Culture is Ordinary and the Landscape is Unified - Assignment Example

Culture is Ordinary and the Landscape is unified Question Cultural plethora, as a social matter, has been a topic of interest over the past decades. Raymond Williams (1921-1988) was an influential essay writer regarding various cultures as a way of life. Williams’ “Culture is Ordinary” epistemology was written in the early 19th Century. In this early source of cultural information, it was evident that every society and mind wholly presented a preoccupation notion with lived culture. Williams insists that culture is ordinary because of the universality nature of culture and cultural practices (Williams 93). For this reason, culture is ordinary because it largely depends on external forces. This implies that secondary influential forces such as cultural assimilation and other languages can easily make an individual adopt a new culture and language. The legacies Williams refer to, in his arguments relating to the central cultural problem of our society, are pretence, overdependence on modernization, globalization, and the institutionalization of a culture as a social process. Culture has been manipulated in the recent past, and the blame for this manipulation is on human hands. Cultural purity has, therefore, not been observed especially due to ever-looming modernity. Additionally, cultural serenity has been impossible because the world has become a global village. Through these legacies, Williams argues that acculturation and multi-cultures have globally emerged, and this undermines the centrality of societies (Williams 97). This is the period Williams describes as the time cultural manipulation outrageously outgrown beyond repair (Williams 98). In his first dimension, Harvey outlines three types of space and time, which include absolute space, relative space and rational space-time. According to Harvey (2009), an absolute space is immovable and fixed (134). Sir Isaac Newton and Descartes also amplify this space. Absolute space, just like absolute humidity, can be understood geographically as a pre-existing, lilaceous, continuous and an unchanging framework. Relative space, on the other hand, is differentiated from absolute space by the name it is associated with (Harvey 145). It is usually inclined towards one of the non-Euclidean geometries and Albert Einstein’s theories. Relative space pre-eminently and irrationally presents the space of process and motion. Three ways of understanding space laid out in Harvey’s second (Lefebvrian) dimension are Cassirer’s distinction among organic compounds, perpetual and symbolic space (Harvey 134). Symbolic spaces are the case with the French intellectualism as a way of understanding space. Through this space’s laid identification understandings, Cassirer’s distinction presents a materialistically specified multilateral division (Harvey 137). Heterotopia, as a social science term, is a society that lacks equality and equilibrium in relation to its social status (Harvey 154). A heterotopia type of society is characterized by class differences with an example being the modern hegemonic type of societies. Foucault, in “The Order of Things”published in 1966, first articulated the idea of heterotopia. Heterotopia has become a subject matter of modernity. It is necessary noting that heterotopia contradicts the societal expectations as an entity full of collectivism rather than individualism. Utopia, on the other hand, according to Foucault, means “peaceful” (Harvey 155). Utopia is a society full of collectivism; a society in where every social role player collectively works for a general common good. Question #2 Culture can be ordinarily noted as a people‘s way of life. The ordinary nature of culture and cultural practices can be understood when it comes to commonality of culture. According to Williams, culture vehemently presumes a sharing view of beliefs, customs and experiences or even foodstuffs hence “Culture is Ordinary” (Williams 95). “The Axiom of Cultural Unity and Landscape Equality,” blends in the view of culture as an environmental entity in relation to flawless and role player clues of culture. The readings and maps masquerade the acculturation process based on ethnicity and racial segregation. Williams (2002), in his article, “Culture is Ordinary” believes in the ever changing or flexibility nature of culture. Ordinary culture’s definition is wholly dependent on the empiricism concept of culture, which believes that cultural definition knowledge must be derived from observations (Williams 92). Commonality and difference in cultural definition must concur in situations where cultural definition information can be gathered, analyzed and synthesised to generate a concrete meaning of culture. Lewis’s “Axiom of Culture Unity and Landscape Equality” presents widely accepted principles regarding culture and cultural practises. This is because the article paves a way for the universal nature of culture. According Lewis (1979), culture should be widely accepted as a true occurrence based on various cultural theories or principles that have been generated over time concerning culture as a social subject matter (14). Bay area’s landscape was a representation of cultural distortion: A landscape of poisoned labourers that was left behind in the middle of nowhere. The New Almaden mine, at the far southern end, looks crooked with numerous mercury element used in the open refinery of Gold Rush (Pease 64). Seemingly, the landscape discussed by Pease, Seigel and Solnit ideally reflects ordinary culture in Williams’ article especially in relation to liberal understanding of culture, cultural modernity and cultural legacies (Pease 66). Conclusion of the readings: Williams argues that ordinary culture is where every person must start. This implies that by being a culturist, the open nature of culture as a social phenomenon does what cultural activities’ understanding must be based upon (Williams 87). Pierce Lewis relates culture to the land topology. He says that culture is not dynamic hence, in the world over, cultures can be easily differentiated while at the same time be easily exchanged with one another (Lewis 13). The readings and maps’ article examines the link between culture landscapes, shifting nature of pop culture and the ever-changing relationships between regional and racial geography. Accordingly, in the modernity, culture has evidently shown several emerging practices as a result of the globalization process (Pease 65). Lastly, Harvey perceives a culture as a form of outrageously moving experience only comparable to space and time. An example of Harvey’s unfortunate cultural growth, in the modernity, is the movement from utopia to heterotopia cultural practices (Harvey 142). Works Cited Harvey, D. (2009). “Spacetime and the World,” in D. Harvey, Cosmopolitanism and the Geography of Freedom (New York: Columbia University Press), 133-165. Lewis, Peirce (1979). “Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Pease, B. (2010). “Fillmore,” in R. Solnit, Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (Berkeley: University of California Press), 66-67. Williams, R. (2002 [1958]). “Culture is Ordinary,” in B. Highmore (ed.), The Everyday Reader (London: Routledge), 91-100. Read More