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Culture: A critical review of concepts and definitions ReviewCulture
A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions
by A.L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhorn
with the assistance of Wayne Untereiner and appendices by Alfred G. Meyer
Vintage Books
1952
Please note- I have the Vintage paperback version, which has a separate listing and which is "unavailable." If you want to see the cover of the book I am reviewing- look at that listing. As far as I know, this could be the same edition- it's not clear from the title listing here.
What does the word "culture" mean?
I was watching a college football game on ABC last week and the announcer was talking about a new coach and how the coach wanted to install a "culture of winning." And the other announcer said, "Why does everybody use this word "culture" what does it even mean?"
I thought he had a good point. From the announcer's point of view he would prefer a phrase like "winning spirit" but that phrase also implicates cultural analysis.
Although this book was originally published in 1952, "No. 1 of the Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University"($425.) it still packs massive explanatory punch. If I'm going to read straight social science, I want big time explanatory power. Of whatever the author is talking about. I don't want to get bogged down in the minutiae of a "scientific" field that is not central to my profession.
From that perspective, Culture is a whale. You don't have to take my word for it. Go try to buy this old paperback book on Amazon. That's social science utility, right there.
Kroeber takes a very detailed approach to the origins, history & present usage of the term "culture" by everyone- if by everyone you mean the academic traditions of germany, russia, britain & the united states. For some reason, France is excluded- not a small matter in the field of "culture study." I mean... Foucault? Like him or hate him he's pretty central to any discussion of the field.
On the other hand, it was nice to read about the meaning of culture without all the French gobbledygook gook. French cultural theory is incomprehensible.
Kroeber begins with a discussion of the coining of the term in Germany. We're talking 1750's or thereabouts. In England, writers used "culture" to mean "manners or cultivation." The British analogue to the emergent term in Germany was "civilization." I'd imagine there are still plenty of living Americans who use "civilization" for culture without even considering whether it's the "right" word.
In the 1800's British and American social scientists honed in on "culture" and gradually abandoned describing culture as "civilization." Then, in fine social-psuedo science form circa 1900-1950, other social and hard scientists tried to define what, exactly, "culture" means. There are a lot of definitions. Hundreds. Krober breaks them down into categories, "psychological," "genetic," "normative." There are seven categories including the hilarious "incomplete" section.
So Kroeber goes through all this using clear writing, to the extent possible. All the excerpts are short so you can just skip through them if they bum you out.
The second section includes longer excerpts. Here you begin to see a refinement of what the author's feel are the significant contributions to a very complex, confused topic. I also lost interest more often, since the passages were getting longer and involving more discipline specific jargon. Ultimately, the idea is to integrate/blend the identified categories.
The third section is a more free flowing discussion of what the author's view are significant aspects of cultural analysis, whether or not they are contained in the definitions. For example, they discuss the relationship between Culture and Language. That relationship turns out to be key, and is not discussed at all in the definition section.
The final part is the summary. Obviously, this is the pay off, and if I didn't know I was boring the tears out of anyone who made it this far, I would just quote it verbatim. But one takeaway point was "avoid individual actors in writing cultural history." That coincides with my own predilections regarding cultural history. It's "history without people." I was also left with a much more expansive sense of modes of inquiry into cultural problems. I suppose that's why this book is so expensive.
I could write about this book forever, but it's 9 AM. Time to get on the horn!
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