What is culture?

I'll start with the punchline. Here's my definition of culture:

Culture is the long-term result of the problems a human community observes and chooses to fix, the solutions the community tests for those problems, and ultimately which of those solutions the community makes habitual on the time scale of generations.

I'd like to make a few points about this definition right away:

1. The definition positions culture as observational and reactive, meaning that culture changes over time as a result of (a) collective and individual observation of problems, (b) collective and individual problem-solving, and (c) individual habit formation that is coherent across communities.

Purpose of Cultural Mechanics

Hi everyone. My name is Matt Thompson. I'm starting to blog as a tool to force me to actually start writing, instead of simply taking notes and musing in the blank moments of the day.

I'm interested in the topic of why humans behave they way they do, and how and why those behaviors change over time. It's a vast topic, and there is no space here to fully write that story, nor would anyone really be interested in reading it here.

Yet I have been thinking about the topic of cultural change in one form or another for about two decades. My endurance in continuing to explore it is driven by how utterly lacking I find traditional or prevailing narratives of human cultural change, the importance of culture, or even the nature of culture itself. Every time I delve into a new topic, I'm surprised by the lack of coherence or universality in the statements that are made about how cultural change takes place.