FOUR KINDS OF CULTURE

Culture is the transformation of nature and society that is fundamental to all human activity. (from Artists, Patrons and the Public: Why Culture Changes by Barry Lord and Gail Dexter Lord)

Did you know there are only four kinds of culture?

• 1.Material Culture
  The transformation of the material environment around us that is necessary for survival. Food and drink, shelter from the elements, and clothing where we need it for warmth are all material necessities appropriated by humans from nature.

• 2.Physical Culture
  All the activities needed to maintain our bodies in health, not only to prolong our own lives but also to make it possible for us to procreate, in order that the next generation may take out place.

• 3.Social-Political Culture
  The meanings communicated intellectually and through cognition that are made possible and in some cases necessary by the surplus resulting from material and physical culture. Whereas the meanings and values in aesthetic culture are communicated sensually and through the imagination, those in social-political culture are communicated intellectually.

• 4.Aesthetic Culture
  The meaning created in objects or by actions that are made possible and in some cases necessary by the surplus resulting from material and physical culture. These meanings are apprehended, understood and appreciated by our senses, and/or by our imagination, which is an extension of our sense.

**Aesthetic culture is the subject of most of this website.