Culture Definitions

Thanks to those who responded to the challenge of defining culture. It's not an easy task. As soon as you think you've included all the essentials in your definition, everything it might be missing starts to pop up in your mind. Culture encompasses so much on so many different levels. Let's take, for example, Maria. Maria was born in California to immigrants from Mexico and now attends college. One might say that she belongs to American culture, to Mexican culture, to California culture, to traditional student culture, to Catholic culture, to her family's unique culture, to her personal culture. Many of those categories overlap, but in different ways.

Here are a few of my favorite definitions, which are simple, yet surprisingly profound:
1) the way you're raised
2) the way groups of people solve the problems of life
3) (my personal fave) shared meaning