"...cultural needs are the product of upbringing and education: surveys establish that all cultural practices, and preferences in literature, painting, or music, are closely linked to educational level, and secondarily to social origin" (250)
"A world of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code into which it is encoded" (250)
This reminds me of a trip I took to Paris when I was 16. We went to amazing museums, churches, we saw incredible sculptures and traveled around very important historical places. At this point in my life, I was young and very culturally uneducated. I knew nothing about these art pieces and therefore, didn't get to enjoy them as I would today. I still had a great time and learned a lot about european culture, but I didn't get to fully grasp and digest everything it had to offer because I wasn't fully educated on it. I was more concerned about how pretty I looked in the profile picture I was going to upload next, rather than on how astonishing and extremely valuable the eiffel tower is -_-.
When I think back about this trip, I would have liked to do it now or even after graduating. I would know much more, and I would know specifically what I am more interested on. This is why I believe what the author says is very true! My cultural preferences have definitely changed with the progressive learning since I got to Rollins. It is crazy how education can literally change YOU: you're identity, who you are, how you define yourself.
It is funny to me how people relate "being cultured" to traveling. Furthermore, people automatically believe I "am cultured" because I have lived in two different South American countries, have traveled around Europe and currently live in America. However, I feel like even though yes, I got to experience different cultures, I never really belonged in any of them. The fact that I have been jumping from culture to culture has definitely given me a much broader perspective and understanding on how powerful this factor is; but it has also pulled me away from experiencing a culture to the fullest and actually feeling a part of it. In my opinion, what makes me a "cultured" person is the high education I have been receiving in college.
Nevertheless, I can't accept that college or "high education" is what determines one's level of culture-ness. There is no way that a native Ecuadorian campesino who has taken care of his crops and animals his whole life, who knows the countries resources better than anyone, who knows how the soil/weather works, who was born and raised in the real Ecuador, living like an original Ecuadorian is "less cultured" than me. This person probably has a level of cultural knowledge that I will never ever reach! No matter how many botany or agriculture classes I take...
My point is: culture cannot be defined by the degree of one's education! If this was the case, only those wealthy enough to afford it would be 'cultured'. It is much more than that...
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