Culture Connected Customer Services...

Hey mates,  how is it goin?

I am actually very busy this week, so you I ll hope you will survive the waiting time until the next blog update will come( I think I can make it at the end of the week, if I am not stuck in some parties/girls actions ).

rising sun in Rovaniemi at 7.50 am

To shorten the waiting time,  I would like to share with you first,  one of a taken picture of the rising sun in the morning in Rovaniemi.

It was fuckin cold that day, but a lovly start in the day!

the new bridge of Rovaniemi ( one time I have to look up the original name of the bridge )

And secondly, I would like to ask you,  WHAT IS CULTURE?  Feel free to comment on this entry, and don't forget to mail me the answers of my little Quiz, if you want to receive something interesting of Finland :)

The following text is taken out of an essay, which I had to write for my new course,  started this week,  called "Culture Connected Customer Services".
Feel free to read it, and to comment on it!

Greetings,
Claudio
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In the following Assignment, I would like to share my opinion and thoughts about which definition of culture I would prefer or consider as the most acceptable for myself. In the next abstract, I would like to try to define culture in my own words and finally, I would appreciate to talk about possible answers to the Question, why are there so many definitions of culture existing today.

In my opinion, the definition of culture as “A set of beliefs or standards shared by a group of people, which help the individual to decide what is, what can be, how to feel, what to do and how to go about doing it.”, made by Goodenough in the year 1971 appeals the most for me. I have chosen this definition, because it facilitates this abstract and complex expression called culture. It also makes it more easier to understand and to get an simple idea and overview about its dimensions and about what could be meant by answering the question about what culture is.“A set of beliefs or standards”, this introducing line sounds for me like several guidelines or a bundle of rules and restrictions, which can lead you through society and life. I totally agree with considering culture as a set of beliefs or standards, because I think, that everyone in the world needs at least something, in which he can trust, fall back, or gain some power of it to survive in today’s world, or just to successfully manage some of your life’s problems.

I partly agreed on the definition of culture, saying, that culture “Is the way in which people solve problems”, made by Trompenaars in the year 1999. But in my personal opinion, I would not only consider Culture as the way of solving problems, because culture also can exist when there are no problems existing. This definition is not enough for me, that’s why I have chosen the definition of Goodenough.

In this first part of my assignment, I was reflecting my thoughts about existing definitions of culture. Now I would like to move on to share my imagination of culture, the way how I would define culture.

I see culture as a dynamic way of express yourself, as a changing challenge and opportunity to clarify yourself into any kind of society or life. By setting up your own culture, mankind is able to perceive what kind of self-defined type you can appear. If we hide the first circumstances, that your surrounding (weather, political system, expected society…) has an great impact on your culture, then I think it is possible to remark, that it is mostly up to you to be what you want to be, and express it yourself by your culture. It is all up to you, what kind of sports, hobbies, habits, manners etc. you want to be seen as your culture. My next point I want to mention is, that for me, culture contains everything of your existing you, your past-you, your future-you, and all of your imaginary perceptions of which you can dream of.

To clarify…with the use of this expression, I would like to consider culture, as a possibility to set up your place into your life, society or whatever. Culture can help you when it comes to finding solutions not only for upcoming problems, for all kind of your expected and contrived challenges in which you are in. It can be a guideline to achieve a goal, to manage things out with people, or just to find a secure and an acceptable (for you) place in life and society. I also want to mention, that culture shouldn’t be considered as an open-wide system, which allows you to get access to all and everything. Culture contains also your self-set up restrictions to delimitate yourself and your culture, to also distinguish yourself from other existing cultures.

With the words “dynamic” and “changing”, I would like to mention, that this is not a static way of interpreting culture. Your way how you would like to express yourself stays not the same over the time, so your culture should be able to adapt to the changes. By saying this, I would like to highlight the point, that culture can undergo a process of adapting and changing. So it can not be seen as a static point of view. To bring up an good evidence and also an small example to maintain this idea, is to speak of being an Exchange student, who’s culture might undergo some changes.

In this second part of my assignment, I gave you an insight in the my thoughts about concerning the definition of culture, and what it could be. In my last part of my assignment, I would like to establish some connections to my former thoughts to find an appropriate answer to the following question:

“Why do you think there are so many definitions of culture?”

In my opinion, culture isn’t restricted to be anything. I would say that culture can contain any information, which a single person, a group of persons, several societies or just any possible of mankind can imagine. There are so many individuals living on the earth and everyone can bring up his own way of expressing himself. Everyone is able to set up his own thoughts and ideas about what culture can include and consists of.

As I have already mentioned before, for me, culture is able to adapt to any kind of changes,. By changes, I don’t want to set a limit to imagination of what could change, but to say it directly, changes can affect the culture of every individual, and as long as they can affect it, there will be also several interpretations and ways of defining yourself into life and society and to cope with changes.

To summarize it, this essay about the question “What is culture?” cannot contain every possible idea about culture, it only reflects my own arguments and opinion about this interesting topic. But in the expression “culture”, there is a lot of more and more in it as you might ever can imagine!

copyright belongs to Mr. Claudio Tschätsch - R1200346 - Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences