anthropologist A. L. Kroeber notes, “We have no record of cultureless human societies.”

economist Anthony Heath’s assertion: “The fact that there is a social norm does not . . . automatically entail that it will be obeyed. Everyone has his price: the benefits of conformity must be compared with the benefits to be obtained elsewhere, and there is bound to be some level of alternative benefits that will successfully tempt the individual

Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions alone offers 150 definitions.

We use markers of cultural change as touchstones for our past; embarrassing haircuts help us date old photos.

Culture, writes anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, consists of “meaningful orders of persons and things.” Conventions explain not only why certain persons do certain things, but the origin of collective meanings and orders. To follow the same arbitrary rules as another individual is to be part of the same “collectivity.” As groups share certain pract

Cultural stasis is not trivial: we measure the health of our civilization through the fecundity and profundity of cultural production. And we rely on stylistic changes to define our particular moment in time and space.

Meanwhile, the fragmentation of culture into the “long tail” has diluted the power of taste to serve as an effective means of social exclusion.

As much as so-called luxury goods are sold as adornment reserved for the very rich, the major European brands reap great profits from middle-class customers.

The literary scholar Raymond Williams called culture “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.”