Open notes on ''What is Culture?''

The first definition: 

culture

noun

1.

the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.

2.

that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc.

3.

a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture.

4.

development or improvement of the mind by education or training.

5.

the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group:
 the youth culture;the drug culture.

To my mind, culture is something that unites people, at times in collaboration with ethnicity and features, at times not, that causes people to feel familiar enough in ideals, values, and ethical standards so that they are capable of bonding, coming together, working together, and uniting under one social system. Those ideals and values and beliefs are what come together to form government. They're also what come together in the visual arts, in literature, music, dance, and whatever else is considered the pinnacles of a particular culture. Culture stems from the values that allow people to live together in a state that is not chaos, that is (although not perfect) mutually intelligible and understandable, to a certain degree. 

The opening definition is from dictionary.com. It is probably at best a definition that was more widely held in the 19th century, although even then, among thinking, educated, and aware people it would have been archaic. 

They do have a better fitting definition at the bottom of the page (for some reason) which is from the world English dictionary. 

culture
— n
1.	the total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitute the shared bases of social action
2.	the total range of activities and ideas of a group of people with shared traditions, which  are transmitted and reinforced by members of the group: the Mayan culture
3.	a particular civilization at a particular period
4.	the artistic and social pursuits, expression, and tastes valued by a society or class, as in the arts,manners, dress, etc
5.	the enlightenment or refinement resulting from these pursuits
6.	the attitudes, feelings, values, and behavior that characterize and inform society as a whole or any social group within it: yob culture
7.	the cultivation of plants, esp by scientific methods designed to improve stock or to produce new ones
8.	stock-breeding  the rearing and breeding of animals, esp with a view to improving the strain
9.	the act or practice of tilling or cultivating the soil And the ball rolls from there. Where does it go? Well, cultures are messy things. They are never holistic, they  never exist in a vacuum wholly unto themselves. They are not marbles that occasionally clack together, if they ever were. And if they ever were, back in the days when tribes could exist in near isolation, they have grown and clacked together so many times that what were once marbles are now intertwined piles of sand. ''It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious. '' --Thoreau Question: How is culture formed? It evolves from basic necessity, and through time and space. It begins with people on a certain landscape, with certain materials, and with access to certain means of survival. In many ways the landscape a people, presumably nomadic, inherit, and what it allots them. They develop systems to best suit their needs, both physical and psychological. They devise, adapt, innovate, and evolve; and these things determine whether or not a people, not yet a society and much less a civilization, will flourish or parish. It determines their physiology, their psychology, their needs, desires and wants. It builds their understanding of the world. It begins with base human desires, merging with the particular need of that people living on that particular patch of Earth; the internal and the external collide and begin to change each other. But at the beginning, it comes from necessity and efficiency; it ultimately comes from the first human need: the need of survival. All functions of our lives, and all the complexities, stem from this basic human necessity; without survival, of course, we have nothing.