia at a young age when you have not yet developed a defined culture of your own, then most probably you will embrace Arabian culture. This culture will be an experience that will in itself be the product.

Jobert: Wherefore, everything is experience, or does experience transcend everything?
A: Not absolutely. Sometimes, a part of culture is produced by choice. You can find an inmate in deathrow listening to classical music, and who knows, your favorite pastor may be a grunge rock fanatic. But relative to the previous q & a, I think it sometimes occur that your culture is forced unto you. Prof. Said views certain societies that regard their cultures as protective enclosures, entailing the veneration of their own culture and divorcing it from the rest of the world. He smartly illustrated these types as those who hang a sign up their door: check your politics before you come in. In this kind of society, you have no option but to make experience everything.

Jet: Is LOTR and its minions a culture all its own?
A: Yes, all the ingredients of a great culture are there: middle-earth language, customs, beliefs, teachings, arts, weaponries, even jewelries, like the ring har-har. When I went to see the 1st episode, there was a group of teenagers wearing middle-earth costumes. That, btw, is out-and-out cultural appropriation.

Jobert: Does language mould a culture?
A: This is a very complex question and I will risk being a fool trying to answer it. But I will answer it, foolishness being my culture. First, some anecdote. In college, my prof asked me which between sex and sexuality is a broader term. I answered sex, reasoning out that while sexuality pertains only to humans, sex is participated in by animals, insects and plants as well. She said I was wrong, sexuality being of a deeper meaning, referring not just to the physical act of sex, but also to its spiritual, emotional, mental, and even cultural side. Compare this to language and culture, does language embrace culture, or does culture include language? I say language is a part of culture but at times this part could be greater than the sum. Say, a book, and what is written. The book is a work, which I consider as culture. It is a figment of substance and occupies space, held in hand. What is written is text, held in language. It is actually the text that moves us, not the book, although that text is part of that book.

Prof. Said, however, is the authority and so I bow. He said that the concept of national language is central but without the practice of national culture, that language becomes inert. In other words culture propagates that language - through folktales for example - because it is culture that organizes and sustains communal memory. In short, he disagrees with me (not literally because I doubt if he will ever read this entry) by saying that texts are not finished objects but create their own precedents through our own cultural practices.

Jet: Is blogging a culture?
A: Very much. As Belle says, there is culture among bloggers, there is a shared culture among a specific group of bloggers. Actually, the reason I think we visit each others' sites very often is because of this shared culture, our love for the arts, the cinema, the short stories, the poetries, captured by language which some expert says is not dialectical but paradoxical, resulting into this animated interplay without hearing a 3rd term, simply good or evil.

cbs: So what is the final word on all these Post Colonial Transformation/Culture and Transculture topics?
A: Here. In his book Culture and Imperialism (Vintage, 1993) Prof. Said lifted F. Fukuyama's view that the colonizer and the colonized completed its trajectory, with the West acquiring worldwide domination, thus resulting in - hold your breath - the end of history, with the West being assured of its integrity while the rest of the world remain standing, petitioning for attention. But I have something to oppose this, something from an interview made with Mahatma Gandhi. When he was asked what he thought of Western civilization, the great Gandhi replied: I believe it can be achieved.