What is Culture?

Implications

Defining culture in this way implies a few things about the nature of culture:

Culture is learned: Culture is not inherited through biology. Culture is taught to people by the people who surround them. People learn culture from all the members of their human group, including family, peers, and "neighbors." The process of learning the rules of a culture as you grow up is called enculturation.
Culture is maintained within an individual: The process of enculturation is very much an internal one. Each person within a culture learns their cultural rules and decides (either consciously or subconsciously) to accept or reject those rules. Once cultural rules are in place, an individual uses those rules to govern everything they do.; If a person is removed from the culture and placed into another culture, the person still follows the rules they internalized during enculturation. This produces culture shock, that feeling that a person is out of place. Because culture is learned, however, a person can begin learning the rules of a new culture.
Culture is shared: While cultural rules are internalized, people within a culture share the rules and use them to interact. The members of a human group generally accept their culture. Granted, subcultures or fringe cultures exist. In some cases these subcultures protest what we in the U.S. would call the "status quo." By and large, however, these subcultures and their protests are still shaped by the culture that gave rise to them. So, an American who declares they are not Christian, still holds Christian values (not religious beliefs) because they were raised in what is more or less a Christian nation.
Culture is valid: The members of a human group believe that the way they live is the best way to live. Across the globe, every human culture believes theirs is the best in the world. Culture is true, right, and just for the people that live within that culture. Despite this, however, people within a culture can and do protest the rules. Protest can only happen when the protesters have power and when there is no fear of repercussion (such as banishment or death).
Culture is integrated: The rules that make up a culture do not exist in a vacuum. They are tightly woven together and interrelated. They form a web of behavior, each rule shaping and being shaped by other rules. For instance, in some cultures religious practices maintain taboos on diet. Even though integration exists, rules can also be paradoxical. In most cases, however, because culture is seen as valid by those who live in it, these contradictions are overlooked or explained away. In the United States, the Christian belief espouses living a modest life, this runs counter to capitalism, another deeply rooted belief, which holds that the goal in life is to make money. Despite this, however, the two beliefs coexist.
Culture is dynamic: Culture is not static. The rules of a culture change with each generation and within a single generation. What is considered acceptable at one point in time, may become abhorrent at another point in time. Culture changes because 1) each generation forms its own opinion about what is right and what is wrong and 2) culture adapts to meet environmental or social pressures, and to provide solutions for the problems members of the culture face. Cultures that can't or won't adapt to environmental pressures tend to fall apart and reshape themselves in another form.