What is the "culture" of a group? MW says "5a: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group." An article I saw defined a 'culture' as "behavior invented by one or a few animals in a group and taught to contemporaries and descendants, but not practied by other populations of the same species." Thus each country would have it's own "culture".

The point of the article, though, is that some animal groups have cultures too. With chimps, for example, one group (but no others) performs rain dances; a second group (but no others) has learned to spread leaves to sit upon when the ground is wet. There were further examples with chimps, baboons, and bottlenose dolphins.

When you think about such things as the leaves to sit upon, how would one distinguish a "culture" from "use of an invention"?

I would think that the two were intertwined. A particular culture would be defined, among other ways, by the manners in which various inventions were or were not used.

French men use wine as a complement (see related thread elsewhere) to fine dining while an American man might be more likely to use wine in an attempt to make an American woman more sexually pliable. Same invention, two different uses, two different cultures.

I think cultural differences are fascinating. When Richard visited us, we remembered the differences in the way Americans and Europeans eat. I have read that one of the hardest things for WWII American spies to learn was how to eat as the Europeans do.

I have to say, though, that I don't think behavior has to be only practiced by one group in order to be considered a culture. I see it as the MW definitions...an integration of many facets of human behavior, customs and beliefs.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,