Culture Response

When I hear the word culture I tend to think of highly guarded art museums with world famous, priceless artifacts or five-star restaurants where people wait months for a reservation. After reading Williams essay "Culture is Ordinary" I realized that culture is much more than the bits and pieces that make it to the glossy pages of our magazines. Culture is everything that surrounds us, no matter how simple or insignificant it may appear to be. Williams made a bold statement in his essay by defining culture as "art and learning" as well as the "processes of discovery and creative effort." Williams is saying that the moment a child recites his ABC's for the first time in a kindergarten classroom is just as important to our culture as the moment Salinger finished "Catcher in the Rye."
Not only do I agree with what Williams said in his article, but I also enjoyed the style of writing he used in his piece. Williams began the article by describing a religious institution. This cathedral perfectly matches the typical reader's preconcieved notions of culture. He then introduces his own ideas of culture by detailing his childhood. Williams was making it easier for his readers to accept the ideas that he was offering on culture by comparing them to the already widly accepted views. Williams some how managed to make an interesting piece that kept my attention and made me think.

P.S. I like the idea of having us respond to our readings by writing informal blogs, this way there will be a lot less fluff and it will make reading everyone's ideas a lot more intresting. But as you can probably tell by this response, I had trouble straying from the formal essays I had to write in high school. But I did use the word I a lot which was blasphemy in all of my English classes. Hopefully as the semester goes on I will be able to loosen up on here.