My First Blog

Well, this is my very first blog, so I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Amber Benson, I am a freshman at KU, and I graduated from Henderson High School in West Chester, PA. I have three brothers, two younger and one older, and no sisters. I am originally from Philadelphia, but my parents moved my brothers and I to Chester County after I finished my freshman year of high school. I don't play any sports right now, but I used to play tennis and softball, and I was also part of a cheerleading and dance team. Other than that, there isn't much to say...oh, and I'm a terrible driver.
After reading Raymond Williams' "Culture is Ordinary," I must say that I am impressed by his ideas and his provacative writing style. His opening is a scenario of a personal journey, one that can be taken, in this case literally, but also can have a figurative interpretation. What I liked the most about this portion, was that it was very easily transferred from the writer's past, to the personal experience of the reader. Next, Williams comments that "culture is ordinary." My first reaction to the reading was that he was crazy. Culture is a complex set of social norms, rules, and ideas. It is forever changing and molding to the newest trends and fads. How is that ordinary?
SO, I decided to read his piece again. This time however, i took a closer look at his arguements. In a sense, his examples almost personify culture in and of itself. He says that culture undergoes change through the learning og new skills, and the emergence of new ideas. It grows, just as infants do, through learning and thinking. He also claims that culture 'makes' society, operating via common meaning and growing by way of debate and amendment. What else works this way? Imediately i thought of the scientific processes used in experimentation; an idea that is known and exists is tested and sometimes amended.
Suddenly i understood his point. Children growing up and scientists testing ideas are perfectly normal in our world. Therefore, if culture consists essentially of the same processes, is it not just as ordinary?